Wednesday 10:00 - 11:30 AM | Session Details

Best Practices for Your Community Leadership Program •  Panel - 301 A

This is a very interactive session, explicitly tailored to the needs/questions of those present. All panelists are highly experienced Community Leadership Program professionals. Topics range from program development, alumni engagement, recruitment, and selection to technology aids, leadership challenges, and innovations. Come with your questions, and be prepared for a lively conversation.

PANELISTS 
Krissy DeShetler | Leadership Pittsburgh, PA
Kenya Johnson | Leadership Memphis, TN
Jaxon Riley | Leadership Spokane, WA

Moderated by Griff Hall, Griff Strategic Leadership. Before founding GSL, Griff held three top executive positions and has been a senior practitioner faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business for more than 15 years. These experiences, together with an entrepreneurial spirit, led Griff to form GSL in 2007 with the aim of combining practical application, relevant research, and exemplary practices to help leaders in small to mid-size organizations identify and accelerate value through growth. Griff was the founding Board Chair of the Association for Leadership Programs and has held numerous other Board positions. He continues to teach at Carey part-time, specializing in strategy, leadership, and ethics while leading GSL.


Couch Repellant for All Generations – A Conversation • Greg Burris, Cora Scott, and John Cherry | Give 5 and Leadership Knoxville, TN - 301 B

What's it like to implement a Give 5 Program for retirees? What are the benefits and challenges? Can we create opportunities for the various generations to work together to benefit our communities? How does the U.S. Surgeon General's recent report, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, offer guidance for us? Join Leadership Knoxville and Give 5 teams for an interactive discussion of these questions and more.

About the Speakers: Greg Burris is President & CEO of United Way of the Ozarks and founder of the Give 5 Program. Greg married up, was born on Halloween, is a recovering City Manager, is a professional musician with limited talent, pole vaulted for a school that had neither a pole nor a pit, and enjoys French Silk Chocolate Pie (typically, alone in a dark corner).

John Cherry serves as the Vice President, Community Leadership for Leadership Knoxville. He is a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who enjoys golf, singing, and travel. His servant leadership passion is serving as the artistic director for a children's theatre group for the past 18 years. He lives in Maryville, Tennessee, with his wife, Melanie. Their daughter Alex lives in Los Angeles and works for MARVEL Studios.

Cora Scott is the co-creator of Give 5 and the Director of Public Information & Civic Engagement for the City of Springfield, Missouri. Cora joined the City of Springfield in January 2012 after an 18-year tenure with Mercy Health. Among her responsibilities are serving as the city's chief spokesperson and overseeing a 16-member communications staff, including the Citizen Resource Center. Scott also serves as the director of the Birthplace of Route 66 Festival, which had an attendance of approximately 75,000 last year. Cora was named one of Missouri's 2023 Women of Achievement. 


Developing Leaders Who Can Strategically Combine the Strengths of the People Around Them • Vally Sharpe & Jan Lowe | Leadership Asheville, NC - 301 C

Many leadership programs offer assessments to help participants gain self-awareness, but it's hard to say how well their results translate into practical and observable growth in communication, collaboration, and productivity. Learn how the Kolbe A™ Index can help you and your class members increase personal productivity while decreasing stress—and how to strategically combine the strengths of direct reports and co-workers to supercharge team performance. After an introduction to the Kolbe concept from Vally Sharpe, she and Jan Lowe, Director of Leadership Asheville, will discuss how they used the Kolbe in designing class day content, interacting with class members, and facilitating project groups and show class participants discussing its impact. The presentation will conclude with a Q&A session.

About the Speakers: Vally Sharpe spent the first 15 years of her professional life in a private psychology practice with specialties in psychological assessment and the treatment of stress-related disorders. From 1995-2000, Vally joined Kolbe Corp. as its Director of Operations, where she was responsible for overseeing the scoring of the Kolbe indexes and reports and providing individual interpretations and team performance consultations. In 2016, she enrolled as a participant in the 34th Leadership Asheville class and since then has served on the overall program's volunteer Planning and Development Team.

Jan Lowe began working with the Leadership Asheville program at UNC Asheville in 2014. As Director, she works closely with community leaders and volunteers to plan and execute LA class days, events, and community outreach programs. During her career in telecommunications operations management, Jan realized that her real passion was helping others to succeed. Her work at Leadership Asheville allows her to feed that passion by providing opportunities for community members to develop themselves as leaders and use their talents to give back to their local communities.


Alumni: Dues or Due Not  • Panel - 301 D

Hear from alumni programming staff from independently operated and chamber-based programs on how they structure their alumni programming. Dues or Due not? Hear from these program leaders on the benefits alumni receive by paying dues or what programming looks like for those without an annual or reoccurring alumni dues membership structure. Do (or should we say due?) not miss this session!

PANELISTS
Katelyn Sides Baker | Leadership Greater Huntsville, AL
Diego Espinoza | Leadership New Mexico
Lynn Farmer | Leadership Macon, GA

About the Panelists: Moderated by Shannon Drake, President & CEO, Leadership Greater Huntsville, AL. Shannon, a Huntsville native and LGH Leadership Flagship Class 25 graduate, came to Leadership Greater Huntsville from IronMountain Solutions, where she served as Corporate Community Relations Coordinator. A graduate of Birmingham-Southern College, Shannon has shared that her heart is with giving back through community service. Shannon currently lives in Brownsboro, AL, with her husband, James. She has a daughter, Alexandra, who is married to Jon Roberts, and they are expecting their second child. Shannon enjoys working out, hiking, and farming when she isn't working.



Inclusion and Support of Trans and Non-Binary People  • Story VanNess  | Knox Pride Community & Resource Center - 301 E

In this session, you will have an opportunity to learn more about trans and non-binary people and how your organization can be more inclusive and supportive of this demographic. From youth to adult programs, this is a topic critical to our success, not just in our leadership development but also in the health of our communities.

There will be an optional opportunity for digital participation, participants are encouraged to bring a device that can read a QR code. 

About the Speaker: Story VanNess (she/they) grew up in Powell, TN, before moving to Austin, Texas, where they attended Southwestern University. After receiving a BS in Education and a BA in French, they returned to Knoxville to care for their grandparents. She worked as a special educator in Knoxville from 2016-2022, when she left to focus on supporting and advocating for the Trans/Non-binary community in East Tennessee through her position as Program Director of Trans/Non-binary Support at Knox Pride and her consultative work. In 2022, they received their MS in Educational Leadership. In 2023, she became one of two litigants to sue the state of Tennessee for discrimination over transgender health exclusions in the Tennessee State Plan that governs state and local education agency health insurance plans.