Hello to all from lovely Collingwood, Ontario, where we are holding our annual OUSA Strategic Planning Conference (StratCon)!
We are now entering day three of our four day conference here at Blue Mountain Springs Chalet. On Sunday OUSA Steering Committee and home office drove into Collingwood and, that evening, had a quick introductory and a session around our Long Term Plan: Leverage to Leadership. Monday was our first full day where we went through a series of workshops led by the experienced Randy Boissonnault from Xennex designed to help us interact as a team and plan the year ahead. Among the workshops we had were The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Grounded Leadership, and the Six Thinking Hats. Randy also led a session that helped us flesh out our SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis that will be very useful when we sit down later today to develop our list of action items.
Bringing in an external facilitator such as Randy was a first for OUSA – our StratCons are traditionally led by our President and Executive Director – and it was a very interesting experience. Randy is practiced, engaging, and knowledgeable about Student Governments and after experiencing his workshops I believe he was a good fit for OUSA. And I’ll stress that: after experiencing his workshops I thought his presence was justified. This year holds a lot of promises and Randy facilitated our plan and our ambition.
Day three and I think we’re all starting to feel ready.
Cha Gheill!
Kieran Slobodin
Academic Affairs Commissioner
Queen’s University
