Today's leadership training

Today was our annual leadership training.  In case you are a little curious about what happened, here is a recap of the day.
After a light breakfast, we started by introducing Lillian Burkheim Silver, who is on the WRJ board and is a local Area Director for the Pacific District.  Both your presidents spoke briefly, and then we had an ice-breaker where we paired off and talked about why we joined Sisterhood.  We regrouped and told our partner's stories.  Common themes were: a friend pulled me in; Temple Ahavat Shalom was welcoming; Judaism is important to me so I got involved.
We showed a video about leadership and what it takes to get the job done.  We then broke into smaller groups and built "Sisterhood houses" out of Tinker toys.  We gathered around each "house" and the women who built it explained what the components of their structure were.  Having explored how we viewed Sisterhood with this exercise, we then formulated what we saw as Sisterhood's values and needs.  We wrote them on large post-it notes and put them on the wall.  Each person was given four stickers and she used these to indicate which values and needs she saw as the highest priority.  
The last thing we did before lunch was (still in smaller groups) to talk about our (hidden) talents.  That was quite interesting!  We will have to do more on that!
After lunch, we showed the YES Fund video, which talks about how the YES fund supports our Youth through things like camp scholarships and PJ library, supports educating new clergy through scholarships, and also funds myriad other special projects.  Then Jackie talked briefly about her visit to 6points Sports academy last month.
We then looked at the values and needs that had the most "dots" pasted on them, and used them to revise our Mission statement.  At last year's leadership training, we had looked at our mission statement and decided it needed revising.  This year we attacked the task with vigor.   The revised statement will go to the Board for approval, and (if approved) the Mission statement will then be presented to the Sisterhood membership at our September meeting for their approval.
We then broke into small groups.  Each group chose a Sisterhood program and discussed how we could apply the principles in our newly revised mission statement to the program.  We came back together and the various groups told of the ideas they formulated.
Lillian told a couple of stories about people whose actions impacted others and changed their lives (for the better).  She talked about how you never know how something, that you might think is minor, will help someone else.
We finished up by gathering in a circle and singing the WRJ anthem, Limdu Heiteiv (by Beth Shafer.)  
It's hard to believe that we did all that and still ended within a few minutes of 3pm!  
Lillian was wonderful - we are very grateful for her leadership today.
We hope to see you at our first meeting of the year, which will be on September 14 at the Temple.  A flyer will be coming out in a week or two with details.
This was a long email!  Did you read to the bottom?