IPRA Today

Leadership Academy – Applications Available Now
The academy will meet one full day per month for six months (October – March).  There are three levels to the academy, and the curriculum at each level will focus on building great leaders to strengthen parks and recreation agencies.  Courses will include innovation, accountability, decision making, staff development, financial strategies and many more topics that will focus on the skills that leaders need to be successful at all stages in their career.




The Office of Recreation & Park Resources and the Recreation, Sport & Tourism Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are the proud sponsors of a certificate of completion for the IPRA Leadership Academy. As one of the first colleges to offer a degree in parks and recreation, they understand the importance of leadership and continuing education in our field. At the completion of each level, individuals will receive a Certificate of Completion from the University of Illinois.

April 10th – Webinar - Delivering World-Class Customer Service
Based on his 20-years with the Walt Disney World Company, along with many years of consulting with organizations around the world, Dennis Snow will provide a "how-to" program for creating a service-driven culture. This program will provide you with strategic tools that can be used to raise the bar of service throughout your organization, resulting in "walk-through-fire" customer loyalty.  Participants will learn:

• Approaches that help your employees move from a task mindset to an experience mindset.
•  A process for ensuring your organization’s "backstage" environment never impacts the "onstage" customer experience.
• Four specific strategies for wowing customers every time.
• A mechanism for ensuring that your organization’s processes are designed through the "lens of the customer."

April 20th – Education Institute - Getting Results Through Individual & Organizational Accountability
IPRA’s First Annual Education Institute is a member only event and one that you can’t afford to miss.  Registration deadline is April 6th.  The registration fee is only $40 per member and includes continental breakfast, lunch, four hours of education from a nationally recognized speaker, 0.4 CEUs and if that was not enough, the opportunity to network with your colleagues from across the state.  Craig Hickman, author of The Oz Principle will focus on "Getting Results Through Individual & Organizational Accountability."  Make sure you are not being left behind and that you embrace a culture of accountability for you and your staff!  A special thanks to our three co-sponsors:  Musco Lighting, Cunningham Associates and Service Wear Apparel.

Task Force Work
Currently there are four task force groups working to improve the services and programs offered to all IPRA members.  The four task forces include:  Awards; Salary Survey; Diversity and Affiliates.  John Curran has appointed members to each task force to review and make recommendations on ways to improve and enhance the way IPRA conducts business.  If you would like additional information, please give me a call.

Membership Council
Lastly, the members of the Membership Council met on March 8th and are meeting again on April 5th to continue discussions on consistent operating guidelines for all IPRA sections and other collaborative initiatives.  Remember to contact one of the members of the Council if you have suggestions.

Thanks again for all you do!

Best,
Jan Arnold, Executive Director

 

We won our first two games and had dreams of advancing far into the tournament.  I played well, reinforcing my goal to become a professional ballplayer.  Game 3 did not go so well.  I struck out once and hit a dribbler to the pitcher before I was taken out of the game.  I couldn’t hit the curve ball.  My dream of becoming a professional baseball player shattered at an early age.  It was time to consider a new profession.

During High School one of my many jobs was with the Alden’s Catalog Company.  They offered me a position as a Manager Trainee upon graduation.  I thought this was going to be a great opportunity until I noticed all the managers had Rolaids, Tums, or Maalox on their desks.  After having second thoughts on the manager trainee position, I decided to register for college, but I didn’t know what classes to take.  

I was discussing my options with my friend Eddie Connelly when he said to me "you are good at planning things." I had been very involved in our church teen club planning dances, trips, sporting events, and entertainment.  Eddie suggested why don’t you get a degree in recreation.  My first reaction was "Wow; you can go to college for recreation?"  I had no idea that was possible.  

When I broke the news to my parents that I decided to go to college, my father’s first words were "you will pay for it yourself."  Then he asked me what was going to be my major.  I proudly replied Recreational Leadership.  He quickly shot back "I can get you a real job in the trades."  I reminded him how many repair jobs I had botched up, and he agreed I was pretty useless when it came to fixing something.  

With reluctant support from my parents, I headed off to college in pursuit of a degree in parks and recreation.  My roommate in college, Mike Kudla, was also a parks and recreation major.  He originally attended college pursuing another degree, but after taking a recreation class he decided to change his major.  This is not uncommon and why we are often referred to as a discovery major.  

Probably most of us in the field of parks and recreation never aspired to be in this field as a child, but discovered it at some point in life.  Many of us made this discovery through a summer job at our local park district or recreation department.  

Now is the time you can help someone discover parks and recreation as a career.  Talk to your summer staff about the profession and what options are available to them.  IPRA provides a video titled "Parks and Recreation: A Career for Life" that can be downloaded from the IPRA website.  You can show this video during your summer employee orientation program.  Not everyone can just discover this field.  Sometimes we can provide a little assistance.  There are a whole lot of us out there that can’t hit the curve ball and we need to discover a new profession. 

- John Curran, IPRA Chairman