2018 Year of Abundance

2018 was a year of real abundance. The Third Cohort of the School completed in the spring and the Fourth Cohort began in the fall. Graduates of the School continued developing themselves as program leaders, and School Builders took on and learned new tasks. In a world familiar with scarcity and diminishing resources, we were more aware than ever of the new possibilities we create and of our opportunity to be responsible for them.

• The 18 members of the Third Cohort of the School for Leadership completed and graduated through two written assignments declaring that they had fulfilled on the promises of the School. Their declarations were moving expressions of the power of transformational leadership.


• The Third Cohort members gathered for the final Leadership Dialogue Call for this Cohort. The distinction for the call was Completion. Unlike previous Dialogue Calls in the curriculum this one included many School Builders, Board Members, and Sponsors. And this was the only call in which participants not only grappled with the designated distinction, they also experienced it.


• Each Regional Learning Community gathered to celebrate their community and accomplishments at regional graduation events. These celebrations were designed and created by the participants, and each expressed the culture of the individual communities.


• 13 of these new graduates are continuing to participate with the Mastery Foundation as volunteers.


• We refined the structures for determining who to invite to apply for the School for Leadership. The process was an opportunity for the most active School Builders in each region to participate in considering and then communicating with graduates of our prerequisite programs. As a result, there are now 19 powerful participants in the Fourth Cohort of the School for Leadership.


• To support these 19 participants, three people stepped forward to be the Regional Liaisons. For the first time, all three are graduates of the School for Leadership, one from each of the first three cohorts.


• Much work was done during the six month break between the two cohorts. Most significantly, a group of School Builders redesigned the structure used to support participants in working on their Practicums. A new Practicum Workbook was created. The coaches began their training in using this new way to think and talk about Practicums.


• The new Practicum design was integrated into the first Five Day Residential Program, which took place in November. The participants left this residential program already at work on their Practicums in a new and unprecedented way.


• Two Distinctions in Leadership Audio Offerings were delivered in 2018, one to the Third Cohort and one to the Fourth Cohort.


• The three Element Communities - Coaching, Faculty and Curriculum Support, and Management and Administration - continued to build and manage the School. New opportunities to be trained and contribute occurred in each of these communities, increasing stability and sustainability.


• The School Builders met for two international conference calls this year. In the first we completed 2017 and launched our work together for 2018. And in the second we introduced the Fourth Cohort and looked at what work still needed to be done before the Five Day. As always, the opportunity for us to be together was rich and meaningful.


• 36 School Builders, many with more than one accountability inside the School or the Mastery Foundation, worked throughout the year to support the School and the members of the Third and Fourth Cohort. These dedicated volunteers, along with those volunteering in other parts of the Mastery Foundation, tracked more than 5000 volunteer hours during the year.