Dan Crawford tells Rotary about Becoming a Community Builder

Dan Crawford

Toni Lucas, Pincher Creek Voice

Pincher Creek Rotary Club met at the Heritage Inn on Thursday, September 19 for a luncheon meeting.

Rotary President Lynn Brasnett  acted as emcee and highlighted the three main topics of the day:  Dictionaries for schools, Person's Day breakfast in Lethbridge, and a special presentation on Becoming a Community Builder given by Dan Crawford.


Becoming a Community Builder

"It's all about leadership, and getting people involved.  It's a really neat idea," said Crawford about the Becoming a Community Builder Program that various organizations and businesses in Pincher Creek are now involved with.  "If we can get the town aligned on a single purpose, the town is going to thrive and grow."

"Right now, we're going on faith," Crawford continued.  "Ian Hill is in charge of this.  We are one of the first communities doing it, so there isn't a long list of people that we can go to to ask how did it work.  We're one of the leaders.  It's so new that we are going on 'It's Ian Hill'.  That's all we've got to go on right now.  As I understand it, it's being somewhat tailored to what each communities needs are."

"He brought 'Let Them Be Kids, to town, and that was very well received," said Crawford about the community playground project that was installed at St. Michael's School, spearheaded by Hill's brainchild.  In showing pictures of that event Crawford remarked that "It was a great day for getting the community coming together and everyone going in one single direction."

"Now Hill's back with a different program," explained Crawford.  "The basis of the program is that any community can only grow to the level of it's leadership capacity.  So if you train leaders with a well thought out program, they can become better leaders in a shorter time frame."

The 15 week program had approximately 20 people locally involved to get it to this stage.  Part of the conditions to starting the program was to raise $7,500 from this community.  "After that, it's free.  It's free for as many people who want to use it, for as many years as the computers are running," said Crawford.  "If you're interested, you sign up for it.  It doesn't cost you anything, because we've already paid that money."

The program is planned to be online, easily accessible to whoever wants to use it in the community, and have youth and adult training with segments designed for high school students.

"How do we train the youth?" Crawford asked to the crowd.  "How do we shape them to become the leaders that we need them to be?  How can we best use the power that we've got here to go in one direction?  Let's train them, and send them off into the world.  Someday, maybe they'll come back."

There were many questions after the presentation.  Some of the queries included:

• Why did we have to raise $7,500 if we were chosen?  
• We have been chosen and paid into the system.  What stops anyone else from just signing up through our system?
• How is success measured?
• It is currently focused on rural areas, but will it also go to urban areas?

Crawford fielded a lot of the questions, and admitted that he was speculating on some of the answers.

 "There is a lot we don't know about yet, but we'll find out really quick.  Ian Hill will be coming to Pincher Creek on October 3 to meet with the public and answer questions."

The program starts October 18, and you can get started to register online by clicking here 

Related link:
Becoming A Community Builder in the Pincher Creek region

Dictionaries
"It's that time of year again, where we're going to be handing out dictionaries," said Joyce Zwick.   "It's a really neat experience, for those of you haven't done it before."

Pincher Creek Rotary donates dictionaries to following five schools:  Canyon School, Horace Allen School, ​Livingstone School, Napi's Playground Elementary, and St. Michael's School.

Persons Day

Lynn Brasnett reminded the club that World Rotary Peace Scholar Martha McManus is speaking at a breakfast 7:00 am at Lethbridge Lodge on October 16 to celebrate Persons Day.  Tickets are $20.00.  This event celebrates the date in 1929 when women were declared 'persons' by law in Canada.

*Corrected for accuracy.