Community Builder Ian Hill visits Pincher Creek

Ben Fizer, Ian Hill, and Yvonne Fizer
T. Lucas photos

Toni Lucas, Pincher Creek Voice

If you get asked for your time, your talent, or your treasure you may already be an informal community leader.  Becoming a Community Builder (BACB) program developer Ian Hill wants to offer the chance for individuals to take their skills to a new level in leadership, and is offering a course free to the public to expand leadership skills.

Hill traveled to Pincher Creek on October 3 with Director of Special Initiatives Yvonne Fizer and Becoming a Community Builder Intern Ben Fizer.  They logged between 1,400 to 1,600 miles last week and plan another 1,200 miles this week to visit 9 selected regions covering 56 communities that were chosen throughout Alberta for the initial BACB initiative.

The BABC program starts on October 18, and continues for 15 weeks.  This program is free to the public with the areas of Pincher Creek, Piikani, and Waterton areas.

While in Pincher Creek Hill visited a number of public forums to talk with people in various sector of the community.  Roughly 30 people came to each of three public sites that he spoke at.  Hill met with those that were involved with business at the Ramada, those from the legacy and not for profit sector at Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village, and those that from the fields of health and wellness gathered at the Pincher Creek Municipal Library.  In addition Hill met with youth leaders and members of the 'Let Them Be Kids' Board that he has worked with here in the past.

Even though all these people have very different roles in our society Hill expressed the value that they already give their community and what he could see them getting from the BACB program.

With all the groups he discussed the importance of good leadership, the importance of creating relationships based on trust, and how those that have leadership skills have opportunities into the future.  He discussed how Athens was a model of modern and progressive leadership in the past and how the opportunities within Alberta are similar today.  When he met with students he pointed out that this generation is more sophisticated that they have ever been before, in a time of faster change and global communication.

The program will offer the same concept of leadership capacity building with a different delivery to all the sectors that he visited, and an additional one aimed at youth leaders.  Once registered for the program that begins on the October 18 the program will be targeted to this community, the sector needs that you have signed up for, with individual components.  Hill requires everyone to make a written, personal commitment upon signing up.

Ian Hill

Hill believes that if you ask for time, treasure, or talent in this day and age you must be prepared to answer the question:  "What do I get for it?"  If what you offer in exchange is meaningful, fulfilling, relevant to the person in question, and accomplishes an objective that they want the likelihood of success goes up dramatically.  Each talk was interspersed with anecdotes that helped to underline his points.

Hill sees this program as a way to garner the human capital within the community and help arm people by creating competencies in participants that they need for today's society.  He is attempting to create a learning journey to to teach others how to be successful in life.  To quantify this endeavour the University of Alberta will be doing a white paper study on this project.

"It is a community advantage to create a community that everyone wants to live in," said Hill.

To learn more about BACB, visit alberta.becomingacommunitybuilder.ca.
To register for the program, visit register.becomingacommunitybuilder.ca