Alpine Valleys Community Leadership Program

Over our year’s participation in the Alpine Valleys Community Leadership Program (AVCLP) we have travelled to many small communities within our region and been off ered tremendous ‘snapshots’ of the challenges being considered and embraced. These challenges have been diverse and notably include; a reduction of water quality and yield coupled with profound (but often subtle) changes in climate, the diffi culty of maintaining vibrant economic activity, how to engage, support and learn from marginalised groups and the promotion of physical and mental wellbeing.

Obviously each of the community leaders and AVCLP participants attend a program day with very diff erent understandings and beliefs about leadership. Consequently, the program has resulted in some wonderfully rich dialogue and refl ection of both the breadth of leadership approaches and the myriad of possible solutions.

Each program day, two members of our group would collect their courage and memories to off er a twenty minute focus on their lives. Our group gained a great deal from this ‘About Me’ session of each program day – a rare opportunity to hear deeply personal refl ections and experiences. This was a unique window to consider and then articulate aspects of our lives we usually hold very close. As a result of these sessions we were reminded how vital it is that as leaders, we remain close to our ‘hearts’ so that decisions and directions can refl ect care and compassion.

Almost without exception, leaders presenting to our group conveyed, often indirectly, how rushed their lives have become. Equally in my view, the challenges faced by each participant in meeting the time commitments for the program again highlights questions as to the way we fully commit our time. How can we be eff ective as both community members and leaders when we are so busy?

A key motivation for my participation in the AVCLP was a profound concern for what I consider to be a deep imbalance in the human relationship with the natural world. During our program, we saw many individuals and groups striving to redress this imbalance with amazing understandings of the complexity of the issues. But personally, I do not believe that many leaders in our community have fully grasped the enormity and complexity of this ‘imbalance’ and consequently we have not truly unleashed the creativity and focus that humans are capable of in conditions of adversity.

There is little doubt that the leadership course has helped me to focus and clarify the things I wish to achieve. Similarly, my understanding of the ambitions and motivations of other leaders has improved immensely – surely a great thing in fi nding common ground in our communities.

To conclude, I wish to thank my AVCLP peers for offering their ideas, passion and beliefs over the past year and I wish everyone the very best in their continuing leadership roles. Equally, I wish to thank the AVCLP Board for identifying the value and importance of a forum to share community leadership ideas and then strive to deliver this forum.

Matthew Charles- Jones
AVCLP 2009 -2010