Hays Chamber awarded leadership grant

On this episode of the Post Podcast Hays Chamber president and CEO Sarah Wasinger shares details about a recently awarded leadership grant.

 

Transcript

 

James Bell 

A recent grant to the Hays Chamber will help strengthen leadership in the area president and CEO Sarah Wasinger stops by to talk to us about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.

 

Sarah Wasinger 

I don't know if you've heard but the chamber was awarded a leadership transformation grant from the Kansas Leadership Center.

 

James Bell 

Oh, very cool. No, I hadn't heard about this. I don't know anything about this. What is it again.

 

Sarah Wasinger 

So it's a leadership Transformation Grant, the Kansas Leadership Center is based out of Wichita, Kansas. And part of their focus is working with community partnerships to really expand leadership principles and concepts across the state of Kansas. And last year, our chamber was successful in receiving 46 spots for from them. And we're very close to utilizing all those spots up this year. And the grant that we wrote for 2022, however, we wrote a grant for 50 spots, and we were awarded those spots, which is very exciting. Nice. So leadership Haze is actually something that many of our listeners might be familiar with. It's a leadership program that was started by the Chamber, the Hays area, Chamber of Commerce, then, um, to really just help businesses and organizations help their folks that are maybe at the beginning of their careers in the middle or, you know, even the seasoned pros, bringing folks together to talk about leadership concepts, how we work together as a community to address issues, or needs, or just in general to kind of strengthen ourselves and better ourselves. One of the things that our leadership, hey, students go through is step one of the KLC process. And that is your leadership edge. And that's a two day course. And normally yours, we actually take the students to Wichita, Kansas for that, that because of COVID. Last year, we did that virtually. But we're excited for this year, because they're going to let us go back to Wichita and take them in person, again, awesome, they'll have a blended approach. So there might be some folks who still feel more comfortable doing things virtually. And that's okay. But we're very excited to have that in person capacity. Again, I can very much tell you that being an alumni of the leadership Hayes class, that the in person experiences I felt to be pushed me outside of my comfort zone a little bit more. And I was probably able to get a little bit more out of my experience with it.

 

James Bell 

Well, sure. I mean, because it's human nature, I think you get uncomfortable and you've got the screen and all you got to do is close it or shut the camera off. And but if you're in the room is hard to you can't scrunch down enough to not get called on sometimes, right,

 

Sarah Wasinger 

I'm not going to hide underneath that chair. But the exciting thing about this is we are actually in the window right now for folks to turn in applications. So I was just actually talking to Joe in the lobby. And this is really significant, because some of these trainings are actually worth $800. Wow. And so we're actually offering them to folks who fill out the grant application form for free, I'm really the only investment that they would actually have outside of of course, their time. And there is a workbook and a guide book that are used in conjunction with the course nicely enough, those workbooks and guide books are the same for all three steps of the KLC path. And so you really had that investment only one time. But December 15 is kind of the deadline that we're hoping folks will fill out those applications. So we've got a little over two weeks now. And it's a very simple application, we're just going to ask a little bit of information from you, kind of what you would hope to gain from the leadership course and why you're wanting to apply for it. And then as long as we have enough spots, we'll grant everybody their application. But if we have a certain amount of spots, we'll of course, look at different things like, you know, maybe putting a cap on a number of people per employer, or things of that nature. And we might also look at a few things to, you know, with this person, I'm taking this leadership course, perhaps set our community up to be a little bit stronger based on what they're doing. And you know, the different organizations that they're a part of. So that will all be taken into consideration. Our hope, then, is to actually have all those spots kind of identified and communicated back out with folks by the end of this year. And then I'm really we're gonna give everybody the opportunity to register for their courses by June 30. Our hope is that if we have them registered by that point in time, if anyone changes their mind and says, Hey, I applied for this, but my schedule has changed. I don't think I'll be able to take a course between now and then that gives us time as a chamber to make sure that we're utilizing all this 50 spots.

 

James Bell 

Very cool. thought of everything. Oh, I get so organized down there at the chamber.

 

Sarah Wasinger 

Oh, well, we try. Except for emails not coming through. We'll work on that.

 

James Bell 

Well, that's probably our system. That's yeah. But very cool. Very cool. Well, um, so, you know, for now, is there a like a website? Or do you have more information on your website for this, if people want check it a little bit more detail?

 

Sarah Wasinger 

We do so they can go to Hayes chamber.com. And then our news and announcements page, we've got our resources on the right hand side of that page. And there's a 2022 leadership transformation grant application. And for those folks who also kind of pay attention to our emails and get our news blasts, we'll be sending that out as well as another attachment in our December newsletter. So a couple of different reminders Coming out folks this way, and I do believe will anticipate doing a Facebook post to just to kind of give people another step to apply for that. But yeah, so they arranged like I said, between 408 $100. So it's significant value. And quite frankly, I feel like anytime you have a chance to better yourself, you should do it. A few of the things I did want to talk about is kind of the core concepts and leadership principles that KLC has. So they define leadership as an activity and not a position. And they share that anyone can lead anytime, anywhere, it starts with you and must engage others, and your purpose must be clear. And last, and probably most important, it's risky. So Leadership isn't always easy. And so we have to make sure that we are able to exhibit great patience and understanding with others. So I think those are all different concepts that I struggle with and try to improve on every day. And I'd imagine if I had those considerations and things I need a benefit from, and could improve on that others would, too. And so that's really kind of the why behind why we applied for the grant. And our hope is to continue to apply for the leadership Transformation Grant, year after year. So we can keep moving forward that leadership needle in our community, and give as many businesses and organizations exposure to those leadership concepts as possible.

 

James Bell 

Very cool. Yeah. And you know, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about this. But I think for a lot of people, when you when you hear that term leadership, you think about the old traditional style boss, you know, the coming down the mountain, somebody's telling you what to do. And that's not necessarily the entire experience and leadership. It's it can be at any level, it can be a, you know, an on any size of project, right.

 

Sarah Wasinger 

Yeah, that's more management actually versus leadership. And there's going to be some great debate and discussion through the courses on that as well. Yeah, well, they're needed just at different times in different places.

 

James Bell 

Yeah, exactly. Love it. All right. Well, Sarah, what else? Well, I think we got to talk about this. The childcare survey is out now. Ready, ready for people to take it? I've seen a couple different places that where you can get to that, right.

 

Sarah Wasinger 

Yes. So thank you so much for bringing that up. Yes, we are working with the childcare task force of Ellis County and have constructed a survey that takes no more than 10 minutes, this survey essentially is going to help that task force to be able to collect data that really gives us a good vantage point as to what needs access for childcare in our community, how many spots we need, how many more providers we need, and then that committee will really assess, you know, how do we support the people who are currently providing childcare? And what things must we do to possibly incentivize others to do childcare because we, of course, have people looking for childcare every day. And we know that there's a lot of waiting lists going on. So the survey is important for people to understand, you don't just have to be a parent to take it, you could be a grandparent, you could be an employer, you know, you're going to know the needs of your staff. And if they're not coming to work, because they don't have daycare lined up, obviously, you can express that, you know, you know that this is needed in your community. So the more people we can get to fill that survey out the better snapshot we get, and we'll be able to start then applying for grant funds, which we can use to help incentivize and start identifying and addressing this issue in our community. So it's also critical, I will have that conversation window open through the end of December. So folks can actually go to our Facebook page to find a QR code. If they have a cell phone, they can scan that. Or there's our direct link on that, too.

 

James Bell 

So funny story, I actually went and took your survey yesterday. Oh, thank you. And yeah, you're welcome. I was trying to figure out how I was going to scan the QR code with my phone because I'm on my phone. And I'm like, huh, and then I saw the link. I took me a minute, but they're both both way ways are right there in handy. It just yeah, you got to be smarter than me, I guess, to be able to get there quickly.

 

Sarah Wasinger 

Well, you know, we wanted it to be as readily accessible as possible, which is why we gave folks both options. But yes, thank you for bringing that up as well. And again, our goal is to have about 1000 survey responses if we can, obviously we have about 20,000 people in Ellis County. So we know that there's going to be a need for us to collect data for the whole entire county, not just Hayes, because there are folks coming over from LSE and Victoria getting daycare spots served on here and Hayes and vice versa. We know we have some families that are going out of town to for sure.

 

James Bell 

So everybody if you're hearing this, take a few minutes go find that survey and do it. It's really not a big deal. I think you say 10 minutes I think I did mine in five it's it's quick and easy. It's nothing. No no long form kind of questions. It's just put it that but the having that data is so vital for the green