I have HUGE privilege working for an organization affiliated with the same calendar as an educational institution. At the end of 2019 I was off from December 20 until the New Year- January 6, 2020. That is quite a break and I know that I am extremely fortunate to work in an environment that shuts down at the end of the calendar year.

This week was full of one to one meetings with my team. In December I realized that I needed to change up the way I conducted check in meetings with my team. To do that I have changed the 1-1 check in’s from every two weeks to once a month, and then incorporated what I call small teams meetings. Each team member is in a smaller team (3-4) and we meet as a smaller team once a month. I hope this will ensure collaboration and communication across team members, rather than me being the holder of a lot of the information that would be better heard across the team. When we had our strategic planning meeting a few months ago we spoke about how communication and collaboration would be core tenets of our team when working with others. I want to make sure that communication and collaboration are also core tenets when working within our team as well.

I met with and started the planning stages of some work with the Simon Fraser University Student Union (SFU) as well as with Thompson Rivers University Student Union (TRU). I love these conversations with students who want to know how to further advocate for Open Education at their institutions. Each group is prepping for Open Education Week in March and I am looking forward to the BCcampus representation at each event.

Been reviewing a lot of work ahead for this quarter- call for proposals coming out, summits to prepare and attend, travel requests to confirm- getting the next few months in order and in my calendar has been a major focus this week. Here are some further snipits of what I have been up to:

Reading

Creating

  • Timelines for the Ministry of Advanced Education Skills and Training (required updates on the timelines of our OER activities)
  • Communication Plans for the next quarter (January-April)
  • Budgets for fiscal 2021
  • Finished knitting TWO hats over the holidays!
  • Puzzling. Having a puzzle on the go makes me feel like I still have the holiday chill vibe going in the house.
  • Writing here!

Listening

Reacting

  • My husband is from Australia and fortunately his family has not been hurt or directly affected by the fires, but we are keeping close tabs on them. While there is not much we can do from afar I do know that his family has appreciated the regular check ins from many family and friends world wide. We have also donated to the Fire Relief Fund for First Nations Communities