July 04, 2005
Staff Planning Retreat in Whistler - Planning our Wilderness Defending Victories
One of the great things about planning for the future is when some of what you set out to do actually go as planned and create the anticipated outcomes. At the Wilderness Committee we have now for many years undertaken annual strategic planning session to guide activities for the following year in terms of setting priorities, goals, tactics and lead indicators for our campaign, research, fundraising and product teams.
The way we usually do this is to leave town for a few days, ask friends with spacious cabins outside Vancouver if they can house the Wilderness Committee staff and then pack up some flip chart paper, pens and yummy food. This year’s planning retreat happened just over a week ago. A friend of the Wilderness Committee generously offered his Whistler condo for us to use during the three days the retreat went on for. It was a super duper setting - it had ample space, a view of Blackcomb Mountain, the gentle roaring of Fitzsimmons Creek right behind the backyard and – the entertainment – a hot tub that quickly became hugely popular during our free time. Hey, planning retreats have to be fun too!
What was particularly wonderful about this year’s staff retreat was the fact that Shaine from our Toronto office and Ron from the Winnipeg office came out to the West Coast to join us, the staff from Vancouver along with Ken and Cassbreea from the Victoria office. Telephone calls and emails can never replace real life contact between people. Getaways like this one are good for connecting with new additions to the staff and reconnecting with people that have been around for longer.
To balance off the many hours of sitting in meetings we also got to spend a bit of time outside. Some of us decided to explore Cheakamus Lake, which is located 15 km south of Whistler and within the popular Garibaldi Provincial Park. Cheakamus Lake is a beautiful glacier fed lake at 915 m elevation and the lake and the rest of the upper Cheakamus is designated by the Squamish Nation as one of their Wild Sprit Places in their land use plan. The Squamish Nation has five such areas in the Squamish-Whistler area and they all serve to protect areas that are ecologically and culturally important to the Nation. Just on that note, you should check out our latest educational report - it is on the Squamish Nation’s Wild Spirit Places and can be found online at our front-page.
On the last day I think we all left Whistler feeling upbeat and that we had accomplished a lot. I guess next year at this time it is to be seen if what we anticipated we would do actually ended up happening. In any case, it is going to be a great year.
