Future-Reader

QR Takeaways: Five Key Strategies for Being a Future-Ready Recreation Leader

January 29, 2021Team QuantumEducationLeave a comment

The Canadian Parks and Recreation Association (CPRA), a national organization dedicated to realizing the full potential of parks and recreation as a major contributor to building healthy and active communities, hosted a webinar last September 10, 2020. The speaker, Brenda Herchmer, an expert in community development, talked about the Five Key Strategies for Being a Future-Ready Recreation Leader. Here are Quantum Recreation takeaways:

The webinar covered strategies for strengthening the impact of recreation, what it means to be a future-focused recreation leader, inspiring ideas, promising practices and tools to put the national recreation strategy in play. (https://links.quantumrecreation.com/101020)

In a fast-changing world, we would need future-focused community leaders who: create strategies for more complex issues; develop new leadership models, work more cross-sectoral; enable more citizen engagement; and make the best use of our collective resources.

These are the five key strategies for being a future-ready recreation leader.

1. Maximize Leadership Growth

Future-focused leadership has three (3) essential components: strategic foresight, systems-thinking and community-led development. A future-ready leader is not entirely content with the present and always aiming for the better. It is a person who exerts effort to develop better alternatives, observe and understand community as a system and apply strategic foresight. A future-ready leader is a community-builder who can provide responsive, meaningful programs, products, services, initiatives and make a change.

A changing world is driven by fast-paced information flows and technological factors that cause increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. This will demand new skills, knowledge and attitudes. Successful leaders are those who already mastered the basics of change, anticipate it early on and manage it in whatever situation.

The work we do in recreation is very well aligned with futurism. Recreation is an opportunity to make a difference because it can influence what the future will be.

2. Never Forget Your “Why”

We frequently focus on what and how but if we are going to be innovative and inclusive, we first have to begin with why. The “why” is our recreation benefits, contributing to the individual, community and environmental wellbeing.

There are various key marketing messages recreation can use to promote its benefits. Use these benefits to position and market recreation as part of the solution to broader community issues, i.e., illiteracy, crime, mental health, illness. This is what keeping the leaky faucet from dripping means.

3. Utilize Strategic Foresight

There is a need to shift the emphasis in the following areas: leadership, outcomes, power, collaboration, involvement, timing and focus. There are a whole lot of factors that are impacting recreation, and it is important to identify several different plausible future scenarios. Pay attention to what people are already attracted to, recreation trends and weak signals or edge cases that are starting to emerge, potentially impacting the future. Being positioned at the grassroots is advantageous because it will enable us to pay more attention to these weak signals.

4. Prioritize Citizen Engagement

Two strategies are typically being used in recreation, direct service delivery and community development. Direct service delivery is based on the needs model, and community development involves the community’s capacities and assets.

A recreation leader’s job is to call the meeting and build the connection by community building and designing a process that will allow all voices to be heard. Think big, but you can start with small ways to engage your community.

5. Be Driven by Vision and Values

Remember recreation’s vision and values. Make sound decisions and take actions that are in line with these values and key priorities.

Aside from these 5 key strategies, you may also note the simple actions you can do as a future-ready leader. You can observe trends in your daily life, read, cultivate curiosity, promote a learning culture, and so on. In complicated times like Covid19, look out for clues and think of actions you can take. Act in a spirit of hope, be “context-alert,” be a learner/teacher and always practice compassion.

Gym

What happens if gyms close forever – how will we work out? Will we improve our fitness levels?

January 27, 2021Team QuantumFitnessLeave a comment

Each of us has altered our fitness regimes during COVID 19, and the regulations have impacted the viability of local gyms, including permanent closures. The question now is if we will return to our old fitness regimes and support local gyms or continue to work out at home. If we work out from home, can we maintain or improve our fitness levels?

Fast Company has predicted that gyms will not come back, and initial surveys found 76% of people have been working out at home, and 66 % prefer it (http://www.fastcompany.com/). The fitness industry is adapting and using innovation to launch new equipment or on-line platforms for people to use at home. With new equipment and on-line options, people have a choice to work out at home or go back to the gym.

Harvard Health has listed the pros and cons of joining a gym or working out at home (http://www.health.harvard.edu).

Joining a Gym

  • The benefits include providing options with equipment or facilities to workout, the availability of fitness classes or spotter for safe lifting, no distractions, and increased motivation or a boost from being around other people to encourage you to work harder.
  • The challenges include the cost, the hassle to accommodate their schedule, access to equipment, and the additional time commitment to participate.

Working Out at Home

  • The benefits include convenience (you do not have to pack a bag or drive anywhere), creating your own workout time or schedule, no monthly costs after investment in equipment, and your ability to create variety with workout apps or live-streaming.
  • The challenges include boredom from being at home with limited equipment or workouts, lack of motivation with a million excuses not to exercise, and the space in your home for equipment or space for training.

If gyms do not return and people workout at home, will they continue to be motivated, keep up their exercise regimes, and maintain their fitness levels.

If you are self-motivated, working-out at home is easy, and you will exercise no matter what. However, if you find way too many distractions or excuses to exercise, then the gym is an excellent workout option.

The critical question is, will we maintain or improve our fitness levels if gyms close permanently. There is a loss of camaraderie, motivation, accountability, and even fun you gain from being with a personal trainer, instructors, or fellow participants at the gym or fitness class. As you see, other people working out or spurred on by an instructor encourages us to push ourselves and ultimately improve our fitness levels. Can we get the same results through on-line platforms or working out by ourselves.

Service Review Image

Helping Municipalities Find Financial Stability in Times of Upheaval

January 14, 2021Team QuantumconsultingLeave a comment

These are unprecedented times. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has increased expenses and shrunk budgets, make for difficult planning and decision-making. Municipal governments face massive financial shortfalls because of the pandemic. To support citizens, municipalities are deferring property taxes and other civic fees, which are the primary source of municipal revenue. However, civil services like garbage pickup, emergency services and road maintenance are continuing to operate. The pandemic has also provided new operating costs to meet the mandated health protocols. Council and municipal staff are confronted with a new financial reality that requires the reformulation of municipal budgets and making difficult decisions on how to deliver civil services sustainably for the foreseeable future.

The shutdown of many municipal services and the new fiscal responsibilities have created the perfect chance to consider a service level review. The stakes are far too high for municipal staff and councillors to make mistakes regarding planning priorities, service delivery and spending. Now, more than ever, Council and municipal staff need to seek a balance of citizen expectations and the financial constraints to deliver these services.

A rigorous service level review should include opportunities for engagement from citizens, including those in the community, Council, administrators, municipal staff and key stakeholders, should be performed.

Questions to ponder before you start?

  1. What are the total costs associated with providing services, and will the municipality meet the new health protocols?
  2. What programs or services are important to citizens?
  3. What financial challenges or shortfalls does the municipality face?
  4. What are Council’s priorities, taking into account the new information?

How do you start?

A service level review can be a labour-intensive process. The first step would be for municipal staff to determine if the municipality has the capacity to complete a service level review using internal resources, even though many employees have been laid off. Alternatively, the staff can choose to hire a consultant to complete the review. One of the main advantages of hiring a consultant is that they can be an impartial third party and facilitate an objective process with Council, municipal staff and residents. The consultant also provides credibility and commitment to the process, which allows the municipality to focus on other priorities at work. Secondly, with all the new protocols combined with staff reduction, the municipal staff should ensure that the work will be completed with maximum efficiency and focus.

Elements of successful service level review

  1. Set clear expectations and clarify the roles and responsibilities
    Once the staff have decided how to implement the service level review, either internally or externally, they can focus on setting clear expectations to monitor and manage the project’s scope. It is also important to clarify roles and responsibilities so that everyone understands their role, how they contribute, and their responsibilities in supporting and completing the project. Roles can be clarified by completing a terms of reference for an internal committee or requesting a proposal from an external consultant.
  1. Utilize local knowledge and expertise
    The service level review benefits from the inclusion of diverse community perspectives. Engaging Council, municipal staff, key stakeholders and citizens to share their knowledge and expertise improves the data collection process, analysis and development of recommendations. The integration of stakeholder and community engagement ensures that the report and recommendations are realistic and meets the community’s unique needs.
  1. Adopt project management principles to implement the service level review
    The use of project management principles to implement the service level review will ensure that the review is successful. A successful service level review is completed on time, within budget, and meets the project’s expectations of the original scope.

What a service level review can accomplish

The service level review examines current service delivery models, explores best practices and engages with citizens to determine community priorities. The analysis reveals if the municipality has the organizational capacity to fulfil the enhanced service mandates and determines what changes are required to meet the additional financial constraints caused by the pandemic. The recommendations from the review will provide options for municipalities to develop a financially sustainable approach to deliver municipal services based on the new health protocols and community priorities. A discussion with Council regarding service levels, community priorities and financial challenges will support municipalities in making informed decisions regarding what services are essential and what can be put on hold during this extraordinary time.

How Quantum Recreation can help with your Service Level Review:

  1. Provide terms of reference or request for proposal review
  2. Community engagement planning. Our International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) trained staff can help design and/or implement your community engagement plan and events.
  3. We are experienced in providing a complete and community reflective service level review.
Funding

Capitalize on Alberta Funding to Transform Your Organization

January 13, 2021Team QuantumGrantsLeave a comment

Is your society looking for grant funding to help with the COVID-19 relaunch?

You can apply for Civil Society Funding to support transformation change for your organization and expand your capacity to address social issues impacting your community.

One of the United Progressive Conservative priorities is to harness the Civil Society’s power and is built on the belief that civil society voluntary groups are generally more effective in preventing and reducing social problems (UPC platform, pg. 71).

The new Civil Society Fund (CSF) provides 20 million to expand civil society’s capacity to address Albertans’ social programs. Organizations can apply for a one-time grant to support an effective and sustainable recovery of the civil society sector. The CSF goal is to support innovative cost-shared programs delivered by community groups.

Eligible projects support transformational change for the organization or broader society sector, and transformation change significantly expands the civil society’s capacity to address social issues.

Eligible organizations are registered community not-for-profit, a First Nation, a Metis Settlement, or a Collaborative with the applicant organization is a registered and non-profit organization.

Priority areas for your project include system infrastructure, civil society research and data, organizational transformation, financial sustainability, and resilience.

Quantum Recreation wants to help you transform your organization and increase your ability to impact your community positively. Contact us if you need help completing the application form, ensure your project meets the key priorities, and meet the current deadline, January 20, 2021. Contact us TODAY.