The SGB Forum in the Retreat-Lavender Hill area is going to be a powerful community structure.

The SGB Forum in the Retreat-Lavender Hill-Steenberg area is going to be a powerful community structure. Today the EXCO of the SGB forum had a development and training session on Interpersonal Skills and Communication and on Drafting their constitution.

Team work 

We were reminded again how important it is for leaders to have a high degree of self-awareness to enable them to become great relational people. Leaders need a high level of interpersonal skills and be aware that that they must first seek to understand others before they want to influence others.

Gail and David giving feedback. See the well-constructed word pattern in the foreground!

Our icebreaker word-building game helped the participants to see that collaborative work is far more rewarding because of the access to more brains, higher energy and better success. It was fascinating to see how the group moved from wanting to build their own individual words from a limited number of letter tiles to constructing an elaborate stream of words when they teamed up their efforts.

Gail Johannes, a teacher at Hillwood Primary giving the photographer a big smile while Sydney, the foreman at Lavender Hill High School and David, the SGB chairperson at Crestway High look on.

As a forerunner to constructing their vision and mission statement, Noel Isaacs guided the group through the process of understanding organizational design. The participants who are mainly parents and support staff at school, conducted deep discussions on the purpose and the need for the SGB forum to be a values-based organization.  These are heavyweight issues that professionals don't even want to broach!

Ernst Esau, principal of Harmony Primary School reporting back.

For example, during one of the report back sessions, Basil Williams, the chairperson of the SGB Forum shared how their group discussed the need for new thinking and new mindsets. He spoke about how we need to question traditions that are blocking our growth and that now is the time to think and act differently.  Loved it!

Basil Williams, the Chairperson of the SGB Forum doing some feedback during the workshop.

While the SGB Forum is shaping their structure, they will be hosting their first development and training session for 23 schools next week.  Other SGBs are already showing an interest to be part of this SGB forum.

When ordinary people are passionate and committed, the sky is really the limit. Watch this space for more exciting news on this budding SGB forum.