The news is out: I’m spending 2020 with the City of Austin to engage our community in compassionate conversation around homelessness. You may be wondering what this means for Caldwell Connect, so let’s talk about it.
What is happening?
This week I started a temporary role in the City Public Information Office. The Mayor has named addressing homelessness as his top priority for the year, so I’m on board to help with engagement and education. My fabulous boss/partner in this work has a high-level agenda for what we are up to, but part of what makes this role so exciting is getting to make up a lot of the specifics as we go along.
Is Caldwell Connect closing down?
Nope! Caldwell Connect will keep providing trainings and consulting services, just with different scheduling. In fact, the experience of putting what I teach into action should make those services even better in the future.
And Off the Mat?
That is definitely going strong - in fact you should sign up for our first Central Texas retreat on Leap Day. Come to any of our Build your 2020 series at Modo studio for a sweet discount.
How did this happen?
For those of you following the Build your 2020 blog series, you may have seen that joining a purpose-driven team was one of my goals for this year. I LOVE this work, but through lots of reflection I came to the unavoidable conclusion that I missed working with others. After sharing my goal to join a team a friend connected me to her contact at the city and here we are. Side note: this is why you should share your goals with other people. It helps make them happen.
How does connection fit into this?
For anyone who has trained with me, you know that shared values are the basis of connection, and that we are more likely to take action on behalf of others with whom we believe we share values. Thus, we will be using the power of values-based storytelling to engage more people to be part of ending homelessness in Austin.
So how are you going to engage me?
Great question - and I promise that you’ll know once there are clear ways to do it!
Anything else?
Reach out and let’s talk for real about it.