GILROY
–
”
Garlic Town’s
”
program for cultivating better leaders kicked off Wednesday
night at an orientation session held for the 20 participants who
will take part in the course’s sixth annual offering.
GILROY – “Garlic Town’s” program for cultivating better leaders kicked off Wednesday night at an orientation session held for the 20 participants who will take part in the course’s sixth annual offering.
Leadership Gilroy, an educational program for civic, education, business and other community leaders, will wrap up Sept. 25, after nine months of seminars and workshops that will teach participants about the inner workings of public agencies from Gilroy to the state’s capital.
“We have an impressive group of people who all have their own reasons for being there,” Leadership Gilroy’s President Bob Kraemer said.
Kraemer declined to provide a list of participants’ names, but said city and county government, Gilroy Unified School District, local business leaders and other aspiring community leaders make up the group.
Leadership Gilroy’s flagship enterprise is a community project the group will create, organize and implement.
“The criteria for the project is that it has to be something that helps participants learn about the community while benefiting the community as a whole,” Kraemer said.
In a past year, for instance, the group helped a disadvantaged person fix up her home.
“The project should be something that gets the group in touch with what it takes to get a permit from the city, how to organize an event and most importantly how to work as a team,” Kraemer said.
In addition to the Sacramento trip, where the group will tour the capital and meet with this area’s representatives and lobbyists, participants will take classes that range from leadership skills building to local history and culture classes.
Sessions are overseen by facilitators from San Jose-based SK Consulting, a firm that specializes in organizational development.
“The facilitators are sort of the glue that keeps the program together,” Kraemer said.
Leadership Gilroy also has a physical fitness component to the program. At an out-of-town retreat in February, for instance, participants will take 10-mile hikes and repel down rocks, among other things.
Leadership Gilroy now has nearly 100 alumni. It originated six years ago, Kraemer said, after community leaders saw a drop in participation on government committees.
“There wasn’t a crisis, but people saw a need,” Kraemer said.
After this year’s leadership program wraps up in the fall, an alumni retreat will be held. The date has yet to be announced.
Kraemer said Leadership Gilroy’s 10-member board of directors is focusing on improving how it tracks and networks with alumni after they graduate from the program.
Leadership Gilroy is a nonprofit. It uses annual fund-raising drives, grant subsidies and participation fees to operate.
Participants pay $850 and must complete an application and interview in order to take part in Leadership Gilroy. Workshops and classes are held once or twice a month and attendance at each of the sessions is mandatory.
“We had some very good candidates this time around, but they couldn’t commit to some key dates and we unfortunately had to say ‘no,'” Kraemer said.
