I was fortunate enough to get invited to the inaugural Active Living Plugged In training in collaboration with the Los Angeles Bicycle Coalition and Pedal Love
“This innovative new training is about measurably growing your aptitude, polishing your skills, honing your voice, growing your network and learning to own your power as an active living advocate for California via.”
And THAT we did!
I have been so very busy with trying to get strong again since getting cleared to ride and with GGR upcoming events, I really didn’t have much time to review the material or prepare. We needed to come up with a 5 minute presentation using the TEDX program: http://www.ted.com/about/programs-initiatives/tedx-program on why we were passionate about active living.
Now I have only had my Mac Pro for about a week or so and have never used a MAC before. So I needed to figure out KEYNOTE (like Power Point but for a MAC), very quickly to assist with my presentation.
I decided to talk about how active living and a healthy life style changed my life 9 years ago. I talked about how I needed an intense activity to take my mind off of a long, dragged out divorce and mountain biking was something that I always wanted to try.
In my presentation I then went to how i developed as an individual again up to present….GGR.
The 1st day we broke up into small groups and told each others stories. Each were compelling, but only one of us were able to be a presenter. I stepped up and asked the group if they would allow me to be that person…..I REALLY needed the practice. They were good with it…so on we went.
Now after seeing the instructors morning presentations, I realized that I only needed pictures and not all the text on my slides. Only key words. So that was the 1st thing we changed. We worked as a team to dissect what was important and the order of events. We were only allowed 5 minutes. The 1st time I presented the presentation to our group, I was at 7 minutes. Time to cut! We dissected it again. After listening to everyone’s outstanding feedback, we cut out an entire middle section. This also kept my thoughts more organized and I was able to stay on track.
I was also concerned overwhelming people. One of my closest friends always tells people if they haven’t met me…she is a very nice person…..in an overwhelming way….so I have to be careful not to be to loud and respect boundaries. I also like to get closer to an audience than most people and move around. So I wasn’t sure how the room would respond to that, however, it was very natural to do that for me, so I just went with it.
Well, after our team cleaned my presentation up and gave me the GOOD 2 GO…(my legs were shaking under my lap tap..I kept crossing them so no one would notice)…it was time to face the room and make my presentation.
The few slides I had were just pictures of myself with my friends riding. That’s what makes me happy and made me smile looking at the slides. I love speaking about my riding life and encouraging other women, so I felt it wasn’t necessarily smooth, however, my passion and enthusiasm came out. So I’m confident I got my story told in the manner they were looking for.
Now to get my blogging shorter!
Everyone did an outstanding job in their presentations Saturday morning. They had a little contest and I was lucky enough to win the best presentation for Saturday morning. (had to be the men joke scraping me off the ground…but it wasn’t a joke..it really happened!) It was a team effort and my team did an excellent job with directing me for a positive end result in getting my story out.
Saturday afternoon, we broke into the same groups but this time we discussed what we were going to do for bike month in May. Specifically what we will do different and how will we promote it…
Jen Klausner, Executive Director of the LACBC: http://la-bike.org, wanted to do a BFW Happy Hour night May 15th. Bike from Work to HAPPY HOUR! Our group worked on how we would promote and which media we would contact. My personal favorite was having a live Twitter feed up on a projection screen during the happy hour so everyone can follow the feed for the night and see all the pictures everyone is posting. Excellent idea Holly!
All of the presentations again were very good. We all made comments on them so each could improve their presentation skills
DAY 2:
Day 2 we started with talking about Power:
Personal Power
Positional Power
Political Power
Then we broke up into the groups again..THIS time different groups. I HAD to open my mouth..I was standing waiting to find out who the team captains were so I could make my decision as to what team I wanted to be in. Then Melissa called me as one of the captains….I died….geesh…will I ever learn?? Ok…deal with it Wendy and lets move on. I am used to be in a leadership position with GGR and having been self employed for so long, I just didn’t expect this..but I through myself into it making sure I heard from everyone and that they were confident and comfortable with their presentations.
We chose 2 people to speak since 2 items were to be addressed. Riley and Andrea. Riley was to present CO-EXISTANCE WITH MOBILITY.
We focused on 3 items: What: How and Media Coverage. We all came up with very specific organizations for the how as well as for the media coverage.
Andrea was to present how to recruit more women to these training events…how can we get this in front of as many women as possible?? Hmmmmmmm…Ok, I have to admit, the FIRST thing I said was for a rep from Pedal Love to be a guest speaker at the GGR Rocktober annual event. Getting in front of all these women at one time is HUGE!
Then she brought up many others such as Moms, the PTA, State Senators office, other local powerful women’s organizations.
All of the speakers from the teams did their presentations and all did an outstanding job. Very well thought out and great ideas. Lots of enthusiasm.
As this was also a competition, everyone in the room chose a winner. It was the 2 girls from my team! Riley and Andrea! WELL DONE LADIES!
So then they announced that they were going to do a best overall presentation prize for the weekend. So we all voted for who we thought gave the best presentation. Everyone did an outstanding job. For some reason, the room seemed to like my warped sense of humor incorporated into my presentation. So they awarded best presentation to me. They gave me a beautiful Carmichael saddle bag. It is lovely.
I went into this weekend thinking…what am I doing?? I’m WAY to busy to be spending my time on this for the entire weekend. Why did I commit to yet another thing?? I haven’t been able to spend hardly anytime preparing…I should not be going.
I now have such a renewed sense of energy thanks to the women in the room and the powerful presentations by the 2 men as well. I took away how to give a better, shorter, more precise presentation, I learned about contacting very different types of media for different types of events. I got to help others and see them shine. Overall, this was the best way I could have spent my weekend.
This training program, Active Living Plugged In..will be coming back to LA soon. It will sell out fast. Keep your eyes open and don’t miss it! http://www.pedallove.org/active-living-plugged-in-la/
A huge shout out and thank you to:
Jen Klausner
Melissa Balmer
Charlie Gandy
Allan Crawford
Kellie Morris
Maria Sipin
Until next time luvs……
GGR Girl Wendy E
And THAT we did!
I have been so very busy with trying to get strong again since getting cleared to ride and with GGR upcoming events, I really didn’t have much time to review the material or prepare. We needed to come up with a 5 minute presentation using the TEDX program: http://www.ted.com/about/programs-initiatives/tedx-program on why we were passionate about active living.
Now I have only had my Mac Pro for about a week or so and have never used a MAC before. So I needed to figure out KEYNOTE (like Power Point but for a MAC), very quickly to assist with my presentation.
I decided to talk about how active living and a healthy life style changed my life 9 years ago. I talked about how I needed an intense activity to take my mind off of a long, dragged out divorce and mountain biking was something that I always wanted to try.
In my presentation I then went to how i developed as an individual again up to present….GGR.
The 1st day we broke up into small groups and told each others stories. Each were compelling, but only one of us were able to be a presenter. I stepped up and asked the group if they would allow me to be that person…..I REALLY needed the practice. They were good with it…so on we went.
Now after seeing the instructors morning presentations, I realized that I only needed pictures and not all the text on my slides. Only key words. So that was the 1st thing we changed. We worked as a team to dissect what was important and the order of events. We were only allowed 5 minutes. The 1st time I presented the presentation to our group, I was at 7 minutes. Time to cut! We dissected it again. After listening to everyone’s outstanding feedback, we cut out an entire middle section. This also kept my thoughts more organized and I was able to stay on track.
I was also concerned overwhelming people. One of my closest friends always tells people if they haven’t met me…she is a very nice person…..in an overwhelming way….so I have to be careful not to be to loud and respect boundaries. I also like to get closer to an audience than most people and move around. So I wasn’t sure how the room would respond to that, however, it was very natural to do that for me, so I just went with it.
Well, after our team cleaned my presentation up and gave me the GOOD 2 GO…(my legs were shaking under my lap tap..I kept crossing them so no one would notice)…it was time to face the room and make my presentation.
The few slides I had were just pictures of myself with my friends riding. That’s what makes me happy and made me smile looking at the slides. I love speaking about my riding life and encouraging other women, so I felt it wasn’t necessarily smooth, however, my passion and enthusiasm came out. So I’m confident I got my story told in the manner they were looking for.
Now to get my blogging shorter!
Everyone did an outstanding job in their presentations Saturday morning. They had a little contest and I was lucky enough to win the best presentation for Saturday morning. (had to be the men joke scraping me off the ground…but it wasn’t a joke..it really happened!) It was a team effort and my team did an excellent job with directing me for a positive end result in getting my story out.
Saturday afternoon, we broke into the same groups but this time we discussed what we were going to do for bike month in May. Specifically what we will do different and how will we promote it…
Jen Klausner, Executive Director of the LACBC: http://la-bike.org, wanted to do a BFW Happy Hour night May 15th. Bike from Work to HAPPY HOUR! Our group worked on how we would promote and which media we would contact. My personal favorite was having a live Twitter feed up on a projection screen during the happy hour so everyone can follow the feed for the night and see all the pictures everyone is posting. Excellent idea Holly!
All of the presentations again were very good. We all made comments on them so each could improve their presentation skills
DAY 2:
Day 2 we started with talking about Power:
Personal Power
Positional Power
Political Power
Then we broke up into the groups again..THIS time different groups. I HAD to open my mouth..I was standing waiting to find out who the team captains were so I could make my decision as to what team I wanted to be in. Then Melissa called me as one of the captains….I died….geesh…will I ever learn?? Ok…deal with it Wendy and lets move on. I am used to be in a leadership position with GGR and having been self employed for so long, I just didn’t expect this..but I through myself into it making sure I heard from everyone and that they were confident and comfortable with their presentations.
We chose 2 people to speak since 2 items were to be addressed. Riley and Andrea. Riley was to present CO-EXISTANCE WITH MOBILITY.
We focused on 3 items: What: How and Media Coverage. We all came up with very specific organizations for the how as well as for the media coverage.
Andrea was to present how to recruit more women to these training events…how can we get this in front of as many women as possible?? Hmmmmmmm…Ok, I have to admit, the FIRST thing I said was for a rep from Pedal Love to be a guest speaker at the GGR Rocktober annual event. Getting in front of all these women at one time is HUGE!
Then she brought up many others such as Moms, the PTA, State Senators office, other local powerful women’s organizations.
All of the speakers from the teams did their presentations and all did an outstanding job. Very well thought out and great ideas. Lots of enthusiasm.
As this was also a competition, everyone in the room chose a winner. It was the 2 girls from my team! Riley and Andrea! WELL DONE LADIES!
So then they announced that they were going to do a best overall presentation prize for the weekend. So we all voted for who we thought gave the best presentation. Everyone did an outstanding job. For some reason, the room seemed to like my warped sense of humor incorporated into my presentation. So they awarded best presentation to me. They gave me a beautiful Carmichael saddle bag. It is lovely.
I went into this weekend thinking…what am I doing?? I’m WAY to busy to be spending my time on this for the entire weekend. Why did I commit to yet another thing?? I haven’t been able to spend hardly anytime preparing…I should not be going.
I now have such a renewed sense of energy thanks to the women in the room and the powerful presentations by the 2 men as well. I took away how to give a better, shorter, more precise presentation, I learned about contacting very different types of media for different types of events. I got to help others and see them shine. Overall, this was the best way I could have spent my weekend.
This training program, Active Living Plugged In..will be coming back to LA soon. It will sell out fast. Keep your eyes open and don’t miss it! http://www.pedallove.org/active-living-plugged-in-la/
A huge shout out and thank you to:
Jen Klausner
Melissa Balmer
Charlie Gandy
Allan Crawford
Kellie Morris
Maria Sipin
Until next time luvs……
GGR Girl Wendy E
