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Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome. It is signed for our community connection right here on K one, the one you trust. Leadership Bartlesville, leaders of the path. They are here today. How are we doing? Kids?
Good?
Cherry Welt, the fastest person on roller skates, had the big busy day yesterday and you made it in today. That is great. Band aims with the Samaritan Counseling and of course at Kelsey Walker with City of Bartlesville. People who communicate often, and we've got some communication today.
Yeah, so we're we just wanted to visit a little bit about one of the Leadership Artist book class at thirty are our class project this year. So it's an exciting adventure, all right.
Je.
First of all, sure you tell us a little bit about Leadership Martinsville and what it's all about Allergy season.
It is Leadership Martlesville. It is a program that started back in the eighties and like you said, this is coming up to be our thirty fifth class there's a couple of years where they did two classes in a year, so it's not quite exactly year by year, but anyhow, it is a leadership development program, but not leadership in the sense of we're going to make you you know, how to be the best leader. It's more immersing you into our community. And so it is a year long program.
Once a month we meet and they take a date, dive into whatever the issue for that month is. It might be education, healthcare, our community services, getting a real overview of that, and they meet the folks making the decisions. People that are involved in solving the issues. We talk issues do a lot of that. They sit in their capstones, field trips, tours of different places, behind the scene type
things that most people don't really have access to. So it gives them a lot of special opportunities, special things that, like I said, the general you know person may not have access to. But it just gives them a really wide understanding of our community, what makes up our community,
how our community works together. Maybe doesn't work together in some areas, however, But the goal is to graduate folks who come out with this wealth of knowledge and then plug into the community and they're more effect even serving their community, whether it's through their job, whether they found places, which is usually always happens, they find out some places that really kind of triggered their passion and they want to get involved in a committee or serve on their
board or whatever. And that's what we're trying to do is plug folks into those those roles.
So now, Kelsey, you know a thing or sixteen about the city, so I imagine you know this is kind of a little bit of it's all habits, so it's kind of new to you as well.
It was definitely you know, I've lived in Bartlesville more than twenty years and I worked at the newspaper for ten and so you know, you do kind of feel like you know Bartlesville. But I would definitely say when you join leadership Bartlesville, you come away with a lot of insights and just those behind the scenes tours and getting to hear from leaders and nonprofits that you wouldn't otherwise get. There's no way you could pack all of
that on your own. So even if you think you know Bartlesville, I would say it's a very valuable, very valuable experience.
Now, Ben, you've been around a lot of Bartlesville and a lot of different capacities. I imagine this kind of was a cool thing for you.
Well, it really was.
You know, like Kelsey said, you know, after living in Bartlesville for a long time and being fully immersed or so you think, fully immersed in the community, you think you know everything.
I was wrong.
You know, I had multiple people say, you're going to find something that you had no idea about. And there are so many things that I had no clue happened in Bartlesville, things that were available. It just it was. It was truly an eye opening experience but also very rewarding. And plus I have to fight thirty new new connections and friends and and people that I can call on at a on a whim.
That's that's amazing. And you know, you really kind of widen your field of contacts and people who you can associate with so you can help solve problems and maybe sometimes create new things. We create a lot of things in this town.
We we do.
Now we're going to create a class project and this is a we were talking about this a little bit earlier off microphone about a nonprofit leadership development brand and that is this all going to.
Come about Yeah, so we had we when we started talking about class project and what we really wanted to do, we wanted to make sure that we left a legacy. We wanted a legacy for our class, but also a legacy for the organization itself, and how could we do that and one of the things that we looked at, we looked at a whole bunch of different things, all different. I mean, it took us most of the year.
Amazing to watch the class.
Yes, yeah, the last two to three weeks we we narrowed it down and we steamrolled with it. We decided that you know, Bartelesfield's full of nonprofits, and each one of those nonprofits obviously have a leader, and we felt that giving them the opportunity to be able to go through the program was was huge. A lot of times with nonprofit leaders or nonprofits, cost costs associated with different things can be a prohibiting factor, and we wanted to
eliminate that for those nonprofit leaders. So as a group, we decided, hey, let's let's see what we can do. So we got with the BCF, We visited with Sherry several times and went just kind of molded around and worked through it and began developing this grant with the BCF and it is that's that's just what it is. It is a nonprofit Leadership Development grant.
My goodness sakes, Yes, that's a little bit of a project. That's just a little bit of an undertaking. That's a lot of whole work and study. You guys still had to have fun.
That is a great project. I was excited that that's where they landed because so many of our nonprofits are the ones solving a lot of our issues, the things people that you know, oh, you know, this is an issue or that's a problem, and you know, you turn to our nonprofits and people are amazed. And I've heard two different numbers, but we have at least one hundred nonprofit organizations in the community. And they're not all dealing with social issues, but I mean a lot of them.
That's what they're they're trying to solve, trying to help, and so, you know, and they operate on shoe string budgets. You know, I would say ninety nine percent. It is rare that trigger finds we oh, yeah, our budget's great. We don't you know, we're doing you know, especially in the nonprofit world, and so like Ben said, and that cost is sometimes what's holding them back from being able
to apply because there is a cost associated. I mean this includes the program includes like I said, once a month and then there's four months where there's an extra luncheon that's a little bit expanded, but it's not taken out your whole day because most of the other days are eight to five and you know, so there's breakfast, there's lunch, there's transportation. Just the fees associated with some of the different places we go, where things we see,
that kind of thing. So I mean, there is there is tuition cost to it, but we don't want that to hold back from a nonprofit being able to go through. So I was, I was so excited this is where they landed.
Well, I am that question. I understand we're raising funds for this and it seems like a fun fundraiser. Yell me a little bit more about.
We have partnered with the Eagles Lodge to host a bingo night and fireman auction fundraiser on June twenty eighth. It's going to be at their lodge, which is at one ten West Second Street in downtown Bartlesville. It starts out five thirty on June twenty eighth, with dinner Minis will be at six pm and regular bingo is at seven pm, and again we're gonna have silent auction during that, so we've got some really fun things you can come
bid on for that. We're still gathering donations for that, so if you got anything you want to donate to it, go ahead. We've already got some really exciting stuff though. We've got a round of ball that Hillcrest. We've got some fun dessert giveaways that we're working on. I believe we've got an overnight stay at the jewel Box Hotel apartments in downtown and that includes I believe flowers and
pizza and some other goodies. So if we're working on more, So if you want to donate, please contact one of us and let us know. Tickets for that bingo you can buy from any Leadership bartles while member. They're fifteen dollars in advance or there'll be twenty dollars out the door. If you want tickets in advance, you need to reach out to Lindsay Sturgeon. She's our class vice president and she works at Edward Jones. I don't have her number in front of you.
So that's terrible.
But her, you can reach out to her or any Leadership bartle book member and we'll get that to you.
Or if you're not sure who's the leadership Barticle, call the Chamber and I can hook you up with you chet everything right, yeah, because I may not know who to contact, So yeah, just call the Chamber of Commerce.
Date. So this is at the Eagles. You know something. They have some sort of magic that they work. I can't tell you why or how, but it works really, really well. And it's a kind of a peaceful, easy feeling when you're hanging with the Eagles.
They need it really easy to take it eat.
Oh my goodness sakes. Now, applications what do those do?
June the thirtieth. So, applications are open right now. You complete found at Bartlesville dot com and it's on the homepage. There's a row of little icons and one of those circle icons is Leadership Bartlesville. The dates, the calendar of events, all the information, sign up for the interview, everything is right there. So, but they June thirtieth is a cutoff. So and we always have more than which is I hate this time of year. I love it, but I
hate it because it's like it's what everybody. But it is a selection process, so it is an alarm be selected. But we always have more apply than can can be accepted.
So now there are some who were losing who are thinking, well, gee, this must be just for the kids, just for the kids.
No, and that is another big misconception. I have more people that are you know, forties, fifties, you know, even in the early sixties, and like, well, I know that's for the younger, you know, younger upcoming, you know, young professional types. So I'm like, no, we want a diversified class. We don't want just all young. We don't want just all old. I mean, it is a mix. It's men,
it's women, it's there's some young ones in there. But there were what couple that were I know, I won't say names, but there were several that were probably early sixties, late fifties. Yeah, so you go, Tom, come on.
Those things that I know one of the one of our classmates, he he made the comment, he said, again I thought I knew.
And oh yeah I didn't. And he.
I just loved loved having him in our class because he really shared so much with us and brought a lot of I feel like a lot of history and made the class even more.
I want to you're talking about, Yes, he knew somebody everywhere, we went everywhere, but those still say that he came away with you.
I don't think he experienced granger matters. Yeah, yeah, granger here.
But that is one thing you always hear, you know, and if you're new to community, obviously you're gonna learn a lot. I mean, that's an obvious but we have people that have grown up here and every year it's the same thing Vin said. You know, you think you're immersed in the community, you think you really know what's going on. Even when you follow you know a lot of things. They always go, oh, I had no idea.
I had no idea. I did not know. And so that's one of my favorite I love Capstone, which is where they kind of each member at the end of the year gets up and talks about, you know, what what they got out of the clouds, kind of what their expectations were as opposed to what they came away.
With it is.
It's my favorite day because it's just so fun to hear what they got out of it and just how their perceptions were different from the beginning of this you know program to when they graduated. So it's it's one of my absolute favorite programs. The chamber does well.
It sounds like it. I mean, each and every one of you does sound like you know that was probably just a really cool experience. Was that you probably can't duplicate.
Oh absolutely, I know I was thinking on the way in that I can. I vividly remember having almost an argument with my one of my board members, John Holden, John, I love you John. He was like, you have to do this, and I said, no, give me a year, and he said, no, you're doing it. And I have told him repeatedly thank you for for basically putting your foot down doing its.
Kicking in the back pockets, pushing me out the door pretty much.
But it was truly truly an eye opening experience and I loved it. I thought it was a great, great year, and it went by way too quick.
LG. You know, you work with the city, and like you said, you thought you knew you also were a reporter. And I know how because I've been doing this for fifty years.
Yeah, every day.
Something just jumped out, you said, I did that? Is that the kind of feeling you had there, oh absolutely.
You know, working at the newspaper, you read a lot about these nonprofits, about their different events, about the people that were involved. You know, you even read about Leadership Bartlesville and all the things that the people involved with Leadership Bartlesville were doing. But just being part of the program, you know, some of those behind the scenes tours can't be replicated. You know, we got to tour the Phillips Research Center, we got to go out to the Walmart
distribution center. The nonprofits. You just you can't replicate that.
The jail, yeah, don't replicate that too much.
Visiting the very last group to go through the Phillips Oh wow, Jenny, Jenny opened it up just for us to go through. And that was kind of a and you.
Got to go up years of bludge and.
Here there behind the story again, where do we sign up bartlesviild dot com.
It's a chamber website. This is a Chamber of Commerce program. And like I said, there's a little circle icons on that homepage and one of them's Leadership Bartlesviildt gives you all the information.
Well, thank you all for coming in today, Thanks for listening to one on one