It seems that I have been travelling quite a bit this summer. From teaching at scout camps to family vacations to wilderness treks, I feel like I have been seeing a lot of the world recently.
This past week, I went backpacking to a family cabin in Ontario.The cabin itself is an old logging resort, and it buried deep in the wilderness. So deep that the closest “city” is over 20 miles away, and that city comprises only a gas station and a few houses. The pristine silence that descends on that cabin, broken only by the occasional call of a loon, brings on an incredible sense of not just the raw beauty of nature around me, but a calm meditation on the entire scope of the world and my small place in it. There really is no better place to contemplate life and the path you are on than the wilderness, in my opinion.
At the end of my ponderings, reflections, and journalings during this trip, I came to a hard but necessary conclusion: I believe it is time for me to begin my process of leaving Athens’ Own. I will be resigning my post at the end of August. Over the next day, I will be writing and developing a plan of action for the next two weeks and four weeks, which will explain not only how I came to this conclusion, but also how I will spend my Athens’ Own time over the next month, preparing myself and the rest of the team as best I can for my departure. I also feel I should note that I do not intend to simply leave the team entirely. We are still part of the same community, and the connections I have made with everyone over the past year mean more to me than I can put into words. It is my sincerest hope to remain in close contact with everyone and to continue to help with Athens’ Own’s efforts as much as I can.
The plan I am preparing will cover at least these topics (and potentially more as it develops)
- My personal rationale of my decision
- Detailed thank you letters to the team
- Continued volunteer work plan
- Two-week strategy
– Recruiting
– Job Descriptions
– Internship postings
– Finished tutorials of website
– Additional blog posts
– Completion of writings/ stories/ etc
- Four-week strategy
– Compilation of documents
– Detailed plans for replacement
– Educational models for new recruits
– Completion of odd jobs on to-do list
– Additional writings
As I mentioned above, this list is just an initial overview, I am sure this does not cover everything I need to do and say before I conclude my employment. I have learned and grown significantly in the past year with Athens’ Own, and I hope, in this plan, to express the depth of this growth and how everyone involved can move forward from it.
I am not sure if I made this particularly clear above, so I want to add this bit of clarification. I would like as many team members as possible to be involved in this exit strategy. I’d like for us to think of this not as a loss of a team member, but rather as a change that affects the entire team. I would like the next four weeks to be shaped by the other team members who have given their time and energy into my involvement with AO. To put this in simpler terms, I would like my time during the next weeks to be dictated by what other team members (and the community) needs from me before I leave, rather than what I want to get done in this time. I want to make sure that the entire process is a group-led effort. If there are documents that need written, things that need explained or taught, work that needs done, or even something as simple as pictures that need taken, I am at the service of the team, to make this change as positive as possible.
Thank you Alyse.
It has been a pleasure to meet and get to know you a bit.
Thank you so very much for all you have done with Athens’ Own.
As you know, I have been out of the loop for quite some time but am being invited to submit input regarding your exit strategy. You have worked on so many things and assumed so many responsibilities that it is difficult to gauge what needs to be wrapped up, what info needs to be passed on, etc.
I trust your assessment of the situation and your decisions regarding what work should be done over the next week but would like to come up to speed a bit.
Are the materials that you have created over the past year, including the exit guides, available on google docs? If so, please send me that link again.
Thanks again and best wishes, kathy
Hi Kathy, thanks so much for taking the time to comment and to help out! I am working on getting the shared folder organized. There are about 1000 files, and a lot of pictures! I will let you know when it is all up and running, should be fairly soon, definitely today.