BOB HAND: we're going to get started if you would take your seats, please.

So we're starting on the first slide of this.

I'm Bob Hand, executive director of Resources for Independence Central Valley.

They have me presenting because I’m tremendously brilliant and witty and extremely humble at the same time.

Not easy to do.

Okay.

We're going to talk about the Community Leadership Academy, which is a very, very specific form of community leadership that we've developed at RICV.

So as we go through this, there are lots of different leadership programs.

This one is a very specific one.

We're going to tell you about the resources.

If you want too use it or if you want to develop your own that's similar.

So RICV, we're an independent living center that serves five counties in the central valley of California which is most burnt up at this time.

We have a very active strategic plan system.

I'm going to tell you about the development of our training first.

We have a very active strategic plan system, and the way we do that, and we actually, unlike many people, we actually use our strategic plan, but what happens is our board sets the goals, and then they're very generalized goals.

And then they come back to the staff and say, now tell us how you're going to make measurable objectives in order to meet these goals.

It’s a plan that's worked for us.

Okay.

Let's go to the next slide.

So about five years ago and maybe six years now, the board set a goal that said, People with disabilities will be full participants in our communities.

So what they were saying is we're not looking at a goal that says that certain buildings will be accessible or that people will have access to specific programs, but we'll be full participants in the community.

Okay?

And as our, the staff, we're thinking how can we possibly affect the system enough to do that?

I mean, to be full participants, what does that even mean?

And so as we try to look at it, if you look at you're going to be a full participant in the community, you need to be part of the design of the community, right?

Part of deciding what's going to happen in the community, and if you're doing that, then you're much more likely to be full participants.

If somebody else is making all of the decisions and then saying, well, it’s okay, you can participate, you're still not going to be a full participant.

So what we looked at is that in all sorts of situations, our community leaders are making decisions without ever taking into consideration independent living philosophy or access or any of that.

Okay.

Next slide.

So what advocacy has been about generally is asking the people who are in charge to do what's right.

I mean, we know what's right.

Access ability should be part of everything we design in the community, independent living philosophy.

Meaning that whole idea of people participating should be a part of everything that goes on, and yet we're having to go to our leaders and ask them to just do what's right.

But in reality, you're a little quick, she isn't totally trained in this process yet but we're working on it.

We're still on that slide.

In reality, job development.

What happens is community leaders go about their business making these decisions, they get announced, either that the decision's already made or here's what we're going to decide, and then as a disability community, we all run out and protest it, right?

That's the system that happens.

And to me, one of the things that happens within that process is even when we win the battle, we often lose the war, right?

Because we made enemies of everybody.

We had to run in and tell them you're wrong.

You did everything wrong.

Your whole process of making decisions is wrong.

Amazingly, most community leaders don't like that.

So even when we win that battle, it's often hurting us in the overall war to change things.

Okay clicker.

Next slide is, so it's true, too, that we have all of these laws.

We have the ADA, the Architectural Barriers Act, IDEA, all of these laws, but the reality is having the law isn't enough.

I mean, we all know that, right?

Its how is the law implemented in your community.

That's what matters.

If you have everything written out that's brilliant, a law to make everything perfect for all of us, except in your community, that doesn't happen, then the law doesn't matter.

Yeah, we've got to have that law in order to take the first step, but if the law is only the first step.

The regulations are only the step until we can ensure that they're implemented correctly within our society, our communities.

Okay.

Next slide.

And the implementation, amazingly enough, is still not perfect, right?

I went over so South Korea and I did some work there.

They have a law somewhat similar to the ADA, and it had just been passed, I think it was five years ago.

And they were saying, Oh, it's so frustrating because we got this law passed, but so many things still aren't accessible.

I’m saying, well, at that point we got the ADA passed 25 years ago and still everything isn't accessible.

So, you know, you got to keep at it.

Don't give up just because it's five years later.

So what we do, again, is go out and protest, go out and fight it, go out and fight society over this.

But the issue is, to me, one of the big things, is our input is almost always reactive instead of proactive.

The people in the community have done these things and now we're trying to react and change it and make it right.

Our community leaders have made these decisions, they're all ready to implement them.

They think they're right in place, and now we have to react to that, and we have to go do something about it.

And so this kind of activism which is critical, I mean, we all know that you can't do without it, but the other side of it is it's always confronting the problem from the outside, right?

Here's the society leaders taking a non-disability view and here we are on the outside beating on the door saying, we need to change this.

You need to change your approach.

You need to change this law.

You need to make this building different.

This is essential, but it's always an outsider's approach.

So we wanted to look at something different.

So on the next slide, what we decided is can we override the system?

And we felt that the independent living movement was ready for the next phase of this.

The next step in affecting the change is not to do it from the outside but to do it from the inside instead.

Okay.

On the next one I kind of like this little quote.

He drew a circle that shut me out.

Her he tick, rebel, a thing to flout, but love and I had the will to win.

We drew a circle that took him in.

"So you see, people with disabilities, they're, the other people, the society's drawing the circles and putting us outside of that, but that doesn't control us.

We can draw the circle and take them in, and now we're on the inside.

And that's what this is about, the next slide.

So our solution to this idea that the board came up with, was to have people with disabilities become the decision makers in society.

So how are we going to go about doing that?

You know, we talked about all sorts of things.

Should we help people become elected officials?

Business owners?

Should we help them try to get into management, supervisor positions in government in?

One of the interesting statistics, it's quoted in our manual over there, is that they did a survey of government employees.

Government supervisors, management many even though the census says the population identifies themselves as having a disability.

1% of them said they had a disability.

How horribly our population is identified.

It’s hard to get the management positions.

As a nonprofit you can run into a lot of trouble if you are trying to get someone elected to a position.

Did we go to the next one?

She's good at this already.

What we discovered was the best place to start in order to make a significant difference in the community was local and state policy councils and nonprofit boards.

And the reason we did and there's statistics that I can make up if you would like because I don't remember them exactly.

But what they basically say is nonprofit corporations handle huge amounts of money.

I mean, billions and billions and billions of dollars.

They are responsible for how that money is spent in our communities.

They employ tens of thousands of people.

And so by getting on those boards, we can have a tremendous impact on how that money is spent in our communities.

And advisory boards.

I'm sure most of you know this.

California, the state, I don't know, they have 50 or 60 advisory boards.

Our city has about 30.

Our county has about 50.

Often universities and schools have advisory boards.

There's, again, a huge affect on what happens in our governments on those boards.

Those are the practical places to start so we went to a lot of our people that we were serving, a lot of our population of people with disabilities and said, we are going to help you get on these boards and these councils because we have a lot of contacts in those.

But the problem is, people didn't really want to do that.

Because they didn't feel competent to do it.

They were scared to be on there.

And in fact, we already, of course, new several people with disabilities on some boards and councils and unless it was specifically a disability council, what the feedback we often got, we would say, are you pushing for disability issues?

And they would often say, well, no, quite frankly I end up a token person there because I don't really feel I know how to do it.

So going to the next slide.

So we decided to design a leadership program to develop and encourage persons with disabilities to become community leaders.

We designed the Community Leadership Academy.

It was just for us, it was how to address our issue at our independent living center.

What it does, I mean, it's very, very specific.

We are not talking about just generally leadership philosophy.

We are talking about parliamentary procedures.

The group leadership skills.

The open meeting laws that advisory councils, government councils have to have, the nuts and bolts of how they things run and what you have to do if you are going to be successful there.

And we did that and it worked really well.

So as we went on, let's go to the next slide, so what we are going to do today, Sheri and I and she will introduce herself again as she changes roles, is we are going to talk about this very, very specific program to train community leaders.

It’s a program that any of you can do.

You can design it yourself just like we did.

Or of course, we are going to talk to you about the resources we have to help you duplicate or how you can contract with us to do it.

So before this is all out we are going to cover those items, but again, I want to emphasize this is something you can do on your own.

Of course, it won't be as good as the one we did.

What the heck.

It's okay.

Or we will show you how to do it.

So in the next one, I want to start out by telling you, what I do, I would recommend this for all of you, we have a staff board written report that goes to our board.

I send that to the director of California’s Department of Rehab and the deputy director and the independent living director and the independent living bureau chief and the CIL executive director and our state association executive director.

I send this out to everybody telling them what we are doing and when I go to these meetings, I’m constantly telling people.

And so we met a guy that does national trainings.

Do any of you know Richard Pimmintel?

He's a large national, he speaks all over.

They made a Hollywood movie about the "music win."

Milt Wright works with him and he was on the council.

You have to design the training program and get this out and we designed a program, train the trainer.

We did it in Columbia, South Carolina and they brought someone who went through the training and a week later gave them a $30,000 grant to develop a leadership academy.

They started with a youth academy and told me that they are getting phone calls wanting referrals for nonprofit boards from their youth before they ever even finish the academy.

They have to tell everybody, wait until they graduate.

We started one in Hayward, of course, which you are going to hear about later on.

So Salinas that is their own.

We did one in San Rafael, they are all in California.

They are supposed to start it in January.

I went to Kansas and did training for 10 centers there.

I hope a good number of them will start it.

I've gone to South Korea and they've developed kind of their own system of it.

It's called Community Leadership Academy of Asia and the Pacific.

I'm going to Dubai in October.

Obviously I’m going to push the leadership academy but this has been hugely successful.

We have gotten three different grants to do it ourselves.

The governor in California has an appointment office just to make all of these appoints.

They call us and ask us for referrals.

Anyone that graduates from your academy if you refer them, we will give them a high priority because we think you guys do a great job in preparing people.

So this has been a really meaningful thing for us.

It's allowed us to go from being that center that serves these poor little people with disabilities to in the central valley, we are considered a place that develops leaders within the community.

And this is kind of the process we go through.

And I’m going to turn this over to Sheri.

Who doesn't trust me to do the clicking so she's going to do her own.

SHERI BURNS: good morning.

My name is Sheri Burns.

 I’m the director at Silicon Valley Independent Living in San Jose California and served as the executive director at Community Resources for Independent Living in Hayward.

I need to apologize for my cold.

I might be discharging in a different way with the mucous situation this morning but I will try to get through this.

I feel like, anyone remember Lily Tomlin’s Edith in a rocky chair.

Before we talk about getting started, I wanted to kind of take a step back.

We have been defining a lot of terms over the past day now and now into our second day about liberation.

We've talk a lot about liberation and what goes into that.

And understanding that internalized lack of worthiness or inability and people being stuck and moving forward.

And I want to talk about what is leadership.

Anybody have any ideas about a good definition of leadership?

What does that look like?

What does that mean to you when you hear the word leader or leadership?

I guess I need the microphone.

Sorry.

I thought my voice could carry.

To me leadership is a modeling behavior.

Showing others how to do things correctly.

At least modeling that.

Being able to motivate them and help them to understand their own abilities and what they can do.

So basically to allow them to empower themselves and to advocate for themselves and to advocate for others.

That's what it means to me.

SHERI BURNS: anyone else?

(fixing microphones).

BOB HAND: Sheri has these effects on things.

SHERI BURNS: I’m getting reprogrammed.

Give me one second.

BOB HAND: you need to use mine?

SHERI BURNS: Mark.

Go ahead.

Someone who takes charge.

A leader.

One, two, three, check, check.

A leader.

We have one in our advocacy group.

A leader.

There we go.

We have one in our advocacy group called the countywide advocacy team of Santa Clara because we all happen to be CAT people.

And we have a natural leader who is someone who takes charge and moves things forward many sometimes to excess, but.

SHERI BURNS: okay.

Thank you.

Daniel?

Daniel: hi.

Checking.

I always thought of a leader of someone who shows others the path.

SHERI BURNS: are we good?

I apologize.

Go ahead and turn it on.

SHERI BURNS: awesome.

Have to have some technical difficulties.

Thank you so much.

Excellent definitions and they all compliment each other quite well.

Wikipedia has a very basic definition.

Ability to lead or guide.

Guidance, mentoring, encouraging.

And I like this.

A process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.

I really, really like that definition and that's what we are all about.

We have common goals, common task.

Disability justice, civil rights justice and we can work with coalitions and intersectionality kinds of issues.

A starting place is identifying who are these individuals going to be.

How do we pick individuals to become leaders?

Think about in your own communities.

Who could possibly be leaders within your own center?

Within your network of other disability rights and senior rights and social justice coalition groups that you belong to?

And someone you think can make things happen.

Bless you.

We also need to consider that people who are both activists and those willing to work with the establishment.

Bob has an example of Jackie Robinson who was the first African American to play in the major league baseball.

He broke the barrier of segregated league and was the first one to do that.

He also was a civil rights advocate and activists and did not tolerate racism and the segregation that was happening at that time.

Matter of fact, he almost was court marshaled when he was in the military because he refused to sit in the back of the bus and this was a military bus and he was the second lieutenant.

And the driver told him to sit in the back and he refused to do so and he was written up and almost court marshaled and it was the court of not his peers.

They were all white military officers, but they threw it out.

So he was doing, making change from within and from without.

So starting as an activists, but also as a strong sports player in multiple areas of sports.

He excelled in tennis and football and baseball and it became his forte.

And he needed to make change from within and he became a poster child for that, integrating major league baseball.

That's what Bob was talking about developing leaders in our communities on being on boards and advisory councils and commissions is making that change from within because if we are always pushing from the outside, we are always then still having that barrier that we are having to either push through, leave across, leave under or go around and we are from the position of being reactive and aggressive.

And we need to get in the inside to make changes.

There are qualities up here that community will respect.

They are listed as being a leader.

Independence.

Positive behavior and thoughts and mannerisms.

Being courageous or brave and being able to push through when fearful.

Integrity.

Confidence, commitment.

Any others you can think of when you think of a leader?

Patience.

Vision.

Visionary.

Thank you.

Authentic.

Any others?

Determined.

Responsible.

Driven.

Perseverance.

Able to persevere.

All of those are qualities and attributes that help people become good leaders.

Jackie’s legacy with all of his MVP.

He was on the all-star team six times and MVP.

Five World Series and one World Series got him in the Hall of Fame.

I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me, all I ask is you respect at the as a human beings.

And that's all we ask.

We want to make sure that our leaders and advocates are developing are in the inside to work to make some those changes in societal attitudes.

Okay.

Also ability to work well with others.

Knowledge of the community, people and resources.

Ability to run meetings effectively.

These are the kinds of things that in the Community Leadership Academy addressed.

There's other ways to do leadership schools that you can institute within your own centers.

Bob and Mike Galvan at CRIL that has implemented this program a number of times with our community participants and consumers will go into much more detail how this particular program will help lead people and give them the skills, the tools and the confidence to actually feel comfortable to join some of these groups and be on the outside to make those changes.

Keep in mind that activism and community leadership are not the same however both are need as I mentioned in the example of Jackie Robinson.

And leadership addresses issues from the inside.

Being a leader is not the same as being a boss.

Being a boss, you drive people.

Being a leader, you coach people.

Being a boss, you command.

Being a leader, you ask or encourage.

A boss typically says, "I."I did this and that.

A leader will say "we" accomplished this.

Boss places blame where there's problem.

Whereas a leader will say what is the issues and what are the concerns and fix what's broke down.

A boss knows how it's done, a leader shows, not knows, shows how it's done.

A boss uses people.

And a leader develops people.

And a boss typically says, "go."

And a leader will say "let's go together.”

Okay.

For recruiting.

We are going to look for people with disabilities for a successful in any field.

What are natural fields that come to mind or jobs or background skills sets that come to mind that you think of, well, they have to be a leader.

They are in a position where they are having to use leadership skills?

You might want to look at about teaching for example.

Teachers have to lead.

They are leading their students all the time.

Any other thoughts that people might have?

About fields that would lend well.

Management.

SHERI BURNS: management position in any field.

Recruiters.

Good.

Okay.

So there's lots of actual fields and jobs that people might be doing that they are using leadership skills.

We want to look at people in those kinds of environments who may be are practicing already those leadership skills.

Recruit from universities and from community colleges.

I'm sure you all have different colleges, community colleges, universities, private colleges near or around where you are serving and getting involved with the disabled students services program and learning about who in your colleges and who you can align with in the counseling programs to meet students with disabilities and encourage them to be involved in your leadership academy is one way.

And also consciously observing others in the community and within your own center who are doing advocacy.

When we find good potential leaders we must have effective methods for teaching community leadership.

We are going to hear more detail about the Community Leadership Academy and here from Dolores about Dan and Dan-y for the disability network for youth over at CRIL in Hayward and you heard Amina talk about the program of ABIL in Arizona.

Okay.

Leadership skills.

Natural verse something appointed leadership.

Natural leaders have authority because people trust them.

Can you think of people in your life or in your work situation who just seem to be natural leaders because again those attributes that they have within them?

That is not necessarily the same as somebody in a appointed position of leadership.

We have as Bob mentioned, politicians, we have people who are directors or CEOs, we have people throughout our lives and society who are in position of authority because of their job.

But not necessarily a natural leader.

They learned those leadership skills we need both people who seem to be comfortable in being leaders and also as Amina mentioned reluctant leaders.

They need an invitation to be at the table.

Hey, you want to be part of solving this social justice or disability justice problem.

Be part of our team to work on this so we can address these particular issues and areas of concern in our communities?

The natural leaders we are looking at those attributes.

Determination, response, visionary, those kinds of things and appointed leaders are the learned skills and we all can learn skills to become leaders.

We are all, show of hands of how many people see themselves as a leader right now?

Excellent.

Good, so I would say that's a little more than half.

I think everybody's hand should be up.

Because whether you are a leader within your disability service and advocate I communicate in your independent living or not, you are probably a leader somewhere else.

How many run a, maybe a youth group or do music or something at their church or synagogue or their temple.

Okay.

There we go.

How many either have been or are coaches for a team?

Okay.

So there's lots of different ways that we use our leadership skills.

It's not necessarily thinking, oh, I have to have the hat on that says:  I’m the leader.

We have communities and a lot of aspects of our lives to take up a position where we are encouraging others to respond to an issue and helping guide the group to move in a direction so we are solving a problem.

Okay.

The appointed authority.

And this is the board members that we talked about.

They have appointed authority.

They have a responsibility for developing policy.

Providing specific level of governance in the organization they serve and the participants need to understand their roles and responsibilities in those particular jobs.

They need to understand, what does it take, for example, if it's for a board for an independent living center.

What does it take to run the center even though they are not for that?

They also need to know the personnel policy and make sure that those are adhered to and that they're updated.

They need to understand the governance of the understand.

They need to understand and believe in the mission of the organization and be a part of the advocacy efforts and sharing of the, of the mission and services of the organization and be enthusiastic ambassadors for the organization.

So there's lots and lots of roles and responsibilities and job duties that people have if they decide to step up and be on a board or a commission.

And there's lots of benefits, too, because then they are sharing their expertise and their skill set with that organization and can be a resource for them.

And natural leaders occur in every group, every business and even on the playground.

I'm sure as kids what you might remember is that there were certain students in your classroom growing up in grade school who tended to be the ones that were the captains of the team, that they, you know, they took charge, and, you know, they just went with it, and other kids looked up to them.

And again, that's part of that natural leadership, but also, leadership as I mentioned before can be learned and developed.

But we have the responsibility to encourage them.

What I’d like you to do is to think about people at your center, your staff, your board, your other volunteers, consumers, community members, allies, et cetera, who could be invited by you to further develop their leadership skills and potential.

And this does take an act of participation of you inviting them.

After you've determined what it is the process that you're going to utilize to help develop those leadership skills, then your responsibility as going back is inviting them to be part of that process and learning those skills.

We've had, and I know Michael’s probably going to share some other examples this afternoon from CRIL, but over the last if you years that we've been running the CIA and we've had it one to two teams per year for the last few years anywhere from a number of participants to a large group graduating from the academy is that they've gone on to be part of these boards at other nonprofits, part of these commissions, part of these councils, part of the community advisory groups that are making important decisions and making change, systemic change within the community with regards to equal access and thinking about including people with disabilities and our needs and our value within those communities.

I had the wonderful experience of one young woman who graduated from one of the early academies, she was right out of high school going into college.

I think she was like 19, and she participated in the academy, and her mom came along with her, too, and, because she wanted to learn, you know, these skills as well.

And the young woman applied for and was brought on to one of the local city housing and community development commissions.

And so she would participate in the commission and make decisions about the nonprofits and the funding that the nonprofits that were getting in that particular city.

So I actually had to come up to her and do a presentation to her and the other commissioners about why my center should get funding for the next year and to share that I thought this is wonderful because the whole table has gone full circle.

She is now basically kind of my business because I’m having to show and tell her why it's important and what exact my organization has in the community and for her to be making the decision about whether we should get funding or not.

So that was great.

That was a wonderful example of empowering consumers and our volunteers to learn these skills to go out in the community and use them and be a part of that decision-making process.

I'm just going to leave with you one last quote before I turn it back over to Bob, is that, and I’m going to give a piece of candy to whoever can tell me who the author is of this quote.

But in our office we have potty posters in the bathroom, and because where else would you want to, you know, wax philosophical but when you're a captive audience in the bathroom, and so we've got some various bumper stickers and posters, and this one I love.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.

And so again, getting out of that oppression, thought and philosophy and helping people move into accepting who they are, cherishing who they are, valuing who they are and what talent and skills they have to offer and becoming a leader.

So who knows who might have said that quote?

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.

Eleanor Roosevelt.

SHERI BURNS: good guess, but not exact.

It was Alice Walker.

The author of the color purple and poet and activist, that was her quote.

And you can replace the word "power" with "leader".

Give up their leadership ability by thinking they don't have any.

We need to encourage leadership ability to even.

Okay, Bob.

BOB HAND: okay.

So I get to keep the candy bar.

SHERI BURNS: I guess.

So well, more candy later.

BOB HAND: well, I’ve said that we run leadership academies and you all can start your own and run it, but we also do what's called leaders without limits where I or somebody else goes to your center or goes to a group of centers and teaches them how to start your own, how to fund your own, et cetera.

And that's kind of the approach I’m going to take right now.

This is what we do.

And so the things that Sheri talked about are part of what we would teach you, how to do the recruiting.

I mean, one of the things that we think is critical, we found this, is that if you get on a board of directors and you've never done this kind of thing and you think the chairperson is always in charge, you're not going to be very effective because often there's somebody who has leadership within the community and nothing gets done unless that person agrees.

I don't care who's chairing the meeting.

You'll have somebody in that group who everybody respects or everybody looks up to or everybody's afraid of or whatever, and if you're going to be effective, you need to learn to look at your group and analyze who has the real leadership positions as opposed to who has just the titles.

So if you're following along, we're now on slide 68.

So as I said, this system is nothing in effect philosophical, generalized.

We need people how to be effective board members, how to be effective council members.

And the other thing about the leadership academy is it's not like a school where you say, okay, you're through it, you graduated.

Go and do something good.

The design is to keep contact with the people, to keep track of the people, to see who's being successful and to help them in that if they have questions once they move on.

So what we're teaching is a number of things.

How to communicate in a board meeting with other community leaders.

So again, not as an activist, because if I’m in a group who makes a decision and I’m attacking the other members because they're not doing things right, I’m not going to get my agenda addressed.

I have to learn how to cooperate, how to collaborate, how to get people to make the decisions that I know are the right ones and need to be made.

We talk about how you constructively share your thoughts and opinions about the cause, kind of that inside thinking of being part of it.

What we teach people is if you're on a council or you're on a board, you have to be bought into it.

So if that board makes a decision, even if you disagree with it, you have to support it.

Or resign from the board and then you can do whatever you want and say whatever you want.

We teach about being active committed member of these boards and groups so that you are maximally effective at it.

We also spend a lot of time about being the chair of a council or board or the president, because what we feel is even though a lot of our people aren't there yet, if they understand that role and they understand how it should be ran, then they're going to be a much better participant in the system.

So let's go to the next slide.

So we talk a lot about how boards actually operate using parliamentary procedures.

Now, this slide says community leadership teaches Robert’s Rules of Order and then we teach how boards actually operate, and that's one of the things.

Almost all boards say anything not covered in our bylaws we follow Robert’s Rules of Order.

They do not.

Nobody does that I’ve ever been with, and that's okay.

It's not that they have to, as long as you understand the system and you understand what happens and how things operate.

The whole idea is to be effective, not to just arbitrarily follow rules.

People use Robert’s Rules of Order to control rather than facilitate, and that's one of the reasons we teach it, because it, I don't know if any of you have ever been in this situation, but a board's doing something and you have the person jump up and say, oh, you can't do that.

Robert's Rules of Order says you can't do it that way.

And general, nobody has a clue, so whatever that person says is effective.

We think it's important to teach here's what Robert’s Rules of Order says, here's what we're trying to do, and if somebody is going to use that to try to stop the system, you're going to know it and know how to go on.

So let's go to the next one.

So these are some of the things we talk about.

How many of you feel like you know parliamentary procedure?

Okay.

Maybe about a third.

You know, one of the things, after we've taught this, I’ve had several people say to me, you know, I’ve been on boards for 20 years and we never did any of this stuff.

Because a lot of boards run very informally, and sometimes that's okay, and sometimes things don't get done right.

So we, we teach penal the whole kind, the whole process, and obviously I’m not going to teach all of that right now, but I’m not talk about it for a few minutes for you.

So we talk about how to make a motion.

Robert's Rules of Order says you don't discuss anything until there's a motion and a second.

Nobody does that.

We say the next thing on the agenda is we're going to start this program.

Does anybody discuss it?

Want to discuss?

So we teach people that process so they're going to feel comfortable there.

We teach them how do you make a motion, a second, then discussion, taking the vote.

The chairman of my board has tended to get really nervous taking votes.

Oh, do I say all in favor or do I say all against?

And so we help people just step through that simple process.

We talk about amendments.

Does anyone know what a friendly amendment is?

Good.

Okay.

It's not always friendly by the way, and Robert’s Rules of Order doesn't allow friendly amendments.

And yet almost everybody uses them because they're much more practical.

So as an example, a friendly amendment is if one person makes a motion and another person makes a second and then I want an amendment and I say, I move to amend this to something," then the chairperson goes to the person who makes the motion and says, do you agree to that?

If they say yes, you are the person that made the second, do you agree to that, and if they say yes, then you have an amended motion.

Because the concept is if the person that made the motion agreed to it, well, they would have said that anyway.

And if the person who seconded it agreed, well, though would have seconded it anyway.

And that's how he have organization runs.

But what if you don't agree with it?

If I want to make an amendment and the person doesn't agree with it?

It's been a while, but I believe the next thing is the amendment is voted upon, whether or not the amendment can go forward, and then there is a motion as amended.

BOB HAND: right.

So basically, you treat the amendment as another motion.

I would have to ask for a second, I would have to have discussion of the amendment, not of the motion, only of the amendment.

We would vote on the amendment.

If it fails, we go back to the first motion.

If it passes, I say now we have an amended motion to discuss and we do it.

See, most of us never learned that.

We have bankers, we have attorneys on our board, we've had people in major management positions who nobody sat down and gone through these things with them, so they kind of know how they run.

You know, we talk about point of all order, we talk about calling the question.

Who knows what it means to call the question?

Okay.

A lot of people use that to control things.

Debate's going on and I’m for this and I don't want these people who are against it talking so I call the question.

And some people chairing think, well, that means we have to vote on it right now, but it doesn't.

We talk about the process.

It means I have to ask for a second.

Now I have to vote on calling the question because what it really means is I want everybody to stop talking and I want to vote on it.

So everybody has to vote.

Do we believe everybody should stop talking or not?

Or do we want to keep talking?

So we spend a lot of time on this.

We used to have a 15-hour leadership act and now into 18 to help us because our feedback said we need more time.

It also went to 18 because Fresno state will give people college credit for taking our course as well, and it had to be an 18-hour course to do that.

But this is something that we feel is important because when people get in those positions, most people don't know parliamentary procedure.

So if you're seen as this symbolic person with a disability who gets on the board and nobody really thinks maybe you have much skill or competency, and all of a sudden the parliamentary question comes up and you're the one that knows how to do it, you are suddenly seen as a leader within that group.

And we've had that experience with several of our people what by knowing what to do and knowing the procedures, their value to the group went up tremendously.

So this is a lot of our training.

And again, we do that in the academy, we do it to some extent within the leaders without limits training.

We'll go through the whole procedure.

We teach people, you know, your call to order, what you do with minutes.

Do you know most people don't realize that if you weren't at a meeting, you shouldn't be voting on the minutes because the minutes say, I verify that's what happened at that meeting.

But if you weren't at the meeting, how do you verify that?

We talk about the officer's reports, you know, how to go through the whole process of it.

Okay.

Let's go to the next slide.

Well, and before we go to that, I want to talk, the other thing we deal a lot with is ethical issues, and I’m jumping because I don't think that's in there.

But I think it's important to talk about.

We talk about ethical issues and several things such as the idea that if you go on a board or a commission, you may be there because issues for people who are blind are very important to you.

Or issues for people in a wheelchair are very important to you.

But ethically, once you get on that, you have to represent everybody.

And we teach people how once you're part of it, you represent everybody, and even though you can have your own area that you want to emphasize, you have to be involved in all of it.

We also teach them about the Good Samaritan laws, how you're protected.

If you're on a nonprofit board, there are legal protections but you could also be sued if you messed up, conflict of interest.

If you don't understand conflict of interest and you get on a board or a commission, you can get yourself in huge trouble.

So we talk about all of those both ethical and legal issues.

The other thing that we do, the next slide is understanding nonprofit finance.

Now, when it comes to independent living centers, nobody understands the finances.

I mean, we know that.

The governments have made it so difficult that they're incomprehensible but we teach the best we can.

One of the things we understand is if you go on a board, you're not going to be a financial expert.

We don't expect that.

We have a finance manager to do that.

But you are legally responsible for those finances, so you need to understand the concepts of it.

We talk about what's an accrual system, what's a fiscal year, you know, what are grants versus contracts?

One of the things we say here is we teach people mainly if you're on a board, your primary responsibility financially is to ask questions.

That's all.

And make sure you get afternoon answer you understand.

So look for anomalies.

Is the year to date figure for any line item significant, lower or higher than budgeted?

So if you're halfway through the year and your budget says you should be at 50 percent and you're at 80 percent, you don't have to understand that.

You just have to turn to the executive director and say, why is this at 80 percent?

Give me an explanation.

And that's the kind of thing we teach.

We teach to look for trends.

If an income is low, did it start low?

Is it moving upwards?

Odd numbers.

Numbers that look like they're out of place, you know.

If you have a budgeted line item that's miscellaneous and it's a $500,000 budget and miscellaneous is $100,000, you want to look at that and go, why do we have one-fifth of our budget under miscellaneous?

You know, explain that to me.

Maybe there's a good reason.

Maybe the executive director has to take a lot of trips to Tahiti or something.

We don't know these things.

Or Dubai.

We teach people that they're responsible.

Don't get away from that.

If you're on a board, you're responsible.

One of my staff was on one and he came to me and said the executive director won't give us finance statements.

Is that okay?

I said no, that's not okay because you as a board member can be held responsible under neglect if you don't pay any attention to that.

He ended up resigning from that board and then later major things happened that he was very happy he was no longer on that board.

Because he understood there's a responsibility there.

Okay.

The next one.

So then we talk about government councils, and by the way, in each state, so every state has what's called sunshine laws or open meeting laws.

When I went to South Carolina, I had to look those up.

Kansas is different, Missouri’s is different.

California has some very, very comprehensive open meeting laws, and so we teach people about that.

If you're on a government council in California and there's some issue you want to address, so I email one of the other members and then they email somebody else, I’ve broken the law.

Because I’ve just had a meeting that was not properly following the open meeting laws.

So the laws are horrendously complicated because attorneys made them, of course, but we talk about the basics.

What does that mean?

What's your responsibility?

We talk about accepting the roll of a government representative.

If you're appointed by the governor, one of the things they want to ask you, they interview you, they say what are you going to do if you disagree with the governor?

What's the answer?

Anybody have it?

We don't have a lot of time so I’m going to tell you the answer in case you ever do it.

They see you as an employee.

We talk about that.

If you're on that board, even though you're not paid anything, you're an employee.

An employee has a duty of loyalty to their employer.

So like what I said was if I disagree with the governor, I’m going to tell the governor about that because that's my role.

I'm an advisory person.

Not that I ever talked to the governor when you're on these, but, you know, that's my job.

But I cannot tell the public the governor's wrong if I’m on that group.

Now, what I can do is I can resign from that council and then I can tell people how stupid the governor is.

But if you're on that and they're going to ask you that in many of these kinds of things.

So we talk about your role as that, being in effect an employee of the government as you do that.

Okay.

So those are some of the things.

Now, we actually train in a whole series, so I wanted to show you, up here on the board it says you can order this.

I have a big booklet here.

Not booklet, book, 100 some pages, a bound book.

This is Our Leaders Without Limits.

This is the train the trainer program.

So in it, it has everything you need, and I literally mean that.

It says, "if you're going to do session one, here's the materials you need, here's the kind of things you're going to cover, here's what you want to accomplish," et cetera.

We also have the leaders without limits student manual which is a very small one compared to this, but all of this is in here.

If you want those, you can go to miltwright.com.

It's $195 but I talked to the publisher and if any of you want to buy it, you can put in the code that's listed on there and get it for $130 instead.

The student manual is much less, it's 15, so there wouldn't be anything.

To us, this is crucial.

This has change RICV.

Many of you don't know that.

When I came in, it was under, it had failed two reviews by Department of Rehab and RSA, they were going to close it down.

We had to make major changes in operations, in board, in everything.

We did that, but that wasn't enough.

Our reputation was horrible.

One of the big things that made the difference was Community Leadership Academy.

Now people throughout the community, I mean foundations, all, everybody around, and at the state level, department of rehab, the governor's office, see us as people who train leaders.

Sheri, any wrap-up?

SHERI BURNS: well, I think the last slide really says it all as far as what we are trying to help you all achieve within your centers and within, more importantly, within our communities that we serve is to take the independent living movement to the next level by promoting decision makers who understand the civil rights of people with disabilities and can make change from within those communities.

So we're actually educating other leaders and we are part of the leadership in making those changes within our communities.

So we just about have like three minutes for any questions before lunch.

Yes.

I’ve had the privilege of serving on a few boards in my time, and I don't know if this was mentioned earlier so I apologize if it's repeated, but I think oneo f the most powerful roles there is to serve on a lot of boards is to get on the nominating committee so that you have a chance to shape who is there.

SHERI BURNS: absolutely.

And a chance to really recommend people with the skills that you know are needed.

SHERI BURNS: thank you.

BOB HAND: another question.

SHERI BURNS: other questions or comments or thoughts?

Amina?

AMINA DONNA KRUCK: yeah, the, as you were talking, I realized that a lot of the same process for, like, Robert’s Rules is what's used in the legislature, too, so it also helps people understand what's going on, committees which is the main place you have an opportunity to speak out about policies that are being created in the legislature, so you can understand what's going on in that meet when you're sitting there.

SHERI BURNS: good point.

Absolutely.

Yes?

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  this is Daniel and my question is I’ve had this question for a little bit and this might be a big concept, but when you do advocacy, when you're doing protesting in the streets, there's no compromise.

It's my way or the highway.

But when you're inside the circle, as you said, compromise is something you have to do.

At the end of the day you have to all agree on the, voted on.

So when you said that committee or that board, they all agree at the end of the day, they can't sit and go out the door and say no, no, no, everything we agreed on was bs.

So does that challenge the advocacy that we normally do is when there's just no compromise, when we come to the inside we're having to compromise.

It's a different mindset.

BOB HAND: can I answer that?

Yes, you're absolutely right, and it is a challenge.

But the challenge to me is learning to look long-term instead of short term.

It's kind of like being a salesman.

I don't know if any of you were ever taught, you're taught nobody ever says no to anything when you're a salesman.

All they say is, not right now.

That's what you'll hear.

The same is true with this.

You can't get all that you want, you can't get these 10 steps.

Maybe you've got two of them.

But for us we have to hear, no, we got the two is that's it.

So it's well, all I’ve got two is now.

I'm going to take that but I’m going to be circling back later on and I’m going to try for two more steps until I get all the way.

It's just a different perspective on it.

SHERI BURNS: and I think also when we are protesting or doing actions in the community is that we do have conversations, hopefully we get to the point where we're able to have a conversation with the folks that are the powers that be and the leadership and the decision making position to have some kind of end result.

And sometimes that is compromised.

I know within the bay area we had, Jesse, would you like to share about our work with, with, I use that term loosely, with BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System and the new rail car design?

We must be definitely on the same wave length because I was just getting ready to talk about it, but the transit agency here.

Bay Area Rapid Transit Agency was showing up for public display or around the bay area these new transit cars, and incorporated into the new design was a pole in the middle of the boarding doors.

Not just any old pole; a pole with y-shaped handle holes coming off of it.

So for folks who use wheelchairs, for folks who are blind, already boarding an already-crowded train is challenging without a pole, so we had some real misgivings.

But there was definitely a ground swell of people who wanted to be out in mill tenant and we were leafleting.

We had, I mean, it ended up being sort of a very creative campaign.

I will say I had to call a group of pole dancers back and say, please don't show up and pole dance at our protest.

But we were able, though I was willing to pull them out if they needed them, but what we sort of did is Sheri and her center and her advocates, they took the good cop approach and they were working more with BART administration and my center in San Francisco was definitely the more agitators holding the pole dancers back, and we were able to actually strike a really, I mean some people say good.

I think it's admirable that we got as far as we did.

We have a compromise with BART where most of the poles are going to be eliminated, so that's good.

SHERI BURNS: thank you.

And actually, as Jesse was saying, we took it from both approaches.

Consciously.

SHERI BURNS: yeah, consciously, and it was also a coalition building that included other organizations, disability rights, senior organizations and others that, again, that intersectionality of working together to further a particular cause, and this was accessibility because these cars are going to be now in use for the next 30 to 50 years, and we wanted them to be right.

And what we were seeing was far from right.

So it was an advocacy, activist and pushing also from the inside and bringing attorneys and others to sit down and talk with them.

So you can do both.

also like, you know.

I'm sorry, Sheri.

Where Sheri and I consciously said to our coalition groups, too, okay.

I'm going to be the bad guy, I, Jesse, and Sheri’s going to play the role of the good guy, and, you know, BART had no chance.

SHERI BURNS: so any one last question or thought?

Otherwise we need to break for lunch.

Yes, Amina.

AMINA DONNA KRUCK: yeah, I have a question about on the CIL council, and then something had come through around center-based workshops and the new CMS rules from our governor, and I September out an alert that had a comment something like, oh, he's in the pocket of the providers, and, to my list of coalition members, and then it made somebody on the coalition feel like they couldn't be on the coalition if those comments were going to be public because they work for the governor.

And so then I really got to thinking about that and thinking about where are my efforts best placed and decided to withdraw from that council because I didn't feel like I could always be an employee at the state, and I think that's a really important point and that my talents and skills at this point, although I really wanted to help shepherd the SILC through with the changes going on, I could do that with committee work going on without being a council member, and also I found because of the role I take as an advocate, I am not personally on councils.

I may encourage other people to do it because I can play the role of an instigator.

But I can be on the committees of the counsels.

SHERI BURNS: I think it's very important to learn where your leadership abilities and skills are best served.

And both of them are good examples of why we need both the activism and the push still from the outside that we can't let up.

I mean, constantly having ADA try to be cut and eliminated and so we're always pushing against that because every single year, access notification laws, other things come up that we always have to keep pushing to keep ADA whole and in place, so we still have to have all of us working in that capacity, but at the same time, we also can benefit from encouraging leaders within our organizations as well as consumers and giving them the skills so that they can be in on the inside, too.

Because then we make a bigger impact.

BOB HAND: thank you all so much.

If anybody wants to see any of these materials.

I'll have them around here for the rest of the time.

SHERI BURNS: right.

And this afternoon we're going to be hearing more about the details of the program and how it's worked over at CRIL.

And Tim, did you have lunch information?

Tim Fuchs: thanks, you all.

Great job.

[applause]Tim Fuchs: okay.

So none of this is complex but just so you all know, lunch is in the hall just like yesterday, and we'll break until 12: 30, and then Paula’s going to introduce some discussion questions again.

So lunch is ready, feel free, we'll break until 12: 30, and then we'll reconvene the training at 12: 30.

PAULA MCELWEE: a couple of things.

So the picture up on the, I have never seen this before.

The picture is a statute not far from here.

These are Daniel’s pictures that he provided.

If you can see this is some kind of a protest.

And it's quite large, right.

So it's a pretty good size statute and they have protest signs in their hands.

And the foreground is a man using a wheelchair and he's leaning forward like he's moving.

It's a neat statute.

On the side of this statute, if I can get up,, on the side of this statute, if you look at this area hear [ indicating ] in the center, that's the capitol crawl.

So if you want to see this up close and a little better, you can go down to this, and see it.

But there are people around the base of the steps.

There's an empty wheelchair and it stands out and a man halfway up the steps during the capitol crawl.

It's a neat monument to disability rights and history.

It's a statute and around the base of the statute are these other features or figures in relief so that's kind of neat.

If you would like to check out a little bit of that history, while you are here, we want to encourage you to do it.

You will never get to see enough of it, I know.

We had some questions that I think that we will answer real quickly just because of the opportunity to do this.

So some of the sticky needs came in have quick answers so while the leadership academy is on your mind.

I was on bob's board when we made that goal and long range goals.

If I’m wrong he can correct me.

What’s the difference between a guide and a leader?

And the difference probably is how much the leader actually assists people along the way to get into their own leadership, right?

How to inspire consumer members to not simply stop with cil staff being their guides and leaders.

I think as we help make leadership happen and move into the next step in independent living and civil rights for people with disabilities to promote meaning to put forward for selection in some of these ways.

It's really an interesting one.

We had a conflict of interest question and this is dealt with in the training.

It wasn't dealt with this morning.

It is a good ye question.

In our small rural area nonprofit and for profit are a conflict of interest.

Everyone knows each other.

They are friends and relatives.

We don't say that you cannot be on a board if you have a conflict of interest.

We tell you how to manage the conflict of interest when you are on the board.

We encourage you to have policies and procedures on your board and encourage it with other people.

This is part of the ethics part what bob was talking about.

Conflict of interest you must disclose that you have a conflict and you must not vote or discuss, I always say either one, I don't think it's fair.

Typically don't even be present if the topic that is on the table is going to somehow benefit you or a family member directly.

And typically benefits you in some political or financial way.

Concrete benefit.

Not just because you agree with your brother-in-law who is sitting across the table from you that there would be a conflict that would benefit you.

Unless you are going to personally benefit or someone who is in your immediate circle is going to personally benefit from the decision that is being discussed.

It's not a conflict of interest.

We help with the policy and procedures training we help people sort those things out.

Sometimes there are legitimate, deep conflicts, but sometimes we need to sort out what is a conflict and how are we going to manage it and you manage it in policies and procedures and it's the ethical leadership training.

How do you inspire people to want to be an effective leader or board member?

And then goes on to kind of partially answer the question.

If there is something in their own wants and needs and their motives, then of course, that's one reason.

If they are community minded or help them to become more community minded that's another reason.

Some people like to put it on their resume and when they look for jobs and say, yes, I serve on this board.

Another reason sometime.

I don't know why I’m cutting out.

That's another reason that also sometimes is given.

I think that it can become in your community and exciting thing to be appointed to aboard because you begin to talk about it with excitement.

So part of that is how exciting can you make it back home to be on a board and be a part of it.

One thing that bob didn't mention and would be helpful to mention.

Some of you have trouble with board recruitment for your own center.

He didn't mention that he does this, but I know he and others have done this.

If you are having a leadership academy in your community, it’s okay to take the best people and put them on your own board.

Don't hesitate to use this as a recruitment opportunity as well because that certainly helps to make that happen.

You know, one of the participants said, I struggle with people talking over me during meetings.

Even other people with disabilities.

And also even as he filled the role of a council chair.

Autistic person people cut me off.

In the training they cover this.

Think about what are the rules for proper parliamentary procedure because it does give the chance for everyone to take a turn.

And if it's a problem with the chair not keeping order during the meeting, go directly to the chair and say how can we resolve this problem because this is happening.

That could be a good strategy.

I know that finding the right ways to participate in the meeting is a big part of the training.

How do you get something on the agenda?

How do you present something?

How do you respond to it during the discussion?

And how do you make a motion are all parts of that program.

Somebody asked if this is part of peer insights program and it is not.

So completely unrelated.

Completely different process.

Those are some of the quick questions that came up that we thought maybe we could answer before we go on.

Here are the questions for the discussion at your table.

In a minute I will get them for you.

And that is do you have at your center some formal process for developing community leaders?

If you don't, we want to know that so when we come back together we hope that you will volunteer that you are doing that.

If you don't have that, do you have any opportunities that you are providing to people to become community leaders and what are those opportunities and how do you do that?

If you could think about that, talk about that at your table, we would really appreciate that.

Thanks.

(Discussions at tables during lunch).

PAULA MCELWEE: all right.

Are we ready to get going again?

Michael is getting mic'd.

Okay.

Just real briefly before we turn it over to Michael, did any of you have things that you're doing for leadership development that you'd like to share with the rest of us?

We would really love to hear what you're doing if you have some ideas along that line.

So anything out of your lunchtime discussion that you'd like to share with the group?

I work with parents of consumers with disabilities who have expressed interest in getting involved in legislation advocacy, so we participate in the coalition to, one of the coalitions to raise SSI payments.

I invited the parent to participate in the conference call, so she participated, she took notes, and then I followed up with her and she told me what was going on.

So it kind of sparked more interest in her and someone who would just be a leader very naturally.

PAULA MCELWEE: okay.

Good.

So you recognize those natural leaders as you come across them and encourage that.

That's good.

Other ideas come out that anybody's doing that you'd like to share with us?

Other concepts?

All right.

A very shy group today.

I guess it's all yours, Michael.