Holidays and training

I'm not going to be in the office much over the next two weeks, so this is my post to explain why.
Obviously, just about everybody knows that Thursday is Turkey Day, so the Starfish Office is closed for 2.5 days. Since I've got a 300-mile drive to get home, I'm going to not be the office for 3 days. (Who wants to work for a few hours on Thanksgiving Eve, anyway?)

Then -- next week, I'll be in Chicago for AmeriCorps*VISTA training.

But wait -- aren't you done with being a VISTA? you ask.

Yes, yes I am. Apparently VISTA alums make good supervisors for new VISTAs so I'm going to Chi-town for a few days to learn how to supervise the new Starfish VISTA members.

Last year during VISTA training, I was with the rowdy orange-dot table. Something makes me think the supervisors will be more serious than that table was.

This is a quite a change, suddenly being a supervisor. Then again, it does make sense that alums make good supervisors since we have gone through all the VISTA stuff. (No direct service!) We've got a lot of stuff to get set up in the office as well for three new people.

It is pretty exciting to have new VISTAs starting, to continue the capacity-building the four of Starfish VISTAs did last year and the eight summer VISTAs helped with. Starfish has grown so much in the last 13 months and I can't wait to see it grow more.

More on the new VISTA and being a supervisor come Dec. 8.

Orange Dot shout out

This is photographic proof that I was at PSO in Chicago for three days.

This is the self-named "rowdy table" of orange dots. (We all have orange dots on our name tags... it's how they divided us into breakout session groups.)

The rowdy orange dots are (L-R) Fred, Angela, your faithful blogger, Paula, Stephen, Renee (aka Eener), Val and Justin. Photo courtesy of Renee.

This is also a good luck wish for them as they start their placements.