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Image: Lake City Area- Group Photo full photo

Lake City area residents complete Blandin Community Leadership Program retreat

Grand Rapids, Minn. (February 8, 2019) — Twenty-three residents of the Lake City area returned February 1 from a five-day leadership retreat, the first segment of an intense eight-day training provided by the Blandin Community Leadership Program (BCLP). The team also will participate in three follow-up workshops.

A program of the Grand Rapids-based Blandin Foundation, BCLP has provided experiential leadership training for more than 7,000 community leaders from nearly 500 rural Minnesota communities since it began in 1985.  This is the second time the community has participated in the BCLP leadership program.

Local residents participating in this training were:

Linda Albrecht, Kjellgren Alkire, Kate Bauman, Tom Boe, Abby Breyfogle, Patti Bross, Nancy Denzer, Tom Dwelle, Andrew Eggenberger, Tammy Fiedler, Lucas Grieves, Rob Keehn, Megan Kramer, Michelle Larson, Nate Larson, Megan Moore, Neil Postians, Sara Rybarczyk, Greg Schreck, Pat Udenberg, Jeremy Watters, Joe White and Kristin Witham.

The goal of the Blandin Community Leadership Program is to develop and train a broad base of local leaders to build healthy communities. Topics covered during the retreat included: identifying and describing community issues and opportunities through the lens of the 9 dimensions of a healthy community, effective interpersonal communication, building social capital, appreciating personality differences, managing interpersonal conflict, understanding community power, mobilizing community resources, and goal setting.

“A healthy community depends on leadership engagement of community members,” said Kathy Annette, president and CEO of Blandin Foundation. “The leadership demonstrated by these participants reflects their commitment to their community, as well as to the region and to rural Minnesota.”

BCLP training programs are funded entirely by the Blandin Foundation, whose mission is to strengthen rural Minnesota communities, especially the Grand Rapids area.

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Photo caption – Lake City area

Participants in BCLP training January 28 – February 1 included:

Back Row: (left to right)– Tom Boe, Sara Rybarczyk, Rob Keehn, Jeremy Watters, Neil Postians, Patti Bross, Tom Dwelle, and Ann Glumac (Trainer) 

Middle Row: (left to right)– Tammy Fiedler, Kate Bauman, Megan Moore, Megan Kramer, Abby Breyfogle, Michelle Larson, Nancy Denzer, Linda Albrecht, and Bill Mease (Trainer)

Front Row: (left to right)– Joe White, Kjellgren Alkire, Kristin Witham, Lucas Grieves, Greg Schreck, Nate Larson, Andrew Eggenberger, and Pat Udenberg

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