Too much is never enough

If you had asked me at the beginning of the program year would I have now found myself in the position of actually trying to show some restraint on the growth in HOBY Maryland, I'm not sure what I would have told you.  Likely, that it would be an enviable position to be in, and I would probably love to have such problems. What can I say except we may have become a victim of our own success? As of today, Maryland has 207 students registered, six over our goal of 201.  There are actually a few more in the cue that I know about, all of whom could, and eventually likely will register.  I've had to even go as far as tell another site that we could not immediately accept their potential transfer. The counter-balance to this wonderful news is that I also currently find my team...

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Reborn, Renew, React

It was quite the busy week.  My real job was hectic and frequently overwhelming this week, which seemed to be the real sign that HOBY time is almost here.  As I feel the strain of mounting pressures, I know we are but weeks away from May. In no particular order... We reached 188 recruitment by the end of this week.  That puts us just 13 away from reaching goal by the extended March 25th deadline.  It's a big deal because it means we're already ahead of total recruitment last  year.   And, even if we don't make the "deadline," I have a feeling we'll meet goal by the seminar.  All I can say is that I'm quite pleased. As those 188 registered, we released our pre-seminar forms today.  Of course, only as I personally know is typical, it didn't go off quite...

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Anonymous

Lately I find I've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes for both HOBY National and HOBY Maryland.  The kinds of things that most people wil never know happened, just one day they show up and everything is ready for them.  Projects that will never have an official attachment to my name, even if I will know that were the product of my, hopefully good, work. For the national audience, that has meant a lot of social media projects, working to make sure some internal priority lists stay relevant to the field, and often, simply making my voice heard.  Sometimes it's more a philosophy of, if you make enough noise, people start to listen and others it has been simply going with my gut, but either way I feel like I'm seeing positive impact.  I'm not saying people aren't willing...

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Make a Splash

All day I've been watching as my Facebook has slowly been covered in HOBY.  Status messages have been changed to snippets of why HOBY has changed lives while profile pictures have become a colorful sea of HOBY T-shirts.  Fan pages have spread the message, and the pervasiveness of HOBY in even my "virtual" life has become all too apparent. In a move initially led by HOBY Ohio West, today through Wednesday have become HOBY Social Media Splash Days.   It's not by chance all my HOBY friends are doing this, it is a coordinated effort to get a little publicity for what may be America's best kept, positive secret.  I think about my own life, and the friends I know who I don't necessarily give the full HOBY "elevator" pitch speech to, and it makes me realize I can still do more...

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Hurry Up, and Wait

Any alumnus of HOBY Team Alumni could tell you our operations motto:  "Hurry up, and wait."  It's funny how true that is as the calendar year renews that feeling.  From the quiet and lack of activity of December, January is now back at us in full swing.  The expression speaks to how as a Team Alumni you often are faced with about a dozen things that all need to be done at once intermixed with periods of relative quiet and relaxation. This past weekend we had our Winter Alumni reunion.  A group of alumni gathered in Phoenix, MD to meet for some social time and to spend some time with a major disabilities advocate, Dave Ward.  Mr. Ward has a high spinal cord injury, that he's lived with for 35 years, and yet still works tirelessly on behalf of those with disabilities....

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