Getting back to the Banff Scholarship

It's taking a lot of time to prepare for this Building Personal Leadership course, time I don't really have with our annual leadership conference just 8 days away. First, the Banff Centre sent me this rather sizable tome as part of my preparation.



Over 500 pages -- luckily I don't have to read the whole thing before I leave in less than a month.

Then, they have this rather extensive orientation and assessment tool online that they require you to complete before the course. In addition to some self-assessment, they also want 4-6 subordinates, superiors and colleagues to evaluate you. Currently I'm in the process of completing all these assignments, and they estimate that completion will require about 10 hours of my time. That's about the same amount of time I spent filling out the scholarship application. Not to mention the time that my colleagues will spend doing those assessments.

In addition to the assignments and mental preparation, I've been getting ready for the international travel. With the exception of a trip to Montreal in 1999, I haven't been out of the country since 1997, and even before that, I hadn't traveled abroad very much. Luckily I managed to locate my passport last month. And I've never been to the Canadian Rockies, but the Banff people have a pretty good travel section on their website so I know how to prepare for the elements.

I had a conversation with my co-worker yesterday about Friday's CAE exam. She had some pretty interesting things to say. I'll see if I can make some time to post on those tomorrow.