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Image: Plainview Area- Group Photo crop

Plainview area residents complete Blandin Community Leadership Program retreat

Grand Rapids, Minn. (March 4, 2019) — Twenty-four residents of the Plainview area returned March 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 first time the community has participated in the BCLP leadership program.

Local residents participating in this training were:

John Curtiss, Jeanne Dunn, Clarissa Hadler, Lindsay Hammer Bartley, Will Harrington, Colleen Hess, Michael Jeppson, Andrea Kieffer, Beckie Kronebusch, Luke Lamprecht, Shane Loftus, Aaron Luckstein, Shannon Nelson, Gerald Niess, Nick Ozment, Lulu Pope, Holly Reeve, Tim Schneider, Tristan Severson, Chris Stelling, Carla Tentis,  Jennifer Torres, Tom Wiener, and Marie Zabel Stelling.

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 – Plainview area

Participants in BCLP training February 28 – March 1 included:

Back Row: (left to right)– Chris Stelling, Gerald Niess, Jennifer Torres, Lulu Pope, Colleen Hess, Luke Lamprecht, Doug Allen (Trainer), and Julie Steiff (Trainer)

Middle Row: (left to right)– Jeanne Dunn, Holly Reeve, Andrea Kieffer, Beckie Kronebusch, Shannon Nelson, Carla Tentis, Lindsay Hammer Bartley, Clarissa Hadler, John Curtiss, and Marie Zabel Stelling 

Front Row: (left to right)– Michael Jeppson, Tom Wiener, Tim Schneider, Tristan Severson, Will

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