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May 28, 2007

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Dan Bassill

Dr. James has outlined the challenges we face very well. At http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2007/05/creating-networks-of-purpose.html you can see a graphic that illustrates the way I understand this. I use an inverted pyramid to illustrate the role of people like Dr. James and myself as leaders who articulate a vision, then invite people to come together to be part of making that vision a reality.

Through blogs such as this, we connect our networks and visions with each other and hopefully accomplish more than we could by working separately.

In this visualization, with leaders at the bottom, the most important contributor to success would be to recruit many other people, in business, colleges, public service, philanthropy, media, etc. to put themselves in a similar position of leadership.

Phil

Connecting to share lessons learned could save us all time, and keep the work from being quite so loneley.

Dan Bassill

You're so right! The most important reason I've stayed involved with tutoring/mentoring for more than 30 years is the relationships with peers that I've developed over the years. This started in 1976 when someone from the Mongtgomer Ward Corporation, where I worked and volunteered, suggested that I invite people from other programs in Chicago to come for lunch and networking. I sent the invitation and a few people came. We enjoyed meeting with each other and agreed to meet again. I've been sending the invitation to an expanding database for the 30 years since then. What I've learned is that unless someone is taking time to maintain a database, it's not likely that someone else is, and that anyone else is sending out invitations to get together often enough that meaningful relationships and idea sharing can develop.

Our May conference was attended by over 200 people. This was the 27th Tutor/Mentor Conference I've hosted since 1994. Some people were there for the first time and some have been coming off and on for many years. I don't always know who meets who or how people help each other until sometime later when someone will tell me a story about something that happended as a result of meeting someone else at the conference.

Yet, I always walk away with a few new ideas and a few new friends. Lifes a lot richer as a result.

Phil

Congrats, on a successful conference, Dan.

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