Kinda pleased as punch

I have to admit I'm pretty pleased.

Last week was a pretty tough week. On the HR front, I've been fighting history ever since I got to the Preserve.

Overcoming history, overcoming HR issues, improving morale and creating momentum, that's what I do. But this is kicking my ass. The difference? No improvement, no success, no changes seem to make any difference with the staff in question. Nothing seems enough to move attitudes from the negative to the, if not positive, at least benefit of the doubt-ish.

But alas, the real point of this entry is, because, I'm actually really excited about all that is happening (and am largely frustrated only because there is so much good stuff, why can't we just celebrate that for 5 minutes before finding something else to complain about?)

There is SO MUCH GOOD STUFF going on, thanks to the amazing work of some amazing people, I have to brag just a bit. Overall, my staff rock!

In the past month, we've been on CBC radio, tv and internet; we've been featured on APTN and the Whitehorse Daily Star. We've launched a new Wild Life regular feature in What's Up Yukon.

We hosted our open house with probably 200 more people than last year, and such great organization that volunteers were actually bored (ok, not a great situation but hard to predict exactly when our 1000+ visitors might arrive). I have received emails and phone calls and personal messages about how much people enjoyed it and how soon they'll be back. Yay!

We've hosted our first special event (the Canadian Wildlife Federation National AGM dinner - 120 people) and we're about to host our first multi-day meeting (First Nations Programs and Partnership Council).

We've doubled our membership to more than 600 people and have created so many fun and exciting partnerships. Like our new Wild Life blend of coffee! We're working with Environment Canada on our weather programs and maybe having a weather station on site. We have volunteers wanting to run cross country tracks for us this winter, volunteers wanting to do tours and volunteers that are going to build a fence. And we're doing some interesting cross-promotions with various partners.

We've exceeded our school programs from previous years and are already taking bookings for fall (which we've never done before) because demand was so high and we couldn't meet it. We're having a hard time balancing bookings and regular tours because we're busy, busy, busy! This week, on a crappy grey day, we had nearly 100 people come out. On a Wednesday!

The driveway and roadways are done, the perimeter is clear, the feeding station roof is about to be started, the lynx enclosure is within reach, the perimeter fence project is underway, there are rescue and Preserve-born babies everywhere!

Stuff is moving forward with Environment, yay! And there are so many amazing people out there helping us - helping to get our ducks in order for funding, helping us by providing expertise, making donations, etc., etc., etc. I just can't stop smiling. Ok, not every day, but most days. I'm so lucky!