Twenty-three residents of the Albert Lea area returned Sept. 27 from a five-day leadership retreat, the first segment of an intense eight-day training provided by the Blandin Community Leadership Program. The team also will participate in follow-up workshops in December and February 2014.

A program of the Grand Rapids-based Blandin Foundation, the Blandin Community Leadership Program has provided experiential leadership training for more than 6,000 community leaders from more than 425 rural Minnesota communities since it began in 1985. This is the sixth time local residents have participated in the Blandin leadership program.

Locals participating in this training were: Chad Adams, Rhonda Allison, Cierra Anderson, Nuga Atewologun, Larry Baker, Dan Borland, J.D. Carlson, Dabang Gach, Patty Greibrok, John Holt, Susie Hulst, Penny Jahnke, Steve Jahnke, John Katz, Mary Laeger-Hagemeister,  Mark Light, Savile Lord, Laura Lunde, Kim Nelson, Annette Petersen, Lance Skov, Chris Utz and Sue Yost.

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, 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 Valerie Shangreaux, director of Blandin leadership programs. “The leadership demonstrated by these participants reflects their commitment to their community, as well as to the region and to rural Minnesota.”

Blandin leadership training programs are funded entirely by the Blandin Foundation, whose mission is to strengthen rural Minnesota communities, especially the Grand Rapids area.