Planning for Wild Winters (and Playing in the Snow)
Winter Wildlands Alliance board and staff met in Nederland, Colorado to explore our vision for wild winters and how our mission gets us there together.
Over Halloween weekend, all staff members and 3 members of the WWA Board met up at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Mountain Research Station just above Nederland to discuss our work and share space together again.
At 9,500 feet elevation and with snow on the ground, our energy was high and brains alert for a weekend of conversation, playing outside, and rekindling friendships in-person over dinner.
It truly is a gift how much our board and staff can easily share joy and revel in each other’s company: whether sharing a favorite hike and vista on a local Board member’s public lands; or quite possibly setting a new record time in solving our 7-person human knot; or playing songs on our instruments next to the fire; or talking in depth about the path ahead and how we best represent and protect wild winters. And of course, we enjoyed our Halloween in costume together, getting our tarot cards read, and dancing the night away at the Caribou Room in Nederland.
We talked extensively through our vision for wild winters and how our mission, policy work, and other programming can get us there. We talked about how to build more capacity to take on the ever-growing scope of work of a national organization alongside and in support of 30 grassroots groups, 50+ retail and corporate partners, 77 SnowSchool sites and 100 Backcountry Film Festival screenings. We assessed our strengths and our weaknesses as well as the opportunities and threats we currently have in front of us.
Strategic planning consultant Katie Davis from 5 Branches Consulting expertly guided us through the weekend. Katie has worked closely with Executive Director, David Page, over the last month and a half to survey our key stakeholders and identify where we are so we can imagine where we’re going.
Moving forward, we are excited to share more with you as we develop and finalize a fresh new 3-5 year strategic plan. If you would like to share your voice in this process, please reach out directly to our Executive Director, David Page, at dpage@winterwildlands.org.
