Ascend Steering Committee Takeaway

Event Recap

Ascend 2019 Recap From Steering Committee Member


by Sandy Mikita, Ascend Steering Committee Member
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    scend is the annual volunteer leadership team planning weekend hosted by ILTA. The in-person gathering of ten volunteer leadership teams provided an opportunity for peer discussion, key programming deliverables planning, cross-team collaboration, and sharing the ILTA volunteer leadership perspective. Ascend has become a crucial jump-start to planning the programs throughout the year that further ILTA’s overall programming vision and strategic goals.

    The 2nd annual Ascend Peer Weekend was held January 17-21, 2019, in sunny Orlando at Walt Disney’s Swan and Dolphin resort, the site of this year’s ILTACON event in August. Ascend promoted overall member engagement and volunteerism, and provided a networking opportunity for both ILTA volunteer peers and professional staff. The event helped attendees better understand the volunteer structure at ILTA and how each team contributes. Teams in attendance included:
      Board of Directors
      Content Coordinating Team
      Governance Committee
      ILTACON Conference Committee
      LegalSEC Summit Committee
      Program Planning Council
      Relationship Coordinating Team
      Strategic Relationship Liaisons
      Talent Council
      Volunteer Leadership Task Force

    The Program Planning Council’s strategic programming goals were presented to attendees, and each volunteer group spent significant periods of time meeting and planning their team goals and objectives and creating plans for 2019. Cross collaboration with other teams provided the benefit of sharing resources and skill sets while eliminating duplicate programing.

    At this year’s Ascend, a keynote from John Alber and Rick M. Reznicsek, moderated by ILTA Interim CEO Joy Heath Rush, provided strategic insight into changes in the legal industry and lawyer technology needs. In addition, ILTA also provided professional development for all attendees on the topic of providing feedback to volunteers where a panel of ILTA volunteers and staff shared insights on how best to provide feedback to other volunteers, which can be a new skill set for some individuals.

    A new Hack-a-Thon gave adhoc volunteer teams an opportunity to address important issues and challenges facing our association such as ILTA Awards, Diversity and Inclusion, Lawyer Involvement (addressing possible changing needs of the ILTA organization) and Collaborators and Competitors in reference to ILTA’s long-standing associations with “sister” organizations with similar missions. Feedback on these topics were discussed among groups then shared with all attendees.

    Ascend 2019 kicked off ILTA’s programming development, and provided the volunteers with the programming framework, connections, and inspiration they need to deliver outstanding local meetings, education, content and programming throughout the year.

    VIEW ATTENDEE PERSPECTIVES HERE