Welcome to my website! I fell asleep last night thinking about what this space could become. I expect it will evolve over time. I do not know how many people will read it, but I am glad to have a place to share what I am learning and working on.
The past few weeks have been a busy time of transition. I moved from unemployment into a new professional opportunity. At the same time, travel basketball season began and the Premier League got underway.
Having been unemployed since November, I had plenty of time to think. At some point, I had to make a deliberate choice to keep moving forward and look for reasons to stay positive, even when I felt cynical. Things have not worked out perfectly, but I am making progress and am excited about what comes next professionally. I feel fortunate to have this opportunity.
As I start this new career, my basketball commitments have picked up too. I love the chance to volunteer as a coach and board member. Since last fall, I have served as Coaching Director, which makes me responsible for identifying and developing the coaches in our organization.
I care deeply about how our coaches work with our players. Recently, I developed training materials and began presenting them to our coaches. You can find them under the Coaching tab. I hope they help our coaches prepare for a successful season.
I have also been helping with our tournament and scheduling. The tournament is a lot of work, far too much for one person. Years ago, when I was president of the nonprofit, I made a real mess of it and learned plenty of lessons. This year, registrations are up significantly from last year. Much of the credit belongs to our volunteer Dan, who leads the tournament. I have built a few automations to help with planning, and I hope they save our volunteers time.
Scheduling has been another opportunity to learn. The volunteer who handled it moved on when his son entered high school. He managed an often-thankless job that requires a great deal of manual work. I have been testing ways to automate parts of the process and reduce the burden.
I have gone from having too much free time to being pretty busy. Through it all, the common thread has been opportunity: a new career, new ways to serve, and new problems to solve. This should be a fun winter.
If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read.