As the year gets closer to putting itself to bed and I begin to get excited about taking two weeks of holidays over the Christmas break, I thought I’d put in one final post to look back on some of the things that stood out for me this year. I have a lot to be thankful for.

January – March

Well, nothing like starting on a ‘meh’ note…truthfully, January started out with a bit of a fizzle instead of a bang. I hadn’t done a great job of visioning my year ahead like I do every year – not sure why – and the early weeks of January were filled with a bit of uncertainty around what I was doing with my business. Thank goodness I attended the SOHO conference at the end of January – it gave me back the energy and passion that I have for this work and for being an entrepreneur and spurred me on for the rest of the year. Yes!

In this quarter I co-facilitated an online course in workplace innovation, finished up a consulting project for the Canadian Red Cross, sat in as an observer and a guest presenter for the ‘Facilitating Learning Online – Design’ course run through BCcampus, prepared with a team of facilitators to run a Liberating Structures immersion in Vancouver led by the wonderful Nancy White, and co-facilitated a web-based event on indigenizing the curriculum with Thompson Rivers University. Tracy Kelly and I also started the Victoria Liberating Structures User Group, which met several times this year.

April – June

The second quarter of the year brought the start of an e-learning project in patient engagement for BC Cancer. I co-facilitated, for Royal Roads University, an online course I developed called ‘Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) – Synchronous’ and prepared for and co-facilitated a community learning day as part of the Leadership Victoria program. My family took a vacation to Disneyland in early May and I celebrated my 15th wedding anniversary that month as well with my husband. Later in June, I co-facilitated some sessions at the Educational Technology Users Group (ETUG) conference in Kelowna. During this quarter I also started working on an online ‘toolkit’ for the University of Victoria focused on how to create online courses.

July – September

One of the biggest things that I tackled during the summer and early fall was the redevelopment of my website – supported by the amazing Niki and Kim of Brand Brilliant. Other projects included learning design work on sexual violence prevention education for a group of research universities in B.C. and taking on a temporary position in faculty development at Royal Roads University. I vacationed in Ontario and at Rathtrevor Beach in Parksville during the summer – co-facilitating ‘Facilitating Learning Online – Fundamentals’ for RRU during some of that time! I worked with Doug Kerr and David Stevenson to co-facilitate a Facilitator Development Workshop (FDW) for RRU in September. Victoria Hospice became a client during this quarter as well; I’ve been working on creating e-learning courses for them in Articulate Storyline about palliative care.

October – December

During this last quarter another new client – the Canadian Avalanche Association – came on board, giving me learning design and development work on an online course in avalanche training. I continued to work with UVic on a learning design project involving a number of face-to-face courses and I co-facilitated FLO Synchronous again for BCcampus and started work on a survey project for them as well. Through my work at Royal Roads I was able to attend the Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) Fall Institute in Maple Ridge and redesign an online course with RRU colleagues about using and teaching with Blackboard Collaborate Ultra. During this quarter I also put out an RFQ for subcontractors and started working with a few people who have been very helpful in my business. That had been a goal of mine this year and I’m happy to say it’s working out very well!

Well these were just some of the things that jumped out at me as I reviewed the last 12 months of my calendar – but I’m sure I missed a lot! As this year draws to a close I’ll be carving out time to look back on the year in more detail as I do every year, thinking about my successes and ‘learning opportunities’ – a nicer word than ‘failures’! I’ve been booking in a bunch of work for 2018 – thanks everybody – but it’s also time to think more concretely about things I want to accomplish over the coming year and make personal project plans. I’ve got some ideas…

Wishing all of you a wonderful Christmas and an energizing New Year!

Photos by the following photographers, via Unsplash:

Winter: PICSELI

Spring: Andrea Reiman

Summer: Ethan Robertson

Fall: Val Vesa