December at Talking Out of School and Stony Creek Strategy
- December Subscription Drive! -
Help Talking Out of School get to 1,000 free subscribers!
Do you know people who would enjoy weekly insights from Talking Out of School? Right now, we have just about 800 free subscribers. More subscribers helps TOOS be more “discoverable” in the Substack universe. Encourage your colleagues to sign up!. Or recommend it to your team or department members. One thoughtful essay or interview per week - all absolutely free. Who wouldn’t love that?
New feature for paid tier subscribers starting in January 2025:
Top Five Tuesday
I have an ever-growing list of shorter topics - everything from optimizing reference checks to building better senior team agendas - that are too short for full articles so I’ve decided to turn them into this new feature. This will be five tips or links or thoughts on a topic, focused on delivering short, fun, practical goodness every Tuesday except for the Tuesday when the monthly happenings newsletter (which always includes one tip) is published.
And the icing on the 2024 cake - an end of year sale on paid subscriptions - remember, you can charge this to professional development or a subscriptions budget.
The hot chocolate bar was always a hit for a winter study break - both for students and faculty. :)
December tip:
Internal communication is never more important than in the shortest busiest month of December. Don’t just make sure all your channels are delivering all the right info in a timely fashion but is the communication clear so that everyone is on the same page? Back in the day at Walnut Hill, we had kids performing in events left, right and center and all the faculty had to be well informed as to what to expect both in terms of attendance and in terms of what was possible for homework, etc. Don’t assume everyone uses the same “common sense”!
Upcoming Speaking Events
Five Leadership Essentials - SPARC (Summer Program and Auxiliary Revenue Collaborative) webinar series
December 12, 1-2pm
Honing Your Leadership Skills - Blackbaud Thought Leadership series webinar
With Peter Baron of Independent School MoonshotOS
January 14, 1pm (I’ll post a registration link when available)
Powerful Partnership: Skills and Tools for Head/Board Collaboration - NAIS Thrive 2025, Nashville, TN
with Moira Kelly, President, Explo and ExploElevate
Will you be in Nashville at NAIS Thrive in February 2025? I’d love to see you! My presenting partner Moira Kelly and I were given a prime spot at 11AM on Friday, Feb 28th to present on the head/board partnership. I’m arriving around noon on the 27th and will be there all day on the 28th. It was great to get a chance at TABS to meet with folks who were either attending the conference or who were at DC area schools, so if you’d like to have coffee and chat, just reach out.
More event booking in progress for 2025!
Featured Stony Creek Strategy services
Communications workshops - 75 minute - on site or remote
The line between parents as community member and customers keeps getting thinner…
Effective Parent Communication Workshops
Being a trustee often means you have dual roles in the community. In practice, how do you manage these, at times, conflicting roles?
Communications Skills for Boards Workshops
Leadership coaching services for heads and senior administrators
Managing people and schools is more complicated than ever before - my coaching philosophy is around exploring dilemmas to both tinker with solutions and reflect on your growing edges as a leader.