Week 3 At The Internship

This week at my internship on I got the pleasure of shadowing and sitting in on the Recreation Manager (Barbara) as she did her bi-weekly accountability meetings with all the staff that report directly to her. Those staff include the two Recreation Superintendents (Sara C & Sara R), the Special Events Coordinator (Hermelinda), the Marketing and Information Specialist (Liam), and Chandler Nature Center Manager (Sandy). At these bi-weekly meetings the staff discusses the line items of what they accomplished in the last 2 weeks, what they plan on accomplishing in the upcoming two weeks, and any current problems or questions. This was a great exposure because it allowed me to witness what each department managers and superintendents responsibilities are and what they are held accountable for. When working in you field of work you normally have some sort of general idea of what other peoples responsibilities are but given this opportunity I got to see in depth what specifically they oversee and what their boss (Barbara) expects from them. Each meeting lasted about an hour long and although they got business done it was refreshing to see Barbara interact with her staff with entertaining small talk and asking how things are going with their personal lives. Not too many people in Barbara's position like to spend time concerning themselves with the personal lives of their staff. Of the one on one meetings I found the meeting with Barbara and Sandy over at the Chandler Nature Center (who just recently changed their name about a day or two ago from the Environmental Education Center) at Veterans Oasis Park, this meeting was interesting because the facility is a new innovative center that is one of a kind and are doing some really cool programs to help residents gain some stewardship towards Arizona's native inhabitants, plants, and or overall impact on the world and environment. My self being the environmentalist that I am fell in love with this facility and the job Sandy has, she gets to manage this wonderful facility, work with youth, teens, adults and seniors, educate them about living in the desert and the importance of sustainability of our ecosystem. Although I have the up most respect for what Sandy does over at the Chandler Nature Center I know for me that her job is not what I would want to do a my career, the job of the Superintendents is my ideal jobs and maybe doing some collaboration work with the Nature Center would be my vision of the perfect unity. The job and responsibilities of the Recreation Superintendents (Sara C & Sara R.) are to monitor the up keep of several recreation facilities, collect and review staff the budgets of the staff coordinators who report to them, and hold accountability meetings with the coordinators as well. This day really gave me the motivation to aspire to reach the pinnacle of a Recreation Superintendent. For the remainder of week 3 I continued to work on my summer projects I was given.