The Coordinator is an active manager of daily operations, ensuring that the program runs smoothly and efficiently. The Program Coordinator provides a vision, plan, and leadership for program development, training, and performing evaluation on staff.

Here at High Trails we have 4 coordinators and 2 program coordinators. These coordinators make sure operations run smoothly so that instructors can go out and enjoy their job teaching our students while feeling like they have a support team there anytime they need help. The program coordinators act as this support while also making sure that program is running smoothly and to keep the High Trails family excited to teach and inspire the many students that come every week.

As a coordinator we carry out a three week rotation in which we act as an AM coordinator in charge of supporting operations in the morning for one week, PM coordinator in charge of supporting the nightly operations for one week, and one week in the field teaching students.

The most important part of our job is in the position title itself, SUPPORT coordinator. We are the go to person for most things. If a student needs a change of clothes or extra layers we hike out to the group and take it to them. If a student is misbehaving we are the first to talk to them and address the behavior and support the instructor by giving consequences. If something is not running on site or needs to be repaired, we get our tool belt on and fix it. We make sure that the week happens smoothly and, metaphorically speaking, if there are rough patches we sand them down.

As Program Coordinator, I have been developing my leadership skills and learning from my colleagues and employers. I have come to realize that one of the qualities of a great leader is the ability to communicate well with their team, and to be a great communicator one needs to be a great listener. To this effect, we decided to set monthly meetings in which the whole team could come together and go over our problems, issues and concerns, as well as those that are always brought to us by our instructors. We could discuss them as a team and come up with solutions that we all have a part in. With regular and frequent meetings we would be able to cut down in the inconsistencies in programming and operations between our two sites, Edwards and Nawakwa, relieving confusion and frustration for instructors.

We met as a team on the first Friday of the season and decided to meet monthly throughout the rest of the season. We reviewed the last season and came up with individual goals for ourselves for the new season. We all decided that it was important that we rotate between sites regularly as coordinators to create more consistency as well as becoming familiar with all instructors and how they work. We discussed the possible rotations and their benefits and possible problems and came up with a rotation that sounded right for everyone.

Throughout the meeting all the coordinators had an opportunity to give input on issues and as a team we had an opportunity to have open dialogue and come up with feasible solutions that we could implement the next week. With all of us present we had the ability to discuss every item on the agenda clarifying any miscommunications and misunderstandings and actually coming up with action plans.

Plans that have been implemented since our last meeting include our new shift rotation, assigning inservices to teach, a new inventory protocol for our High Trails items, and giving the support coordinators more responsibilities in programming by assigning them projects to work on while they have extra time during their shifts. I am excited for the next meeting to see how everyone is doing. Every time I have the opportunity to sit and communicate with this team I become more motivated as a leader and happy to be a part of this organization.