This week marks the first week of classes in the new year. As we, the IME cohort, pick up where we left off, we reflect on and celebrate the past semester and its accomplishments. Our last and perhaps most meaningful project of 2017 was the creation of a strategic plan for the Lethbridge Therapeutic Riding Association (LTRA).
This plan was challenging as each IME group had to try to understand the obstacles and goals the LTRA has, in order to create a relevant and effective plan. To develop the strategic plan, we utilized the skills we learned in our design thinking workshop in order to collaborate and create impactful solutions. We found this to be an effective method to generate ideas, but needed to take a more traditional approach to compile the ideas into a format that made sense. Once we developed our plan we were tasked with presenting it to the LTRA board members. Each group who presented was filmed for the review of the public and the LTRA board. Based on the number of likes/views on Facebook for each of the videos a winning team was selected.
We would like to congratulate Franchesca Lee, Ethan Musil, Tasha Silver, and Austin Vandal for their hard work and dedication to the project and their success in winning this competition. We would also like to recognise the remaining three teams for their dedication and effort in building a plan for the LTRA. Each group did very well, and the LTRA has informed us that they will be using aspects from each plan to create their future strategic plan. This project was a great way to wrap up the semester. We are looking forward to our continued work with the LTRA and the exciting opportunities that 2018 will bring.