Leaders in Field Training: A Wonderful Week 1!

Every week, each of our 11 Leaders in Field Training (LIFT), will be providing you with an update on how things are going at their sites. Here is their feedback from their first week on-site with the youth!

Hayward: This week for training has been great! Everyone already feels like a family.  Everybody is ready to get out and help the community be green. Our Energy Specialists want to participate in everything. They’re all excited for the summer. Today, for example we all went to do some canvassing in downtown Hayward and one ES got 12 referrals in a hour.  We already see improvement in communication skills. The community is excited to see that young teenagers, some as young as 15, are already being trained to have professional skills. Some residents are super excited to be saving on their energy bill. One client’s bill was $450.00 for PG&E and he’s excited to see how much money he will save after our Green House call. We already done four Green House Calls.  Each team of 2 has already had hands-on experience. Each team is also getting familiar with their teammates and already finding strategies to improve. As you can see, Hayward is already at a good start and everyone is willing to work hard in order to reach our site’s goal.-Isabela Guzman

Albany/Emeryville: This week in Albany and Emeryville, we started a great week of training with Big Booty! After things settled down during the first day, our Energy Specialists and Managers started showing some positive characteristics as they opened up during the week.  I started noticing that the ES’s were building a rapport through the Team Building Exercises that we played, like the Human Knot, the Orange Game and Green House Story Telling. Anna has the site rolling like a greased wheel, while Naveed has already set up three outreach events and tabling opportunities for next week. Both of the managers support each other, as managers should. The practice Green House Calls needed minor adjustments, but every ES infused his or her own character and passion into the job and this really shined through. They showed resiliency throughout the training and I am sure they are ready to provide the kind of service that Rising Sun Energy states in its mission statement.-Ilana Ramos

San Leandro: We spent this first week in San Leandro getting to know each other better and preparing for the next six weeks of Green House Calls.  I was impressed by how fast our site bonded.  We consider ourselves family, even though we come from such different social and economic backgrounds.  At our site, the managers stressed the importance of the funding stream and elevator pitch so that the Energy Specialists can accurately promote the program.  We are all excited for our first week of Green House Calls next week.  San Leandro’s the best!!!-Will Rich

Livermore: This week in Livermore has gone very smoothly.  I would mention how much growth I’ve seen in my team, but we have a great group of ESes and they’ve been on top of it since day one.  I was amazed at how fast they were able to get into the rhythm of a house call and develop an effective elevator pitch.  The team is really bonding and the individual pairs are beginning to learn how to work most effectively with each other. It’s going to be a great summer!-Drew Royster

Richmond: This week, Richmond Energy Specialists have come a long way. They were very receptive of all information and training received. Our team members have all come from a hard background and are now on track to making a major change in their lives. Now they are able to properly communicate facts on energy efficiency and deliver powerful elevator pitches. All of this training has boosted major confidence within them and, due to their excitement, they are ecstatic about going out and serving the community from the bottom of their hearts.
Yesterday was our first day out in the field and our Energy Specialists did a terrific job assessing the different homes according to the home owners/renters and management team. Our Energy Specialists are Lacoya, Marquell, Derricka, Peter, Harvey, Chris, D.J., Gage, and our newest member Alex. Our wonderful management team consists of Kevin Tanouye and Andre’ Gonzalez. I am your fellow L.I.F.T. Louis Davis, Jr. and this is the great news from Richmond, California!-Louis Davis

San Mateo: Rising Sun’s newest site, San Mateo is off to a great start. This Monday marked the first day of training for all of the new (and returning) Energy Specialists, and it was quite a success. After meeting plenty of people from each of the 11 other sites, we finished off the week by meeting near our site back in the Peninsula. The majority of Tuesday and Wednesday were spent discussing global climate change, thermodynamics, and the procedure for carrying out a Green House Call. Though this required long periods of being indoors, Thursday brought a breath of fresh air, when we left the site and made three Green House Calls. Today, we are once again making a couple of GHCs to finish up the ES training! Woohoo!!! Everyone is extremely pumped to dive right into the real thing next week. Until then….-Daniel Spaizman

Oakland: This week in Oakland, the youth Energy Specialist team learned more than they ever could have possibly believed! Going over home thermodynamics, water meters, water efficient measures, compact fluorescent lights and so much more has opened their eyes to a new, greener world. As one Energy Specialist exclaimed yesterday, “I never thought we could learn so much this week!” Also, I believe that our focus on professionalism has helped teach life lessons that the youth can use in their adult careers. Oh, and we included some fun games like “Human Tank” too! Our team is thrilled to start our Green House Calls!-Chris Luther

Union City: This week in Union City we had training for all our youth! We have a really good bunch of people, mellow yet silly at the same time. Training of course started out with lots of questions about what a green house call is, how everything works and much more. They may have gotten a little cabin fever since it was raining so we couldn’t go outside but they pulled through and paid attention. When things got slow we’ve started turning to our new favorite game called ninja. You have to stand, pay attention and get your reflexes going so it helps wake everyone up and it doesn’t take too long.
We had out first appointment yesterday and they finally got to see exactly what happens. Some were surprised by how easy the actual installation part was but many of them were nervous about the education and speaking to the client.  After we got back and talked to them about it, we did a lot of introduction and closing practice and they all improved a lot. We had them write some feedback down for us to read and many said that practice helped them feel more confident for the Green House Calls this coming Wednesday.
Today, we did another appointment and they got to do even more installations and practice. A few of them took notes and we discussed them when we got back and that helped a lot of people. They were able to see the things that could and do go wrong and talk about different ways to avoid those problems so that the site can run smoothly.
All the Energy Specialists have become very comfortable with each other and have definitely come out of their shells. We’re working on getting some of them to talk louder because they are still a little shy but the progress is visible each day! I hope next week’s Green House Calls go well, I trust our team will be able to do it! :)-Hannah Anderson

Berkeley: This week in Berkeley, we had a great week filled with a combination of learning and fun!  Our group of 12 (8 Energy Specialists, 2 Managers, 1 LIFT, and 1 volunteer) have all worked extremely hard not only to learn all the new energy efficiency material, but also to come together as a cohesive team!  Fortunately, we are lucky to have some awesome Managers, Ross Deloria and Tamera Currington as well as some returning Energy Specialists who have been able to step forward and help communicate the information necessary to perform GHCs (aka Green House Calls).  Among the returners are Corey Cisney, Gregory Gee, Julion Nelson, and Ocean Robertson.   Our remaining Energy Specialists, Keisha Cornelius, Desiree Scott, and Waleena Griffin, and Jesse Thompson, are newcomers to the CYES program, but are all quick learners and will be valuable members of the Berkeley site’s team!  Everybody is very excited for next week, especially after conducting four mock GHCs yesterday, all of which went smoothly and enjoyably.  Stay tuned for next week’s installment of the Berkeley site CYES blog when pictures will be available!-John Hasse

Fremont: This week in Fremont the new Energy Specialists (ES) went through a very informative week of training and performed a Free Mock Green House call. Also, in the Fremont site we have two returning ES’s who helped the managers and the newbies understand how the program operates by using their past experiences with the program. And to end the first week of training, the Energy Specialists had a guest speaker named Ken Pianin from the City of Fremont Environmental Services Division. He gave a presentation called “How waste is handled, and how it should be handled”. Overall the Fremont Site is doing well and can’t wait to kick off next week with our first week of FREE Green House Calls. GO FREMONT!!!!-Arbaz Quraishi