Roadtrip Updates

Coming to you from 30,000 feet this evening. We’re somewhere between Kansas City and Orlando. Tim and I just wrapped up teaching the Simply Strategic Volunteers workshop today at Westside Family Church in the KC area and now we’re on to Ocala, FL to offer the workshop again at Church of the Springs. Looking forward to getting there. We have palm trees and warm chocolate chip cookies waiting for us.

Here are a few highlights and observations from the trip so far:

• Emily is on the trip with me this time around. I love teaching with Em in the audience. She’s my biggest cheerleader and my best critic. I trust her feedback. She makes me better in so many ways. (She’s also a much better roommate than Tim.)
• Apparently there’s another Tony Morgan or someone with a name very similar to mine on the TSA “watch list.” (I can assure you, though, that they’re not looking for me…at least I don’t think so.) That caused Emily and me to get delayed at Midway in Chicago. We ended up having to take a later flight than the rest of the crew. Southwest took care of us, though. First time on Southwest. They’re very friendly.
• We got to hang out with the team from Westside on Wednesday. Dave Cox, the senior pastor, took over a very traditional church of only around 100 people about 17 years ago. Now Westside is running close to 5,000 people in a brand new building. They’ve also launched their first multi-site location about 20 minutes from their new campus. Westside has a big vision to impact their community, the region, underprivileged people in Kansas City and four international communities in places like South Africa and India. Dave is a very encouraging leader, and his team is top quality. We had a great experience at Westside. Hope we can go back sometime in the future.
• I don’t normally do this, but I’m going to let Emily have the honor of doing the first hotel soap report for this trip. Emily: “We stayed at the Chase Hotel Suites in Overland Park, KS. I’m a novice at this hotel soap thing. But, given my limited experience, I’d say the Chase Suites had pretty good soap. It was pretty big for hotel soap, but it didn’t have a pleasant smell. I’d give it a B+.” Nice job Em.
• I wish the workshop Tim and I teach was called “First Impressions.” I think more people would attend.
• Met a couple of fellow bloggers today. Brad Hinman and Jim Walton caught me at the end of the day to say hello. I thought that was nice of them. Of course, they didn’t attend my workshop. They were in Kem’s communications workshop instead. I wish the workshop Tim and I teach was called “Communications.” I think more people would attend.
• I got an email message from another cool person today responding to my five questions. Can’t wait to post it. I really respect this guy. He’s freaky smart, and he makes me laugh. I love people like that. Only problem…he used to work for Apple. Check back tomorrow for his response.