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JUGHEADS
Youth Juggling Company, LLC
5905 Concord Avenue
Edina, MN 55424
jugheads@comcast.net
612.229.3348
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[Back to Paul's Platform main selection page]
September 2008
“Strength in Numbers: Leadership”
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Parents and Jugheads who’ve been around for a few years know some of the struggles I’ve experienced running JH. (Archives of “Paul’s Platform” online offer a glimpse of my leadership ups & downs.) However, God has provided a series of means by which my confidence has grown regarding the longevity and strength of our company. For review, the Top Seven List of revolutionary events or trends which have buoyed this company (chronologically) are:
- Wendy supporting my efforts to make JH my full-time endeavor beginning in 1998;
- Parents spearheading our successful transition from Wise Guys to Youth Development in 1999;
- A surprising surge of a new level of grassroots parent involvement in 2000-‘01;
- UC Guest Instructor Dextre Tripp’s service from 2001-‘05;
- Wendy leaving the corporate world to more fully manage our home—and Home Office—in 2004;
- Moving JH to Colony Park Church in 2005; and
- Hiring Scott Richter, my first weekly right-hand coach, in 2007. (Aside: IJA accolades certainly aide our growth, but JH is greater than the sum of our awards.)
Regarding #7, Scott served four years as a club Assistant before coaching three days a week after H.S. graduation. Now, Billy Watson and Jon O’Connor join Scott as weekly Coaches. In addition to this expanding coaching staff, 15 Jugheads are committed as weekly Assistants, earning tuition for their own juggling day and providing youth mentorship on more of a peer level.
How can I sustain a juggling company of 146 youth? First of all, I can’t sustain it, but God can and does. Secondly, I lean every day on the Coaches and Assistants to not only continue to build on our past successes but to multiply the very vision and mission with which I founded JH through a childcare setting more than 14 years ago. To top it all off, we have a rental agreement with Wooddale Church for at least one year. Our strength assessment? We have the space, the leadership, and the sheer “youth power” (numbers and commitment) to give us confidence in dedicating another fruitful year to developing youth through juggling.