Jonathan Baglieri is currently a Facilities Supervisor with the City of Niagara Falls, where he has worked since 2005. He attended Brock University from 2003-2006, graduating with a BA in Sociology.
Jonathan has been involved with youth sports in Niagara Falls since the early 2000’s, with involvement in local minor and junior hockey organizations. As a lifelong Niagara Falls resident, Jonathan has a passion and commitment for local youth athletics which carries into his work life, where he works to help create positive experiences for youth participating in recreation.
Community leadership for me is the idea of taking an active role in shaping the experiences of a segment of a population or community, and in some instances even the entire community as a whole. It would involve shaping a vision for an aspect of that community with the hope that others will follow that lead and vision and build on it.
” …it is my hope that I can work to better
serve the community in my current role
as well as future roles within the community.”
I am personally motivated to explore community leadership as I am currently in a role where there I significant community involvement, and I feel I have the ability to positively affect the lives of others. Working in a recreation environment, I have the opportunity to help create positive experiences for individuals, families and larger groups or communities that I interact with regularly. In exploring this further, it is my hope that I can work to better serve the community in my current role as well as future roles within the community.
I believe one of the most significant issues facing our community is a growing gap in affordability of recreation activities. Coming from a recreation background, I find that the ability to participate in various recreation activities can be restrictive due to the costs associated with them. I believe this can lead to a segmenting of the community based on members’ ability to afford to participate in such activities. I also believe this contributes to social issues where a segment of the population may feel excluded from the greater community due to a lack of ability to participate and be included.
I believe that it is important to work toward finding ways to reduce the cost of some of these recreation activities, as well as continue to support and develop subsidy programs for those who are not able to afford certain expensive activities. I think that the only way to develop a true sense of community, all those within the community should have equal opportunities to access these activities and programs.
I believe the most important attribute of a leader is the ability to listen. An individual in a leadership position needs to have the ability to listen and understand the various points of view from those working around them. A good leader can take that feedback and understanding to help shape the vision of a program, work environment or other similar situation.
I hope by participating in this program, to continue to develop my communication skills, which include listening and understanding those around me. I also hope to expand upon my current network of professional connections as I believe there are often other individuals in our community facing similar challenges and the ability to share ideas and get input from a variety of individuals can be a valuable leadership tool.