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by Paul Wilson |
2006
This is a busy time of the year for all of us. Holidays, family, traveling, what to buy for that special someone.
Yet, our environmental work and the work of the Sierra Club continues. There are newsletter deadlines, deadlines for comments on a plethora of issues like forest plans, mercury pollution, proposed power plants, and bird-dogging bad and sometimes really terrible legislation.
So who does all this stuff? It is not the staff: we have lost our Charleston position, and regional staff do not do the work of the chapters. That work is done by volunteers!
Right now we have a number of vacancies that need to be filled soon. And I do mean very soon!! Sadly, few of us have been working on volunteer recruitment and retaining those volunteers. Fortunately, the Sierra Club has some remedies for that.
A new program which is a result of the National Purpose/Local Action study will start a pilot project on Leadership Development. This project will chose just 2-3 chapters or groups to develop a leadership program around an ongoing campaign. The Pilot Project will focus on the areas that the NPLA study identified as most impacting Chapter or Group effectiveness, including:
• Engaging new members
• Recruiting and retaining activists
• Developing leaders and succession planning
• Strategy, deliberation and implementation
• Team building
• Organization building
• Generating conservation, electoral and outings program activity
• Community building
My message to you is that without the first 3 bullet points, the rest is difficult if not impossible to attain. We must fill our open vacancies for Membership Chair, Outings Chair and an executive committee secretary, so the day-to-day administrative work can continue. We do that by asking member activists to fill these and other leadership positions in the Club.
Please consider volunteering for a leadership position, or asking someone else to volunteer.
If you would like to see the results of the National Purpose/Local Action study, CLICK HERE.
Be well, do good work, and have a great New Year. Paul Wilson
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