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by Paul Wilson |
2006
We had our first 2006 Executive Committee (Excomm) meeting on January 28th and we had a good turnout, with both some long-time activists and some new ones.
However, the new activists were not those elected to the Excomm during our annual election. That election was pretty much a failure, both in participation on the ballot and in ballots received.
Early in the Excomm meeting, I led a short discussion on “capacity building” among the attendees. Basically, capacity building is the recruitment, utilization and retention of activists, as well as members in general.
We, the West Virginia Sierra Club, have become a pass-through funding organization. This may not be a bad thing, as other environmental organizations in West Virginia have also seen membership and funds increase, but numbers of committed activists remain stagnant or decrease. That means the same administrative duties fall to the same people year after year.
The good news is that the Sierra Club campaign planning process is a proven method to get more people active, increase media coverage and raise more funds. Unfortunately for the Chapter, this process is short-circuited when we pass funds on to other organizations, which obviously are not going to do our capacity building for us.
In this newsletter, you will note announcements for the Chapter Political Committee and for the Membership Committee. In addition we have openings for an Outings Chair and an Executive Committee Secretary (a voting position on the "Excomm").
One thing for you to do is to consider volunteering for these committees. The other thing is for the chairs to call people and ask people to volunteer. That is how we had some new members at the Excomm meeting.
Be well, do good work and keep in touch. Paul Wilson, Chapter Chair
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