The BS Mentoring Program

Maybe spelling it out as the Board/Sustainer Mentoring Program would be a better idea.

Once again, I could use your collective input.  I am happy to report that our superstar Sustainer Representative, Marnie, has "sold" the Sustainer group on my mentoring idea.  She said they were "very enthusiastic" about helping our Board members to become even better leaders and to help strengthen our skill sets.  I think this is a great opportunity for each of us - we will have a chance to learn from some of the most accomplished leaders of our community.

We will match you up with a mentor and share your contact information.  Beyond that, it is up to you to develop the relationship as best suits you.  I will ask that you have the courtesy to call and introduce yourselves in a timely manner.  After that you may schedule face to face meetings or communicate by email or phone whenever you feel you could benefit from some experience and wisdom.  These ladies can be your sounding board, your insight into our community or your task coach - whatever you want them to be.  They can be on your regular "contact list" or can be called sporadically throughout the year when a need arises.  This is NOT meant to cause you more work but to offer you help with some of the things that you may find stressful as you wade through the year.  I know that when I took on the VP Fund Dev role, I could have definitely used a Kathy White who raised tens of millions of dollars for United Way on my speed dial. 

The task at hand now, is to match each of us up with the right women.   So, on that thought, will you spend some time reflecting on what you would like to learn?  I can broadly align some of you with a professional in your area of responsibility but if there is something specific (leadership, time management, public speaking, community awareness,  team building, networking, project management, technology,  ...) you are interested in, please let me know. I really want this to be a positive experience that you feel will make the time worth investing. 

We can use this forum to share thoughts or you are welcome to email me if you are feeling shy about admitting an area of interest.  I'll tell you that I still feel like a relative newcomer to GR and am hoping to align myself with someone who can teach me about the myriad philanthropic organizations that exist here.  I would love to broaden my knowledge of the community and increase my sense of community awareness.  Wouldn't it be nice to have a chance to tell all these organizations about the JL and to begin to market ourselves to them?

I hope you are excited about this opportunity.  It will certainly go a long way toward strengthening our relationship with the Sustainers.  They have been saying for years that we should utilize their knowledge and experience. I believe that this will make us stronger leaders and the league will benefit because of it!

Leah

ADVISOR GROUPS: Should we have New Member Chairs work with Membership Development to help place Provisionals, First Year Actives and Transfers into groups with similar interests so we can increase their likelihood of getting connected to the league? I am not sure where you are going with this one. If we are to have advisors I think that we should have them for the newest members with the option for more seasoned members. If we are going to work on having the special interest groups then yes I think that combo of the the New member chairs and membership development VP would be a good .
.WEB UPDATES: Should we set an objective that asks each Chair to submit an update on their committee work to our Webmaster (would include a schedule of when we wanted updates from each committee). Yes. I think if you set the expectations up front then everyone will know what is expected. A schedule with due dates would be essential.
RETENTION: Would it be worthwhile for the board to have a Done in a Meeting where we hand wrote a quick birthday message on 100 cards and then had Kathy mail them out twice a month for the applicable birthdays? I like the idea, but we did not budget for it and I am not sure where which line item you would take it form. I liked Shannon's idea of using the social media to acknowledge. It is free. Or you could maybe do something at GMM's
RETENTION: There has been a lot of discussion regarding a possible couples night out in the Fall to continue our 85th celebration. How do you feel about this idea? I feel this is really important to our newer members. They we very vocal on what they wanted in terms of a celebration.

Some Things To Consider

Hello everyone - all 6 of my blog followers!

It has been a fun JL week.  I have to admit I took a few days off from the joy of strategic planning.  I have been working with several of the Directors at the YWCA regarding the direction they would like to see our new project take.  Very exciting stuff.  I'll share more at the board meeting next week - that is just a little teaser to entice you to come!

Anyway, I received some great feedback from you all (and some nice complements too - THANKS) regarding our plan.  There were a couple things that I thought the group should consider.  Here they are in bullet format:

• ADVISOR GROUPS:  Should we have New Member Chairs work with Membership Development to help place Provisionals, First Year Actives and Transfers into groups with similar interests so we can increase their likelihood of getting connected to the league?
• WEB UPDATES:  Should we set an objective that asks each Chair to submit an update on their committee work to our Webmaster (would include a schedule of when we wanted updates from each committee).
• RETENTION: Would it be worthwhile for the board to have a Done in a Meeting where we hand wrote a quick birthday message on 100 cards and then had Kathy mail them out twice a month for the applicable birthdays?
• RETENTION: There has been a lot of discussion regarding a possible couples night out in the Fall to continue our 85th celebration. How do you feel about this idea? 

I think those are the open issues at the moment.  Please post your thoughts so we can see where to go with them.  I am working on the Timeline and Ownership columns for the Annual Plan now.  There are definitely some gray areas where objectives could be assigned to two different VPs.  I'll take a pass at it but be gentle with me if I inadvertently assign you something that you feel should go elsewhere...we'll have to work through it carefully.  The updated document should be in your inbox by the end of the week.

Leah

You asked, I listened

Well, here it goes.  I am officially the manager of a blog.  So, for the first disclaimer, I am not going to stress about my grammar here - sorry teachers - I am just going to follow the true spirit of the blogger and just write as if I was chatting with you over my beloved coffee cup, otherwise I will either A. look at this as a painful and time consuming chore and talk myself out of ever posting or B. add more stress to myself trying to write well composed and thoughtful entries.   Was that just a run-on sentence!  Aggh - The challenge begins.  

Disclaimer number two, this blog is meant to be ALL LEAGUE, ALL THE TIME so if you want to see pictures of my adorable kids, you'll have to friend me on Facebook - you won't see or hear about them on The RapidLeaguer.  When you post here, please follow the same restraint.  

Lastly, disclaimer number three, I have been convinced by other JL pals that it will benefit our league if I utilize social media networks to keep my role as President very transparent - to this end you can follow me on Twitter @rapidleaguer.  I am going to use that outlet to keep anyone (anyone?) who is interested, in the loop of my day-to-day league business; or, as I have been told to expect, my night-to-night league business.  Did I use that semicolon correctly?  Oh! Never mind, old habits.

That is all for now.  I'll start getting our Strategic Plan work up here next.  Thanks for following!