Presidents-Elect, did you know there are a host of tools available to you online within the Chapter Resources section that can help you with your efforts to grow your volunteer base? Here’s a list of great tools available:

Within Board in a Box:

• Board Appeal: a letter designed to help you recruit a new board member
  
• Board Benefits Kit: a way to position the many benefits of being a board member
  
• CPA Recruitment Letter: a letter designed to help you recruit a CPA for your board
  
• Expanded Organizational Chart: to help you get ideas for how your committees and team could be structured
  
• Volunteer Sign-Up: template you can use to promote volunteer opportunities at meetings and gather names of interested members

• Job Descriptions for Key Volunteers: List of overall responsibilities of key committees
  
• Value of Volunteering PowerPoint: Slide show explaining the benefits of volunteering, including lots of great testimonials from volunteers across the country. (Scroll down to Volunteer Recruiting Tools-5 Parts)

Take a moment this week to check out a few of them. Report back on what you found that is going to help your chapter make 2007 a great year or share what other tools you have or think chapters need in this area.

Please feel free to post your ideas and comments in response in this forum. If you have a question or chapter issue that you'd like to discuss anonymously or have recommendations for this blog, please contact me directly at
ama-elects@linkageresearch.com.

Michele DeKinder-Smith
President-Elect
Professional Chapters Council

Posted by Michele DeKinder-Smith at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John, president-elect of XYZ chapter, has noticed that Karen, his chapter’s VP of Membership, always seems frazzled at board meetings. The chapter’s overall performance in the area of membership has been fairly average and consistent over time and John thinks Karen has been doing a fine job managing the role. However, she has kind of been a “one-man-band” and John has been stalling in asking her if she will stay on in the role for another year because he’s been afraid she is going to quit.

The membership role within John’s chapter has a reputation of being very demanding. John’s never worked in membership before, so he doesn’t understand all of the individual steps Karen manages, but he’s read in Board in a Box that membership should really have at least 6 volunteers. Karen has been going it alone for two years now and John knows if she leaves a lot of knowledge will be lost.

So, Presidents-Elect, what should John do to help his chapter build for depth and coverage in membership in his chapter?

Please post your ideas and comments in this forum. If you have a question or chapter issue that you'd like to discuss anonymously or have recommendations for this blog, please contact me directly at ama-elects@linkageresearch.com.

Michele DeKinder-Smith
President-Elect
Professional Chapters Council

Posted by Michele DeKinder-Smith at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happy New Year, Presidents-Elect! At the start of 2007, it seems a perfect time to think about our goals for the coming year, including our goals for our AMA chapters. Also, since your official leadership of your chapter begins in the middle of this year, it’s not too soon to be thinking about the team you want to work with.

That’s why January’s truth of the month is Great AMA leaders build their organizations to have depth and coverage. There are two reasons to focus here now:

• during January you will continue recruiting the board members you want working with you in 2007-2008, and
  
• now is a great time for a strong volunteer push to build committees that will help your current board complete its remaining 2006-2007 goals.

As you think about recruiting for depth, make sure you have committee members assigned to each board role. An ideal goal is to also have an “elect” for each board position. That makes for seamless transition when life situations occur that pull a board member away (temporarily or permanently).

With regard to coverage, it’s important first to understand and document the various processes and tasks associated with each board and committee role. Then make sure that for each task someone is cross-trained to be able to complete the task if the person with accountability finds they can’t get it done.

In short, by building a large base of volunteers, you ensure that there are lots of opportunities for volunteers to get involved (from small commitments to larger ones), which leads to better succession planning and greater assurance that the chapters’ critical activities in serving membership are accomplished.

What step can you take this week to make sure your chapter has depth and coverage?

Please feel free to post your ideas and comments in response in this forum. If you have a question or chapter issue that you'd like to discuss anonymously or have recommendations for this blog, please contact me directly at
ama-elects@linkageresearch.com.

Michele DeKinder-Smith
President-Elect
Professional Chapters Council

Posted by Michele DeKinder-Smith at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)