By Judith Lloyd, President Los Angeles Chapter
1977-78 promises to be a year of growth and expansion for the Los Angeles chapter. Our objectives are to build a dependable management team to coordinate this year’s activities and develop potential officers for next year; to build membership and member participation by assuring that our meetings and other activities are interesting, informative, and enjoyable; and to plan and coordinate all activities in advance, then communicate progress or changes to each other on an ongoing basis.
Going back to our first objective, we decided to start building our management team by getting to know each other better. Our monthly board meetings are now held at officers’ homes or work locations rather than at the meeting room we used last year. We will also be having one or two social activities for board members during the year.
Another way we’re building our team is by assigning specific tasks to specific people. Nothing hurts a management team more than general, ambiguous assignments. At the beginning of the year, we developed written job descriptions for each office so that our officers know what their ongoing responsibilities are and with whom they need to coordinate each month. In addition, as new tasks come up, they are assigned to people by name, and the assignments are included in our board-meeting minutes. Since the minutes are mailed to board members a week before the next meeting, they serve as a reminder of each person’s commitments.
We intend to use committees to help spread the workload more equitably throughout the organization and to give more members an opportunity to get involved with the behind-the-scenes work we do each month. From these involved members we will develop our potential officers and management team for next year.
Our second objective-increasing membership and participation-begins with an aggressive membership committee to make contacts and bring new people to meetings.
To make sure our programs are meeting actual management needs, we solicited members’ opinions through a questionnaire last year. Using this input, the board of officers developed topics for this year during a brainstorming session. Each board member volunteered to research one or more topics and come up with a suggested speaker, film, panel, or discussion workshop. (To insure quality programs, we decided to use only speakers or films that had been recommended by members or that one of us had seen.) Information gathered by board members was then turned over to our vice-president of programs who makes final arrangements.
We are presently putting together a yearbook that will include a list of programs and dates as well as a membership and officer roster. This is an idea we borrowed from the Orange Coast chapter at a regional meeting earlier this year. We think the yearbook is an excellent sales tool as well as a handy reminder for present members.
In order to attract people back each month, we try to make our meeting place pleasant, the food attractive and tasty, and the meetings productive and enjoyable. We also keep our meetings relaxed and informal, and we wear embossed, easy-to-read name tags so that new people can get to know us by name. Our hospitality chairperson greets newcomers, helps them get temporary badges, and introduces them to other board members who act as their hosts for the evening. We let them know we enjoyed their company and would like them to come back.
Our third objective-to plan and coordinate activities in advance-involves using our management team. To facilitate team planning and coordination of all functions, we spotlight a different function at each board meeting. The officer in charge of that function is responsible for planning and conducting that portion of the meeting. The board of officers serves as an unofficial committee and offers comments, suggestions, and help as needed. So far this year, we have held an all-day officers’ training/ planning session and brunch in June, and we have spotlighted programs in July, membership in August, and the newsletter in September.
The major function of the president in our chapter is to see that individual activities are coordinated within the whole and that there are no breakdowns in communication. This means monitoring all activities within the L.A. chapter, Region #13, and S.A.M. national and communicating this information to our entire board. Coordinating, monitoring, and communicating involve a lot of details and are taxing and time consuming. Because of this, I try not to become too involved in the individual activities of my board members, and I delegate as much as possible. To facilitate planning and coordination, we developed a master calendar for officers to use in planning their activities and deadlines. It includes board meetings, monthly dinner meetings, regional meetings, and deadlines for our newsletter and press releases.
As we go along, of course, we discover better ways to do things the next time. Our S.A. M. chapter is constantly learning and growing. SAM-NI
This SAM News International article is from our historical archive, information provided is for reference and archival research about the activities and developments of the Society.