President's Message

This month I want to begin to address one of our current challenges: developing and mentoring our future leaders. We have no standing procedures for leadership or committee development and so we currently rely on habit or history to guide us. As a result, it can sometimes feel confusing to find one's way into our community's organizational life. Unfortunately, history and habit are not serving us well at this juncture in our development. When the process and procedures for leadership development is unclear, group process can become disrupted.

I believe that one of the tasks of President is to take action on behalf of the health of our community. In that sense, I see part of my responsibility as putting into place those things that promote community and organizational well-being.

Last year, the Management Integration Committee began a study of how committees recruit new members. The MIC report and their recommendations are in the process of being written up and will soon be submitted to the Management Team. One MIC recommendation is the suggestion that each committee chair make available committee positions available to all Center members.

It's my intention to appoint a task force to consider issues of leadership development within the organization. The function of this Task Force is to generate suggestions for a uniform process for committee appointment as well as a process for mentoring leadership skills within the community. The MIC report will provide the Task Force with some background about committee life and suggested recommendations for improving communication within the Center about committees appointments.

It is my hope and expectation that the Task Force's recommendations can be used to increase our community's well-being. Of course, this is not something I can do by myself. I need help from all of you. If you would be interested in serving on this task force, please let me know.