Jimmy started off by giving his presentation on Friday night called "The State of the Grange" He showed financial reports, and membership numbers from the last 8 years. He showed how we dropped from 17,000 members down to 3,000. Allison and I set up the Jenga blocks seen below to represent how we view the organization. There are many holes and instabilities that can be fixed with active particiaption from our members. It can be fixed by offering fun and entertaining programs.
Here groups work together on three of the National Grange Priorities- they identified ways to reach those priorities and then they made a plan of how to execute their plans!
Here's the list that they compiled of "problems" with active membership- they then turned those negative statements in to positive ones- and figured out how to accomplish those goals. They ranked them with stickers, we took the 5 with the highest votes and gave each of the 5 teams a goal to reach the priority.
Ways to develop new leaders!
Ways to start new Granges!
Here a group works together to brainstorm and figure out a way to reach their goal!
At the end of the weekend, the Officers and Department Heads signed this statement saying that they will work to accomplish the goals.
Allison and I showed this commercial, to remind everyone that we don't want to completely change the organization, we just need to figure out new ways to do things.
Pepsi's Forever Young Commercial
We also gave everyone Rice Krispy Treats to also give an example of a way to think outside the box- someone came up with the idea of making a dessert out of a breakfast product. That took some thinking outside the box!
Thank you to all those who attended this weekend. Know that we value your oppinions and we want and need your help to make the NC Grange better.
The information shared and accomplished this weekend will be sent to all the Granges. Remember we are all a team, working towards the same goal.
As a participant in the meeting, I was impressed with the effort that was put into the weekend by Jessica, Allison, and Jimmy. We must continue to develop what was discussed during our session to strenghten our common goals. As an organization, we must remember and avoid the famous last words of many entities that no longer exist: 'We never did it that way before.'
ReplyDeleteThanks to everyone who participated, and especially to Jimmy, Jessica, and Allison for leading us.