Section 7 Only -- Energizing the Board is More Important than Expanding It

The Committee chose not to pursue Marty's suggestion of expanding the board from 9 to 11.  We noted that when LifeRing expanded the board from 7 to 9 members a few years back, there was hope this would produce a more active board.   There was a sense in the group that the 7-to-9 expansion had not been particularly successful in meeting that goal.  We rarely get even 7 board members at a meeting.   The more central question how to make the Board we have more active.  

Any organization depends on a strong board to be successful.  Therefore, we encourage LifeRing to take measures to activate and engage all individual board members in the work that needs to be done.   Below are some of the options we discussed.  Others are less well developed, but we gladly submit additional notes to the board if desired.

First, the Committee noted that responsibility for fundraising will always remains with the Board, and that it is a very important one.  They, or a committee from the Board, should take a more active role here.   It was also noted that as LifeRing grows larger, support staff, and possibly paid support staff, would be useful here.  For now, however, the group felt it was best to focus this effort within the Board. 

The Board should actively seek other tasks to take on either as a whole or via committees.   In additions to fundraising, as noted in the discussions of the VPs, there may be a Board or Board committee roles in working with the Expo/Congress VP on program development, with the Information Services VP on online web content development, and possibly with the "External" Development VP.   Board committees serve to energize the board as a whole, but they also provide an extra opportunity for experienced Board members to pass the knowledge on to newer ones, thus providing an additional rung in the experience ladder.

The Board should explore ways to make the Board meetings more productive, perhaps by finding something other than the chat format.  Our Committee recognized finding alternatives is difficult. Semi-annual or quarterly in-person meetings would be great, but probably too expensive to consider.  A conference-call may be even more confusing and unproductive.   However, one of both of these may work for smaller Board committees.

The Committee felt that the Board would be strengthened by changes in our usual procedure for nominating and electing new Board members.  A nominating committee should be named and that committee should actively recruit qualified people to run for Board positions. A deadline for nominations -- from both the nominating committee and the general membership -- should be set at least a week before the annual Congress with, of course, ample notification to all interested members. Election of the new Board members should take place earlier in the weekend of the Expo/Congress – say, early Saturday – and several hours should be set aside on Sunday for the first meeting of the new Board, using an agenda handed down by the old Board. It may be useful that the whole Congress portion of the weekend occur earlier so that the business of the organization could be conducted free from the distraction of many members having to leave.