Keep

Opportunities to develop communities of like-minded folks, in particular like-minded in the sense of energy and commitment to the mission (which is, perhaps a characteristic of branch boards and higher levels of the organization rather than branches in general who have a different “take” on “like-minded”).

Discard

Electing the national board (except, perhaps, for a couple of tokens). That is madness.

Change

How we decide who gets what messages — the Association has little real nead for the list of officers (other than to provide the lists back to the branches/states) but they *do* need to know who wants to hear about what kind of information (e.g. programming ideas, communications key messages, membership ideas). The interest in these messages is a characteristic of the individual (and should appear on the individual’s record not on the organization’s record) with support for many people getting the same message. [It’d also be a way to tally votes on who’s interested in what.]

How we collect dues. This MUST start going through national, sooner rather than later.

Add

Paid positions for grass roots support (to replace some of the functions now served by states and regions between the national level and the grass roots). This could, for instance, provide “news from outside your community” inserts for branch newsletters if the states (or corresponding volunteer groups) decide to drop their own newsletter.

I’ve vision of an AAUW that allows groups to call themselves branches only if they are really advancing the mission. Other names could be found for other clusters of folks who are hanging together for other reasons, but could we come up with a way to enforce the “use of name” without (horrors!) layering on yet another set of bureaucracy?

When Pat Nichols talked about “speaking truth to power” did he envision (did we envision) holding current branch leaders accountable for progress towards the mission? [Where, really, is the power vested in the organization??]
When Jackie Woods challenged branches to “deliver programs that reflect 21st century trends” and “be advocaces for equity, access and change”  what was her vision?

Can we make changes that allow us to have a significant affect on the society around us? Or are we limited to measuring “activity” and will we continue to be focused on process?

The Organizational Structure and Governance task force is doing a SWOT analysis for the various levels of the organization. Thinking abou this led me to a SWOT for the group:

Strengths

• Core group of committed, engaged members who care about the outcome of the process

Weaknesses

• Limited diversity in the core group — cultural biases represent our current membership
• Difficulty getting all to the same level of understanding of how the change process has evolved since 2004 (or even 2000)

Opportunities

• Can craft recommendations that offer a radically different way for Association members to organize themselves

Threats

• Current members may silently reject the recommendations and either vote with their feet (by dropping out) or hang on paying only lip service to the change.
• If the new structure (and the entire new brand) is not “sold” well enough to new constituencies, this work will do nothing to stem the historical decline.