As we have discussed in several past posts, the board has committed to improvement in five areas of focus this year. We have promised to:

• Improve accessibility.
• Hear from members.
• Communicate more.
• Increase accountability.
• Evaluate the organization’s structure and activities.

We’d like to share some of the steps we’ve taken in these areas with our members and with the general public.

This week, we’re going to look further at our next steps to Evaluate the organization’s structure and activities, this time looking at our recent strategic planning sessions.

Every year, as the board is re-formed following elections, the 107IST board of directors meets for strategic planning. This year, instead of meeting for several hours on a weekend day, the board held three separate sessions over the course of three weekends, to renew and review our mission and values, and to evaluate the organization’s structure and activities.

What we’ve accomplished

Roles and responsibilities defined: Over the years, the board has had a rotating set of executive officers, not always composed of the same offices and without clear guidelines for the roles and responsibilities for officers. In one of the strategic planning sessions, the board worked together to clearly define roles for president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer, and to spell out these responsibilities in the board handbook, so future board members will not have to start from scratch or rely on institutional memory when determining how best to fulfill these responsibilities.

Committee structures refined and documented: Over the past year, the board has worked to more clearly define the structures of committees, as well as the relationships among them. At another of the strategic planning sessions, the board reviewed the work from the past year around committee roles, responsibilities, and relationships, and worked together to refine and document these new structures.

Next steps

During strategic planning, the board discussed areas of focus for the organization for the short term, medium term, and long term. We will be evaluating these with respect to their relationship to ongoing initiatives from last year, and determining which of these fits under existing initiatives and which rise to the level of a new initiative for the coming year. We’ll share this work in coming blogs, as well as at the upcoming annual general meeting.