SECRET 2:

CHERISH EACH MINUTE OF TIME VOLUNTEERED

 

You will probably meet with your officers less than 12 hours a year.  In this limited amount of time, you are expected to run a Chapter with a full speaker program. 

 

This means that you need to capitalize on each minute that an officer will dedicate to the Chapter. 

 

Leading to the point that each minute that an officer donates to the Chapter should be treated as a golden nugget of energy that needs to be cherished and invested into the organization.

 

Therefore, time should never be wasted in conversations that lead nowhere and in negative debates. 

 

Every time an idea is generated, the Chair's mission is to find a way to evaluate and implement the concept. It may be to empower the person with idea or identify the first milestone that would support the new idea. 

 

Officers whose ideas are valued will continue to service reliably the organization. 

There are three secrets to learn:

 

 - Line up each officer's personal interest with the jobs at hand

 - use the rule of 1 minute = golden nugget to cherish

 - 50% of officers do the work

 

 

 

SECRET 1: OFFICERS INTERESTS

 

An officer who participates in the life of the Chapter is taking time away from his/her family, work, church, or other volunteer activities.  Therefore, it is very important to identify what reasons would convince someone to continuously dedicate their time to such a cause.  There may be a large array of reasons but at the end, they all fall into the same category:  the volunteer officer gains something from participating.  And as long as the benefit of participating is present, the officer will stay with the Chapter. 

 

Your role as a chair is to:

 1) identify the motivations

 2) line up the assignment with the greatest value to the officer. 

 

Here are some examples:

 

Having an impact on the community. For individuals who are driven by this cause, they tend to enjoy expanding the scope of the Chapter's mission and services.  Often nicely served by the function of "special program" development officer, they thrive on coming out with new ideas to benefit schools, engineers, seniors, etc.  Be sure to empower them to expand the scope of the Chapter and allow them develop new services.

 

Having access to new contacts that serve their business.  Often included in this group are recruiters and consultants whose business success relies on contacts and networking.  These individuals benefit from having the role of audience development, membership drive, and welcome host of the events.  They often also thrive on being speaker program officer as they have a reason to call anyone and invite them to be a speaker.  They tend to see value in the sign-up sheet and like to check the names, such as a secretary position. 

 

Being an officer gives a sense of importance.  For individuals who enjoy standing out in a crowd, or who are deprived of recognition at work, the Chapter provides a platform to be in the spotlight.  A nice role on the team for them is the one of introducing the speakers, sending the announcements by e-mail, or welcoming the attendees at the events.  They tend to enjoy seeing their photos on the chapter website, or seeing their names in the announcements and brochures, so be certain to give them many opportunities to shine and be seen. 

 

 

 

SECRET 3: HALF OF THE OFFICERS DO THE WORK

 

Being an officer for a year is a large commitment that an individual makes and it is unreasonable to expect that each volunteer's ability to support the Chapter can be continuous for 12 consecutive months.  Family commitments and work loads change on a daily basis often having higher priority than the EMBS Chapter.  On the average, for each event, only half of your officers will have the time and ability to support the Chapter.  Therefore, it is important to have a larger team of officers so that you always have four or five officers actively participating.  The beauty of this system is that each person will eventually make a great positive impact at some time in the future.  So, cherish each officer, whether or not they have a chance to get involved and help at every meeting or event.