WGA Announces New Committee Structure

[GeoPink]

If you’ve read the news article on our front page, you’re aware that the WGA is making some fun new changes to how business gets done. We want to increase our community involvement and give our membership some real opportunities to get involved in the work of the WGA. In order to help the WGA accomplish more, we’ve formed three special committees to help us carry out our mission.

The current committees are the Campout Committee, Picnic Committee and the Community Education Committee. And even now, the board is having discussions on the formation of a Website Committee to give our webmasters the added help they have requested.

• All committees will be made up of both Board members and WGA Members or Friends.
• The committee members will serve for roughly one year terms and can serve more than one term.
• Committee members will have access to special Leadership Forums set up for each committee to carry out their work.
• Committee members should be contributing members of the committee, helping plan and execute the goals and work of the committees.
• Committees will elect from their own two co-chairs, only one of which must be a board member.
• Committees will be filled with volunteer board members and a reasonable number of members from the WGA community on a “first come, first serve” basis.
• Event Committees will be formed roughly one month after the prior event in which they planned. Other committees will be formed roughly one month after the Board’s annual organizational meeting.

Look for Volunteer Threads in the Announcements Forum to volunteer for these new committees.

Thank you in advance for volunteering to serve on these committees.

[bnb]

Do the committees have decision making authority or do all decisions go back to the Board of Directors for vote?

[GeoPink]

I would gather that the board would not want to decide which pancake mix to serve at the breakfast or the brand of water we give away at the picnic.

I would also guess that the board would want to have a say in the CommEd Committee purchasing 30 GPSr units for members and groups to use.

So the answer is that these committees do have decision making authority, within reason.

[bnb]

In my opinion, then, the Board needs to specifically define where the committee has authority. Perhaps it should be within a certain budget or some other limiting factor. If the committees must bring every decision to the Board for a vote there is less of an advantage in having a committee structure.

For example, does the Campout Committee have the authority to determine the fee schedule (t-shirts, camping, pancake breakfast) or does that go to the Board? Can the Education Committee spend money on literature without Board approval? Can the Picnic Committee authorize a Lake Superior cruise for the committee members to determine the practicality of a WGA picnic on Madeline Island? 😀

[bnb]

*I think it would be worthwhile to see a list of each committee’s membership – both Board and members-at-large – once finalized.

*Is it the intent, most specifically for the picnic and campout, that the committee completely runs the event or will the entire Board be as available as possible?

[zuma]

Hi BnB,

All very good questions, and thanks for raising them. Yes, extent of authority needs to be spelled out. I think in general, we foresee independent decision making within reason by the committees, and close involvement by the BOD in all committees. All committees will have at least one of the co-chairs be a BOD member, and will have several other BOD members on the committee, so I would expect a close working relationship between each committee and the Board.

That said, your questions are good, and perhaps we can spell this out a bit better.

zuma

[GeoPink]

@bnb wrote:

*I think it would be worthwhile to see a list of each committee’s membership – both Board and members-at-large – once finalized.

Can Do.

@bnb wrote:

*Is it the intent, most specifically for the picnic and campout, that the committee completely runs the event or will the entire Board be as available as possible?

It is the intent that the committee run the event. Board members outside of the committee that would like to participate are welcome to help out.

[GeoPink]

@bnb wrote:

In my opinion, then, the Board needs to specifically define where the committee has authority. Perhaps it should be within a certain budget or some other limiting factor. If the committees must bring every decision to the Board for a vote there is less of an advantage in having a committee structure.

I foresee this as something that we will probably deal more with at our September meeting once we’ve given this time to work a little. We will be doing more with budgeting then, and I could see that being one of the “limiting factors”. For now, I guess, it falls on the heads of the board members on the committee and/or the co-chairs to bring any issues up with the board if needed.

@bnb wrote:

For example, does the Campout Committee have the authority to determine the fee schedule (t-shirts, camping, pancake breakfast) or does that go to the Board? Can the Education Committee spend money on literature without Board approval? Can the Picnic Committee authorize a Lake Superior cruise for the committee members to determine the practicality of a WGA picnic on Madeline Island? 😀

My personal opinion would be yes, unless there are major changes; yes, within reason; and if it helps to get people to volunteer for the picnic committee, why not? 😀

You are correct, in pointing out that there are no clear definitions of areas of responsibility, etc. But this is all part of the growing we are doing.

Again, just my thoughts…

[bnb]

@GeoPink wrote:

@bnb wrote:

*I think it would be worthwhile to see a list of each committee’s membership – both Board and members-at-large – once finalized.

Can Do.

Did I miss the listing somewhere?

@GeoPink wrote:

@bnb wrote:

*Is it the intent, most specifically for the picnic and campout, that the committee completely runs the event or will the entire Board be as available as possible?

It is the intent that the committee run the event. Board members outside of the committee that would like to participate are welcome to help out.

The “welcome to help out” part bothers me. I’d like to see more of a committment from the Board. I see the committee as the planners but being able to rely on the Board as workers, where necessary. Otherwise, we are right back to a small group of people having to give *all* on the event day(s).

[bnb]

GeoPink, back in April you said you could post the membership of the committees. Did you do that somewhere and I missed it?

[GeoPink]

Nope, you didn’t miss it. I’ll get around to that soon here. I’m planning on trying to use the wiki thing to make some pages pertinent to the Committees and these would include the membership list.

I’ll let you know personally when I get this done, though don’t hold your breath… I’ve got Adopt-A-Highway events to plan and coordinate, Brown County meeting to attend and hopefully speak at, not to mention my by-laws mandated duty as VP to inventory and track all WGA Property (also gonna be a wiki thing.)…

If anyone needs a list of current committee members in a non-formal way, please post here and I’ll stick it somewhere in this thread temporarily.

[bnb]

Yes, I’d like the informal listing of whose on which committees, including which BOD are on each. Couldn’t someone from each committee just look at their forum membership and post it?

Also, since the campout is over, I assume the campout committee is disbanded and a new one will form for next year’s campout. Is this true?

[The5Xplorers]

The Picnic Committee consists of:

Cache_boppin_BunnyFuFu
Cheesehead Dave
CommanderUSN
grcarlson
GrouseTales
hotdogs_off_trail
Jeremy
LightningBugs Mum
The5Xplorers
zuma

[edited to remove GeoPink]

[GeoPink]

@bnb wrote:

Also, since the campout is over, I assume the campout committee is disbanded and a new one will form for next year’s campout. Is this true?

Yes, we will be doing that. Currently we are assembling our board volunteers for the campout committee on the BoD Forum. Then we will be opening up the committee to the membership.

[GeoPink]

The Community Education Committee is:

Auntienae
Cache_boppin_BunnyFuFu
Coastiegirl04
hotdogs_off_trail
kent1915
LightningBugs Mum
Team Deejay
The Tapps
zuma

The Website Committee is:

abcdmCachers
Averith
Buy_The_Tie
Cache_boppin_BunnyFuFu
Cheesehead Dave
czernicachers
decdogg
Empty_One
Jeremy
kbraband
Lostby7
philephool
rpaske
tyedyeskyguy

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