Thursday, November 20, 2008

Call Me Madam Secretary

Surprisingly enough, after working for a professional association for the past eight years and dealing with all kinds of boards and committees, I have never actually been a member of a board. Until now, that is. Last night, I was elected to the illustrious post of secretary of the Mid-state Chapter of the Michigan Mountain Bike Association. I've also volunteered to work on committees to help organize a chapter race and potentially some other activities.

I'm really excited about it, even though my last foray into volunteering for a biking association was an unmitigated disaster. You see, we had a great (albeit long) meeting last night. There was a pretty good showing of people (at least considering the amount of people I've seen in the past) and everyone seemed enthusiastic about the topics we were discussing. I think we can do some really good things if we are realistic about our goals and have people take responsibility for organizing them. There also seems to be some hope out there of still having a chapter team, but it will mean doing things a little differently.

We have a good group of people involved. (There are only a few girls, which is one of the reasons I'm glad to have been elected to the board. I can represent!)
Jake, the former president and driving force behind our chapter team this year, commented that it was the first time in a very long while that we actually had four different people filling the roles on the board. I think it's outstanding, because I've gotten to know the other three board members from being on the team and I think they'll all be great to work with.

I also have to admit that secretary was probably the only board position I would have considered. It was previously filled, but when Chris vacated his presidency, Chris Mensing moved to president and Brad (previously the secretary) ran for vice president. It worked out perfectly. My husband didn't even get mad at me like he did when I started that other volunteer debacle.

At any rate, look for good things in the future from Mid-state.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is excellent! Congratulations! It looks like things are looking good for your chapter. It's too bad Jake found so much frustration with it. I was at the picnic in May a couple year back and I have to say there are some really good people in your chapter. :-)

Laurie said...

Wahoo (women of) Mid-State! The team idea does sound interesting. As someone who was not on this past year's team, I'll be interested in learning more about it as things progress.