March Message from the Co-Chairs
The OPALGA Board of Directors met on a cold Sunday in early February and assessed our work over the last year. There were a couple tasks with which we did not get as far as we would have liked, but there were many more accomplishments that we were pleased to have tackled and finished. We reviewed plans on membership development, membership outreach, programming expansion, community involvement, volunteer recruitment, and budgeting for an executive director for our organization.
At our retreat, we also continued working on a policies and procedures manual for OPALGA that is projected to be completed early this year. We believe that it is time to pass along the successful strategies and plans created by the toil of current dedicated people and by those who have gone before us. No longer should we reinvent the wheel with every change of leadership. We must develop a reproducible, communicable process that is followed for every important aspect of the operating procedures of the organization.
It is a daunting task. There is minutia in abundance. Many hands will lighten the work.
The prospect of completion is both necessary and exciting. Creating a policies and procedures manual prepares us for the next step in developing a not-for-profit organization— the external audit. Our financial security depends on our ability to show protocols for the organization’s activities—both day-to-day and special events. By recording our policies and procedures, the safeguards and our efforts to protect the organization will be visible for anyone to see.
