2017 Mid-Winter National Directors Meeting

IWLA 2017 Mid-winter Board of Directors Meeting

The Izaak Walton League’s Board of Directors met February 17-18, 2017, for its annual mid-winter meeting. Seventy-two national directors from across the country attended. The following is a brief overview of the outcomes of the meeting. A detailed staff report highlights accomplishments since the national convention and priorities for the national organization during the first six months of 2017.

Bylaws Amendments: Two amendments to the League’s national bylaws were submitted for consideration at the mid-winter meeting. The Bylaws Committee voted to table until the national convention a proposal to change the League’s name. The committee took this action to provide the national staff with time to develop a strategy to systematically evaluate the many facets of a name change at the national and chapter levels. The directors adopted a proposal to change the term “member-at-large” to “member” in the national bylaws to describe members who do not belong to a chapter.

Making the League a More Effective Organization: Building on a discussion at the 2016 mid-winter meeting, directors devoted considerable time to brainstorming about how they and other national leaders can make the League a more effective, visible, and impactful organization. The group discussed how they would like others to describe the League. The most common words or phrases used were:

· Common-sense

· Credible

· Science-based

· “Go-to” voice on conservation

· Champion for conservation

· Leader on clean water

· Wise use of resources

· Community-based conservation

· Open and honest

· Non-partisan

· Defenders of environment, natural resources

· Youth-serving/youth educators

Directors then discussed the training, tools, and other resources they would need to help the League achieve these outcomes. The most common needs articulated by directors were:

· Facts/fact sheets

· More information about the League’s history

· Media attention, publicity, ads

· Media training

· New leader training/mentoring

· Tools and resources from the national organization

· Talking points for chapter meetings/elevator speech

· Information on best practices from other chapters (which chapters are leaders on specific issues, projects)

Many of the requested resources are currently available from the national organization, and League staff will provide you with an updated list of resources in the coming weeks. Staff will also work to develop fact sheets and infographics (think of a fact sheet with less text and more visual elements) on key issues and the League’s history. The League will evaluate options to provide in-person skills training at the national convention and future midwinter meetings as well as via webinar.

Clean Water Challenge: At the 2016 national convention, members from across the country contemplated the League’s next big idea – an effort that would positively impact the issues we care about and help increase our name recognition. That bottom-up discussion produced the Clean Water Challenge. Together, our challenge it to monitor 100,000 more stream sites by the League’s 100th anniversary in 2022.

Danielle Donkersloot, the League’s new Clean Water Program Director, provided an overview of progress made to date in kicking off the challenge. She asked each National Director to take three simple steps between now and the national convention to ensure the success of the Clean Water Challenge:

· Identify a Clean Water Challenge contact in every chapter – the person who can be a link between the chapter and the national organization by April 1. E-mail the name and contact information to sos@iwla.org.

· Share a list of conservation partners within your community – groups with which local chapters are collaborating on water issues. E-mail contact information (and questions if you have them) to sos@iwla.org.

· Ask chapter members to take and post “stream selfies” (a stream-side photo), which is the first step in the national Clean Water Challenge launch. Visit the League website at iwla.org/streamselfie for more details.

With National Directors’ requests for talking points in mind, staff are developing a one-pager that briefly summarizes the objectives of the Clean Water Challenge, the key elements of the national strategy on stream monitoring, and simple steps chapters and members can take today. The talking points will be distributed next week and National Directors, Regional Governors, and other national leaders are encouraged to highlight the Clean Water Challenge when making chapter visits over the next few months.

Online National Directory: In 2017, the League is continuing efforts to modernize technology and cut costs by eliminating the printed national directory and replacing it with a real-time, online version. Chapter Relations and Membership staff briefed directors about how to access the online directory from the League’s Web site and provided an overview of its main features. The directory provides updated contact information for national, division, and chapter leaders and allows users to customize their data requests, such as running a list of officers in a specific state or the roster of a national committee. Frequently used tools such as the national bylaws and officer induction script are also online. Users can create a PDF from any data request or the full contents of the directory to print out or save on a personal computer or tablet. (We recommend that saved PDFs be updated to ensure the correct information is included.) In addition, the online directory allows users to search for any League leader at the national, division, and chapter levels by name (or portion of his/her name).

The online directory is password protected to protect the privacy of our members. To access the online directory, visit the Officer Tools tab at the top of the League’s website, log in, and click IWLA National Directory. If you need to reset your user name and password for the site, you can do that online or e-mail info@iwla.org.

League staff will host two webinars on February 27 to brief chapter and division leaders on this new online directory. To register for one of the webinars (they will provide identical content), please click the time you prefer to attend:

· Monday, February 27th at Noon ET

· Monday, February 27th at 7 p.m. ET

Communications Support for Chapters: To help chapters raise their visibility and name recognition locally, a priority for the national organization in 2017 is providing one-on-one support to chapters about how to use social media channels (such as Facebook) more effectively and modernize their web sites.

Communications staff highlighted a critically important issue for more than 90 League chapters and divisions: if your chapter is using a Google site, the site must be moved to a new template this year because Google is eliminating that original template in 2018. The new Google sites have an updated look and offer additional functionality, including drag and drop editing; more mobile-friendly page layouts; and easy linkage to Google Analytics to track visits to the website, including to specific pages, to maximize the effectiveness of site based on user data.

If your chapter or division is using one of the original Google sites, contact Amy Marathe (amarathe@iwla.org) for more information.

The League also publishes a quarterly e-newsletter for chapter and division leaders that provides an overview of what’s new in social media as well as specific tools and tips on keeping social media channels fresh and useful. Please share this with leaders at your chapters and encourage them to sign up by e-mailing Amy Marathe.

Share Chapter Results to Raise League’s Visibility: Another critical aspect of raising the League’s visibility nationally and locally is promoting results. At the mid-winter meeting, staff presented a new online tool to help chapters track their successes – and share those successes with the national organization. Having this information is critical because when individual chapter results are combined across the League, we can tell a more compelling story about the results achieved nationwide. These results are the “raw material” necessary to engage the media, policymakers, and potential donors across the country.

The Chapter Accomplishments tool is available through the Officer Tools tab on the League website. It allows chapters to input data on common chapter activities – stream monitoring, roadside cleanups, and kids fishing events – and access the cumulative total at any time. The League is starting this effort with a few activities that are common across chapters – the activities and results tracked can easily be expanded based on suggestions from chapters. Any chapter or division officer can add and access this information. Including results from a chapter roadside cleanup or kids fishing event will take 2 to 3 minutes.

League staff will host a webinar in March to illustrate how to use the tool. Please look for a separate invitation to register for the webinar.

Kelly J. Kistner

SD Division President