Dear Chapter Presidents:
You and your board members are cordially invited to attend the
Wild Ones Chapter Development Weekend,
August 19th – 21st, 2011
at the WILD Center in Neenah, Wisconsin.
Please mark your calendars today.
The goal of this weekend is to have chapter leaders gather to share and learn from one-another and get fired up about growing Wild Ones. Attending this event will give you a chance to network with other chapter leaders and learn what contributes most to their chapter’s success. You’ll be able to glean new and exciting ideas for Wild Ones events and programs, and learn/develop effective communications tools to take home to your chapter.
The weekend will include a set of small group workshops to be presented by and for chapter leaders on topics of most interest to you – the attendees. Here are some of our initial ideas:
- The “Grow Wild Ones Marketing Plan” tactics and ideas
- How to energize your members to volunteer
- Ideas on how to keep your current members renewing their membership each year
- How to publicize and “partner” with your local and regional press
- New ways and new places to find new members
- Plant sales and conferences—events to energize the public
But we need your input! There won’t be time to include everything, so what topic(s) would you like to see included in the weekend?What area does your chapter need help with?What area does your chapter excel in? Although we already have some leaders lined up, do you have leaders within your chapter who you would like to recommend to lead one or more workshops?
We also need to get an idea how many people are likely to attend. The more people who attend, the better hotel discounts we can negotiate.It would be fabulous to see at least one person from each chapter at the workshops, but the more the merrier, sowe encourage you to consider sending as many members as possible. While there will be no workshop fee, there will be some expense to attend—travel, hotel, food. Perhaps your chapter would be willing to assist attendees in these costs? If your budget allows, the national Board has suggested that a stipend of $100 would be appropriate for chapters to advance to members attending the weekend (though the decision to do so and amount are completely up to each chapter to decide). Please let us know how many would attend from your chapter.
Over the workshop weekend you will also be able to attend the annual membership and the quarterly board meetings where you will see statistics and results from the past year, set the goals for the upcoming year and get the chance to network with your national board members.
If you would like to bring other family members, please plan to do so. There are many things to see and do in the Neenah area. Lambeau Field, home of the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers, is just 30 minutes north and the EAA AirVenture Museum is just 30 minutes south. Internationally known Horicon National Wildlife Refuge is just 1-1/2 hours southwest on your way to the Aldo Leopold shack at Baraboo.
There is a tremendous amount of talent and expertise in our organization.Here is a chance for you to learn from others, and for others to learn from you.
If you use Facebook, please go to the Wild Ones Facebook page to add your comments and suggestions. We have added a topic to the discussion board to track everyone comments, or feel free to e-mail your responses to Jamie Fuerst at hit reply and answer the following questions:
- What topic(s) would you like to see included in the weekend?
- What area does your chapter need help with?
- What area does your chapter excel in?
- Do you have leaders within your chapter who you would like to recommend to lead one or more workshops?
- How many members would attend from your chapter?
Please respond by May 15th with these preliminary thoughts, ideas and numbers!
Jamie Fuerst
Wild Ones Marketing Assistant
P.S. We could also show the Leopold video “Green Fire” during some break time, if you’d be interested. Please let us know if you’d be interested in viewing this film.