To: National Leadership Council, State Council Chairs and Chapter leaders
From: Duke Welter, NLC Chair, and Larry Harris, NLC Secretary
Date: March 18, 2008
At the mid-year point between the 2007 and 2008 Annual Meetings, NLC Secretary Larry Harris and I wanted to share with you our perspectives on TU’s progress on a number of fronts. The support of our volunteers continues to be impressive, with over 618,000 hours contributed in the past year by our members and over $7.5 million in funds raised by chapters and councils. If you assigned a labor rate of $10 an hour to that hourly contribution, it would increase our hourly contributions to over $6 million and the total to $13.5 million. But we do more than that: TU volunteers represent the face of our organization in our communities and states, teaching people, working on projects and speaking up for coldwater resources. We need to honor that contribution.
We’re seeing councils working hard across the country with chapters on filing Chapter Effectiveness Index reports and using those reports the CEIs to figure out problem areas. Which state will be the first to achieve full re-chartering of all its chapters? We’ll work on a suitable prize to make it worth your state’s while to be first in the nation.
With the economy providing a challenging backdrop, you might be wondering how TU has been doing financially. For the last fiscal year, the organization had some unanticipated operating losses, partly due to shortfalls in corporate fund-raising and partly due to increased project expenses, but that $1.2 million can be made up from reserves and some belt-tightening without chopping projects, we are told. Membership has remained relatively stable at about 135,000 as of December 2007.
The Stream Access front has been relatively quiet, but we have appointed five members to the Stream Access Working Group in case matters pop up. Larry Harris will chair the group, with NLC members Tom Krol of Colorado and Dan Wisniewski of Wisconsin and Trustees Mark Gates and Sherry Brainerd. If your state or a chapter has an issue or potential issue on the horizon, feel free to contact Larry to discuss it. At the same time, Matt Clifford, Montana, will lead the NLC’s work group and act as a clearinghouse for access information.
Two conservancy proposals are under way, one involving support of an effort to conserve 2,100 acres and 5 miles of Connecticut River frontage in Clarksville NH, and the other a land trust/government/TU effort to purchase perpetual easements for access and conservation on all 40 miles of trout streams in Dane County (Madison) Wisconsin. Those streams include Black Earth Creek, one of the best-known Driftless Area streams, and some others whose names we tend to forget. Paul Doscher and Dan Wisniewski, two of the leaders of our conservancy work group, are spearheading those efforts, respectively.
You have previously received an early draft of the strategic plan, and were asked to comment on it. Many of you provided thoughtful and valuable comments. The Strategic Planning group looked long and hard at those comments, and the draft we saw in early February reflects, in our opinions, a strong commitment to the kind of complementary working relationship between chapters, councils and National that we need to get our mission accomplished (one can be justifiably a little chary of that term, for recent historic reasons) across the country. We can expect an updated version of the plan in the next month of two and another opportunity to discuss and comment.
Communications: Lines to Leaders is being revitalized and very shortly will provide much needed communication to Chapters and Councils. Conference calls among council chair group leaders and NLC leaders have been ongoing and providing the opportunity to discuss new ideas. Staff is considering one such worthy idea: to develop a list serve or web based site to allow posting of information and encourage discussion.
A new program offers start-up help to new TU chapters, both advice and some funding. For more information, contact Bryan Moore (bmoore@tu.org) , who has been working mightily with councils and building up several generations’ worth of frequent flier miles.
NLC Work Groups and others may have ideas for new initiatives or NLC Annual Meeting agenda items. Remember to get those ideas into the NLC New Initiatives Work Group by May 31.
Entertainment department: TU’s new TV offering, “On the Rise”, will begin airing on the Outdoors Channel in early April. Check the Outdoor Channel website for scheduling dates.
Annual meeting: Snowbird, UT, September 12-15, showcasing abandoned mine (restoration) and outstanding coldwater resources around the region. A full time coordinator is in place to organize this meeting and the 50th Anniversary Meeting in 2009. There is a Planning Committee hard at work on this meeting and plans are being made to involve Councils in the celebration in their own State. If your chapter or council has one or more members who might be interested in starting to examine its own history and tell the story, now might be the time to get that effort under way. Watch this space for more information.
Two ad hoc efforts are getting under way, and would welcome interested volunteers. NLC Reps. Ted Gardziel (CT) and Rich Thomas (NJ) are working with staff on an effort to coordinate and plan our various educational programs and take the successful ones to a wider audience. And Trustee Eaddo Kiernan is working to assemble a group to look at developing more effective ways to reach women and non-traditional groups and get the word out about Trout Unlimited. If you’re interested in either group, please contact the folks above or staff members Bryan Moore (bmoore@tu.org) or Dave Rogers (drogers).
Cross-pollination at work: Please consider inviting a trustee to join your regional get-together: Sharon Lance of Denver visited the Rabun Rendezvous in N. Georgia in January, and Squeak Smith of North Carolina will be bringing his success stories and tips on collaborative fund-raising to the TUDARE chapter project planning workshop in Westby, WI in late March. Larry will attend the SE Rally in Virginia in (early April), and I hope to join Western leaders at their Rocky Mountain regional meeting in CO in mid-May. Sharon, Loren Albright and Bryan Moore are meeting with Oregon TU leaders and Bryan has spent time with our Washington council and chapters as they move forward. If you are having a regional meeting or large event, consider inviting any members of the Board of Trustees in your neighborhood. It helps them understand what we’re getting done around the country and will benefit everyone’s understanding of how TU does its best work.
Upcoming meetings:
Next Executive Committee Meeting: May 8, NYC
Next Board Meeting: June 13-15, Yellowstone Lake Lodge
Annual Meeting: September 12-15, Snowbird Ski Area, near Salt Lake City, Utah
Thanks for all your hard work for Trout Unlimited!