2015-2016


President History – Craig Friedrich
361 members (197 Active, 164 Sustainer, 0 Provisional) as of May 9, 2016


2015-2016 was a year of transition. It was the first year with the new Governance/Management split, dividing the Board into two groups: Board of Directors, responsible for the strategic direction of the League and Management Team, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the League. Throughout this year, it became clear that JLA was not completely set up for the new model which created some complications in really dividing up the responsibilities between Board and Management. Saying that, we established subcommittees of the Board that were able to accomplish significant work in Investments, Financial Strategies and Policies & Procedures, and we were able to work with the incoming leadership to devise an Annual Plan that will allow the 1617 Leadership a more effective way to govern the League.

 

Management Team

  • New JLA award
  • Members allowed to get fundraising points by volunteering
  • Hired a new office administrator, Sherry Yaniga
  • Reworked the budget for the gift wrap shortfall
  • Presented forward budget to Investment committee
  • Removed traditional track: making points the default
  • Suggestions email
  • Moved gala from Spring to Fall

 

Nominating

  • Created leadership position profiles for all available positions
  • Set up nominating schedule
  • Set up new interview process that creates consistency and reduces objectivity
  • Slated a complete slate of Board, Management team and Nominating Committee that was accepted by Membership

 

We ceased working with Robert Houck for bookkeeping, and started doing bookkeeping in house with Quickbooks.


Highlights of this year:

  • We voted in 33 provisionals to active status in December and another 26 provisionals in April.
  • We refocused on bringing back value to the JLA membership, reintroducing speakers at GMMs and including more discussion group/engagement activities at meetings.
  • Fully incorporated our new logo into all materials.
  • Completed our first successful year of our new community impact programs
    • Seeds4Success
    • Read2Kids

 

Financial Resources Council

  • As a result of the Mall signing a contract with Papyrus to undertake gift wrapping, we were forced to remove gift wrap from our fundraisers mid-year.
  • Financial Strategies (FDE) was reinstated and will handle annual campaign, grants and setting up financial processes for fundraising committees to follow.
  • Membership voted to continue all remaining fundraisers.
  • Gala held Pigs & Pearls in the Fall, Cash Bash in the winter and Unwind in the Vines in the Spring. All in all, they netted $8810.86. They are all set to move the big fundraiser to the Fall, a masquerade on October 7th.
  • Annual Campaign, organized by Maria Yeager and Susan Ridenhour, far exceeded their goal of $10K and raised $17.487.
  • Fun Run had a new location this year at Anne Arundel Community College and netted $7082.56, exceeding their goal.
  • Cookbook netted $5253.82 for the year.

 

Community Impact Council

  • 351 Volunteer credit hours offered (including credit for donations) with a total of 28 Community service shifts
  • We completed our first year with our new community impact programs
  • Seeds4Success (S4S) –
    • Hosted 6 student mentoring sessions
    • Organized and attended 2 college tours
    • Organized and attended 2 family dinners
    • Hosted a career day/family dinner
  • Read2Kids (formerly First Book)-
    • Hosted Read2Kids day at Pip Moyer recreational center
    • Held 5 Little Free Library (LFL) prep events and built 7 LFLs (2 placed with 2 more identified and placed over the summer)
    • Well over 1000 books were collected, sorted and labeled for LFLs
    • The membership voted to roll off Read2Kids after the 2nd year so that the 2 main projects can be staggered
  • COPR:
  • Opportunities included: 2 supply drives, 2 Kids in the Kitchen events, Homeless Resource Day and 1 Reading Fun Day with Center of Help
  • The Management Team, upon advise from the Community Impact Council, voted to separate COPR into COPR (in charge of fostering relationships with potential community partners and organizing the RFP process) and DIAD (in charge of day-long service projects)

 

Communications Council

  • Successfully completed the rebranding campaign for the new logo identity system featuring new a new corporate identity package (business card, stationery, letterhead, etc.)
  • Redesigned new marketing communications materials including brochures, the JLA Fact Sheet, outdoor signage and pop-up banners for internal and external use.
  • Launched and finished the final design of the new JLA website.
  • Implemented the newly designed eBlast
  • Issued official new JLA magnets and totes, as well as new tumblers, featuring the JLA logo.
  • Published a record high in blog posts.
  • Launched a social campaign #whyJLAvolunteers to engage members and promote our volunteer efforts across the community.
  • Formed a partnership with local photographer, Virgil Stephens, to offer headshots to members for career and personal needs, as well as helped JLA with styled shots of JLA members for marketing and advertising.

 

Membership Council

  • Education & Training:
    • Held 24 training events: Wednesday Webinars, Book discussion, cooking classes and beer tasting, “How to Leverage your JLA experience in your resume and an Election forum.
    • Held an Empowerment Workshop at AAMC.
    • Organized 6 Take 10 for Trainings, including topics on email etiquette and AJLI online learning
    • Lined up 6 speakers (Joanne Vaughn, Blythe Alberg, Lighthouse and YWCA reps, Amy and El from Here: A Pop-Up Shop and Tamara Ashford)
  • Internal Communications: moved from Communications Council to Membership Council this year with the understanding that it’s role was more in line with membership- oriented activities.
    • Hosted GMMs for the months of September, October, January, February, March, and April as well as the December Holiday Luncheon which reached maximum capacity at the Loews and the End of Year potluck.
    • Scheduled and coordinated in-home GMMs for the month of February. Unfortunately due to weather, 2 of the 3 meetings were canceled
    • Organized social activities: Annapolis Ghost Tour (20 attendees), Happy Hours at Annapolis Smokehouse and Blackwall Hitch and a Navy baseball game.
  • Provisional Committee:
    • Trained two incoming classes of Provisional members, totaling 59 new members for the year.
    • Hosted two Open Houses for the Fall Class (one at a committee member’s neighborhood beach pavilion and the other one at Metropolitan). The winter Open House took place at Carpaccio.
    • Assisted in a Fall Provisional community service project with Books for Babies where Provisionals collected over 400 new books for families in need at the hospital. The Spring project involved hosting a booth for children at the Homeless Resource Day.
    • 33 members were voted in at the December Luncheon and 26 were voted in in April.
  • Placement: main focus was the health of the committees and the happiness of the members.
    • Found 2 replacement committee chairs and placed the newly formed FDE committee.
    • Welcomed 9 transfers and interviewed and placed 30 Fall Provisionals (November) and 25 Spring provisional (April).
    • Brought back a March Placement Fair
    • Worked with the Webmaster to update and populate the website so that commitment tracking can be completed more efficiently on the website.
  • Consulting:
    • Collaborated with Education & Training and the Provisional committee by working together to host events.
    • Hosted breakfast (Fall) and lunch (Spring) following the Provisional bus tour
    • Hosted a social event in the Fall to welcome new active members and recent transfers.