HOW YOUR COUNCIL ADDS VALUE

Out of a Chinese fortune cookie came a small slip of paper and the admonition, “It may be well to consult others before taking unusual action.”

So when it comes to chapter opportunities and challenges, whom do you consult?

Try your Area Director. This is an officer with full access to MOAA and CAL-MOAA information and resources who will work in general and direct support of you and your chapter.

The AD is an individual who will demonstrate the Council’s value when members choose to work together.

Lessons Learned
CAL-MOAA officers, directors, and affiliated chapter presidents are in a position to share their experiences. After meeting individually, in small groups, and in the larger Council meetings, it’s possible to provide a wide array of answers to the question, “What have each of you learned lately that’s of value to the rest of us?” Do you have concerns about recruitment and membership? Or leadership succession perhaps? Or even finding good speakers for chapter meetings? The Council has, by its various procedures, methods, and systems, put into place a formal organized approach to learning. Opportunities abound for members to meet regularly to discuss substantive matters of common interest. Out of such meetings come not only useful and practical information but a sense of community and a heightened sense of being engaged in a joint enterprise. It’s not necessary to reinvent the wheel!

Research
Over time the Council has developed shared tools, data banks, libraries, methodologies and a host of other practical aids, all in the form of records and reports, just for one example the more than 1300 items posted to the weblog. The area director can assist with research, speedy response, and lower costs by once again avoiding reinventing the wheel. The director has access to all kinds of National MOAA publications and other written resources, essentially a “best practices” database. There is often plenty of information available about ongoing trends. Your area director can frequently say, “Yes, we’re already up to date on that issue and we have material to share with you.

Training and Development
The Council has been putting into place a structured orientation for area directors and is in a position to assist chapter officers and directors to understand their duties, responsibilities, and methods of operation, all in an effort to create a trained management group. We’re doing what we can to assist Council officials and chapter leaders to succeed, with emphasis on a comprehensive training management consulting capability. Typical of the materials available are guidelines, both process and content, for the chapter’s personal affairs representative, materials which have come from past regional chapter president’s symposiums.

General and Direct Support
The Council has been moving forward to design and develop certain support assets which should make life a lot easier, increase effectiveness and productivity, and help meet contemporary challenges. For example, COL Bill Reals, Area 6 Director, worked over a period of months with San Gabriel Chapter officers, providing advice and counsel at a time when that chapter was experiencing extreme difficulties. Again, CDR Bob Burke continues to make the Council’s website and weblog available to us, technology making it possible for all members to participate in the interactive statewide, effectively worldwide, communications effort. Upon invitation, the state director will visit the chapter, attend a board or general membership luncheon or dinner meeting, provide issue or other briefings and serve as guest speaker.

Multi-disciplinary Assistance
Council and chapter members obviously come from all walks of life, a wide variety of backgrounds, and often with significant experience differences. It makes it possible for a Council officer or chapter leadership group to have the expertise of others outside their own disciplines. Do you need a certified public accountant to understand how to file the new IRS 990N form? Do you need a lawyer to evaluate the liabilities associated with your financial management system? Do you need a management consultant to help bring better methods to chapter affairs? The Council makes it easy to find someone willing to bounce ideas around, provide a quick favor, and in short offer informal assistance. The Council, operating all over California, can make interactions possible; when people have access, and communicate, they are more inclined to do favors for each other.

Understanding MOAA
MOAA, currently at around 367,000 members, is the largest military professional association, well organized and financed, with demonstrated value. Just recently MOAA was honored by being described as the most effective advocacy group on Capitol Hill. The California Council of Chapters (CAL-MOAA) is one of the largest, if not the largest, of the councils nationwide with 44 chapters and 5 satellite chapters. It’s website and weblog were both honored as being the best in the nation for the last two years. The Council is known to have significant value. What’s the significance? What all this means is that these organizations have value because they represent a form of quality assurance to the member who can dependably rely on certain aspects of performance. MOAA and CAL-MOAA both have procedures in place to enforce its quality standards.

Full and Active Participation
The Council has been moving forward to accomplish its purposes and has been having reasonably good success. And that’s an indicator of value. There is evidence everywhere of members working together, cooperating, helping each other out, engaging in a spirit of joint enterprise, sharing what they have, and providing mutual encouragement. There is commitment to MOAA, CAL-MOAA. and the chapters resulting in cohesion at the personal level. Leaders everywhere are showing what the concept of “servant leadership” is all about.

You don’t have to be around the Council and its people for very long to understand that CAL-MOAA has defined itself by a sense of common purpose, using innovative approaches, and a shared value system as outlined in the bylaws. There is real value demonstrated by the various practice groups, support systems, and the wonderful technology available and in use.

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