Community leagues in Edmonton face many challenges such as volunteer recruitment, delivery of programs and services and promoting the organization to residents.
As a Terwillegar Community League (TCL) board member, I have experienced many of these challenges. The TCL board decided to partake in a strategic planning session this past weekend; the purpose of which was to set goals and priorities for the next few years.
We first looked at how we defined our community, what community issues we are facing and what challenges we have as a community league.
Board members were encouraged to put their thoughts down on stickies, which were then placed on the wall where we could group similar ideas.
The TCL encompasses Terwillegar Towne, Terwillegar Gardens, Sandalwood, South Terwillegar, Magrath and MacTaggart. Board members used words such as accessible, family friendly, safe and involved to describe the community. Issues facing the league are lack of planning, the need to focus our goals, volunteer and membership recruitment, how all the communities are not represented, the ability to create awareness through communication and better process to liaise with the Terwillegar Towne Residents Association and the City of Edmonton.
We decided to focus on four areas – to be a well run and well organized community league, to engage all community segments, to be an advocate for community concerns and to deliver community programs.
To be honest, I think we came up with issues that we knew we were already facing. My fear is this process will help the board for a short period of time but as volunteers with many other commitments, we may eventually let this plan drop by the wayside.
The main problem that TCL has, like many community leagues, is engaging more residents to become involved so all the work does not fall on the shoulders of the same people all the time. If people don’t feel they are benefitting from the league, they are not likely to want to participate.
Although we do have a list of goals and priorities, it is a matter of how much we accomplish before a turnover of board members occurs at our annual general meeting in October.
Was the strategic planning session worthwhile? It helped the board re-examine ongoing issues while providing goals and priorities. The session most likely re-ignited passion for the community, the reason why we are engaged as board members and what we really want to see accomplished.
But time and commitment to get through our list will result in the real outcome.
If you sit on a community league board, I would be interested to hear if you have experienced the same issues that TCL is facing and if you have come up with solutions to engage your residents. If we want better communities, we need active participation.
