By Jim Turner, Missouri Chapter Chair
“To every thing . . . there is a season, turn, turn, turn . . .” When opportunities arise, we must turn to our work, and gain advantage! Several developments in the Sierra Club are helping Chapters to climb to a new plateau of effectiveness. The Club's Activist Network software provides a way for our activists to make direct and timely input into team web pages. That can enable some spontaneous self-organizing, and free our staff and webmaster for other work. Also, in coming weeks we expect to be setting up and using Facebook pages. And our Political Chair has been carrying out plans to maximize the Sierra Club's impact on important races in Missouri.
Furthermore, during August through October, seven of our chapter leaders joined with three California Sierra Club Chapter teams in a training program; national Club staffers conduct phone conferences and internet-based homework to focus our minds on strategizing, streamlining our meetings, and using new communication tools. We're getting some great ideas from this! Also, in September I will have attended the Council of Club Leaders conference in San Francisco, which has sessions organized for us to see what other Chapters are doing and to learn from them. And in October I will attend Iowa Chapter's annual dinner, where Sierra Club's National Director Michael Brune will be the featured speaker.
Thanks in part to your increased donations to our March Appeal this year, Missouri Chapter's Executive Committee decided that funds on hand are sufficient to hire a full-time Chapter Director for a year; we expect to accomplish this in October, and it will help us to put our plans fully in motion. We hope our members and other donors will see the benefits and will want to help us again raise enough funds to renew the position beyond that year.
Back in March we foresaw a year of intense effort by some large corporations to dominate politics, to resist needed regulations, and to prolong their undeserved economic privileges. So we are working on ways to nourish and strengthen our grassroots efforts. It's like starting a morning fire in the fireplace - you can begin by pushing last night's embers together, to focus their heat on the kindling. Likewise, our better communications and an enlarged staff will enable Missouri's Sierrans to reinforce efforts of other Sierrans, so that we can influence the national culture rather than leaving it up to the corporations to mold. We see the season turning our way – if we take up our tasks!