The Farm & Wilderness Board meets four times a year – in Vermont in May, August, and October, and in January in a major northeast city. According to the F&W By-Laws, the Board is “responsible for the investment, use, and expenditure of all funds and property of the corporation and for determining the general policy of the corporation.” In plain English, that means we must make sure that F&W is financially healthy. We also make significant policy decisions, hire and supervise the Executive Director, and have committees that provide guidance on various aspects of the camps’ operations, including Finance, Development (fundraising and community engagement), Conservation, Inclusivity and Equity, Risk, and Nominations (selecting new Board members). Following the process of Quaker meeting for business, the Board makes decisions by arriving at a sense of the meeting.
The Board welcomes input from community members, and to that end is sharing our Board meeting agendas. The following topics will be on the agenda for the meeting on May 4-5 at camp:
1) Reviewing camp operations for the first quarter of the year (January-March). We review the previous quarter’s operations (including Camp Program, Inclusivity & Equity, Admissions, Marketing, Communications, Human Resources, Finance, Sustainable Resources, Conservation, Retreat Center, Farm, and Development/Alumni Relations) at every meeting.
2) Working on our next strategic plan with our strategic planning consultants. This year, F&W is developing our next five-year strategic plan. In our previous plan, we grew the Girls’ Wilderness program known as Red Spruce Grove, we reduced our carbon footprint, affiliated with the Ninevah conservation organization; completed a capital campaign with greater campership and endowment, and developed a comprehensive Inclusivity & Equity plan. Since January, a small team of staff and Board members have been working with Design Group International to plan our work for the year. We are devoting a significant portion of this Board meeting to the initial substantive steps of the work. We will review the plans for this year’s strategic planning process, look at F&W’s current mission and values, discuss our vision for the next five years, and consider our challenges. Community members will have several opportunities to participate in the strategic planning process in the months to come.
3) Approving new board members. Our Nominations Committee works hard over the winter and spring to identify candidates to recommend for membership to the Board. Our by-laws require only that our Board is at least half Quaker or Quaker-identified, that it includes at least two people who live in Vermont, and that it includes at least one person connected to Lake Ninevah. Beyond that, we strive to include people with professional backgrounds relevant to our work (including education, inclusivity and equity, law, finance, development, health care, and others), different relationships to F&W (including former campers and staff, as well as parents, from all the camps), and diverse identities (including race, gender, class, and sexuality). At our May meeting, the full Board reviews and approves this year’s candidates, and the new Board members join the Board at our August meeting.
If you have comments on any of these topics that you would like shared with the Board, please send them to Becca Steinitz, Clerk of the Board, at rsteinitz@gmail.com BY APRIL 29.