By Christine Burns
Moving toward summer, it is my hope that all of your community gatherings are successful and your individual community goals are met and exceeded. (For those of you who are interested, I have included a secret message within this article. The first one to correctly identify the message wins a prize!)
As your president, I’m going to continue to keep the focus on three Cs: Commitment, Communication, and Collaboration.
The MME, in partnership with The Nonprofit Spot, developed a Strategic Plan for our organization. Five Key Strategic Goals were developed to address the strategic issues that were identified in the SWOT:
- Increase Transparency
Objectives include publicizing the nomination process more fully, working to improve the Listserve commenting environment, and improving information flow - Improve Sense of Community
Objectives include improving the sense of community in a variety of contexts including the Listserve, working to improve the onboarding and welcoming aspects of the organization, and increasing the opportunities for connections to be made between members. - Increase Organizational Capacity
Objectives include strengthening the capacity of regional groups as a way to improve effectiveness and increase impact. - Improve Recruitment System
Objectives include increasing the ties to universities and enhancing the pipeline from department heads or others already in the working world. - Advocate for Profession
Objectives include working intentionally to develop tools to allow the municipal executive story to be told.
Our committee chairs and vice chairs met with Nicole Klepadlo from The Nonprofit Spot on March 31st to forge a path forward. Thank you to Christian Wuerth for facilitating the session! All of the committees have some heavy lifting to complete in 2023, but I am confident they will accomplish the tasks at hand.
Mark your calendars! Under the leadership of Warren Rothe, the Professional Development Committee (PDC) has been working exceptionally hard to bring you an amazing summer workshop. This will be the best “conference chicken” you can ever hope to eat.
Summer Workshop
2023 – July 24-27, Frankenmuth
Note: There is no secret message. The message is that nobody spends much time reading these articles. By including a prize, it is expected that some people will read this article more than once. So, the winner is: me! Hopefully, I got some people to read the article.
Christine Burns
President, MME
Manager, Spring Lake
Chris has more than 30 years of experience in local government. She has been the village manager in Spring Lake since 2012. Chris graduated from Central Michigan University (CMU) in 1990 with a BS in Business Administration, majoring in management and then went on to earn her MSA in Public Administration from CMU in 2006 (Fire Up Chips!). She is a member of Michigan Municipal Executives (MME) and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). She has served on the MME & MML Board of Directors and has been on the Michigan Municipal League’s Workers’ Compensation Board of Directors since 2010, serving as its vice chair in 2017 and 2018 and its chair in 2019 and 2020. She and her husband Bill have two children and one grandchild. In their free time, they enjoy flying, home renovations, and time with their grandson. She can be reached at christine@springlakevillage.org.