I am concerned that a regular turn over of the leadership of our homeschool group could result in the vision and purpose of the group changing year to year.
A shift away from your original vision and purpose is always a concern, so make sure you never turnover the entire board in a year or do not turn over more than half the board at once.
Also, do some training for new board members. Give them the bylaws and mission statement. Allow them to read minutes from prior board meetings. That way they will understand the purpose and mission of your group.
Additionally, keep the mission in front of everyone’s eyes at every board meeting. Put it on a poster. Read it out loud if you have to.
Regular meeting are a good way to remind members of the purpose of your group.
Sad but true story: One homeschool group only held board meetings when there was a crisis (and then those meetings lasted 3-4 hours!). The founder did very little to reinforce the mission and purpose of the group. She assumed everyone on the board thought like she did.
Imagine her surprise when a board member proposed an idea that was in complete disagreement with the founder’s vision! The meeting was a horrible experience and ended in the board member resigning. She went on to form a competing homeschool group. It bread ill-will in our homeschool community for years.
I hope that helps,
Carol Topp, CPA
Our group ( 280+ families ) has a 7 member Leadership Board with 2 years terms. We change 3 or 4 of the positions every year, to maintain consistency, to avoid burnout, and to bring fresh ideas and energy into leadership. We’ve done this from the beginning – to start, the president served 3 years, and the other positions were 1 year or 2 year, so we could start the rotation but keep a steady presence at the head to get things going. This has worked very well for our group for 18 years now. We also hold a 1 or 2 day Leaders Retreat ( we don’t really go anywhere, but it sounds less grueling than 2 day meeting! ) in June, to get to know the newest Board members, to plan the coming year, to discuss any issues with how the group is running, to bring everyone on the same page as far as our Mission and Vision. We print our mission statement and vision statement on the front page of our agenda for every monthly meeting as well, and send it to our members via email periodically.