Hi, Lisa, We are a very small organization, with two employees and a large number of volunteers. Our committees (Collections, Exhibits, Finance, Facilities, etc.) are made up of a blend of board members, staff, and volunteers. Many of the volunteers are former board members. Our board is going through a transition from being a working board (where most of the board members are also the volunteers who get things done) to being a governing board. The way our organization uses committees has evolved in the 3 years since I was hired. Initially, committees seemed (to me) to be a time for a group of people to sit down together and give me a long list of things to do that dealt with that subject. The committees are now involving into working committees, who collaborate on getting things done. Since I am a member of most of the committees (and chair two of them), I am pretty active in the decisions that they make. I use the committees to help inform some of my decisions, and to share the work load. They also create policy, something we are a little behind on. Although the committees definitely influence what I do on a daily basis (I still tend to come away from meetings with more action items than most other folks), I don't feel like they have "authority" over my daily activities. If we had more employees it might make sense for committees to be more about oversight and less involved in daily activities. Hope this helps, Erica Erica S. Maniez Museum Director, Issaquah Historical Society 425/392-3500 [log in to unmask] www.issaquahhistory.org > -----Original Message----- > From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On > Behalf Of Lisa Moellering > Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 8:22 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Committees question > > > For those of you who work with committees - we are in the process of > evaluating committees and am wondering who makes up your committees. For > example, does your Collections Committee (those of you who have > one) include > staff only or staff and volunteers, board members, etc... Also - how much > authority do these committees have over your day to day work? ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).