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?

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