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The Herald News May 18, 2004 One of the problems with boards and committees in cities such as Fall River (and much bigger cities, too) is that the same folks tend to serve on every board. Thus it is that the prominent citizen who is president of the Library Improvement Board is likely to be vice president of the Plant a Tress Committee, not to mention a couple of charitable boards, come committee devoted to stamping out one disease or another, perhaps even a board within the local chamber of commerce. While there isn't anything wrong with community-minded individuals answering the bell for every round, there's something to be said for fresh blood. Fresh blood, after all tends to bring fresh ideas. Still, many of those who have never served on a board aren't likely to, either. They are, in the over-used phrase, "pit of the loop." Leadership SouthCoast is a new nonprofit organization whose mission it is to train various people to become not only new business leaders by community leaders, taking their place in organizational structure of various community oriented groups. With significant help from staff at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, the program consists of a two-day retreat and nine monthly full-day sessions and a series of activities in smaller groups. The sessions concentrate heavily on gaining self-confidence and the transmission of information about this area, information that can be put to use on any local board or committee. Armed with that information and some very necessary self-confidence, participants should be ready to bring their new blood and new ideas to area boards and committees. Every community is run by someone. While political campaigns, ads and elections keep us all posted as to who is running things on the official side, few of us know the names of the folks who selflessly serve on the boards of charitable and service organizations. Know to the public or not, the people on those boards raise (and spend) a lot of money, they influence public policy, they help determine the quality of life in our communities and they do the kind of work from which everyone benefits. The effort to bring new people to important boards and committees is sure to bear good fruit in the future. <=== back a page / back to top |