Possible Changing Meeting Structure for Upstate Monarchs

Greenville, South Carolina - Last month’s Anderson meeting was very successful with about 30 people attending the event and we had a great promotion with the recent article in the Anderson Independent Mail featuring our own, Kathy Garraty. With these recent successes, we need to continue to talk about possible structural changes we discussed in the business meeting on March.

I have already made a small adjustment in the group calendar and website front page by re-naming the “Support meetings” and creating a business meeting (right now, that meeting is after the Greenville support meeting). That will give us the flexibility to move the frequency and location of the business meetings in the future.

I am proposing we create “local Community groups” within the Upstate Monarchs organization to serve local communities. The first groups we would establish would be in Anderson & Greenville, however over time we could start other group throughout the upstate. I believe the goals we need to address with any changes are as follows:

1. Serve the local need for speakers and discussion

2. Maintain a single managing effort to the entire group;

3. Grow the group naturally as we discover future needs in the Upstate.

Additionally, we may need to discuss some other questions as we work to improve our outreach and effectiveness. Here are some possible questions to discuss:

• How do we know when to add a new community group?

• How do we figure out when a group is not working?

• Who runs a Community groups? How we keep those who are leading groups from getting burned out?

• How many Board of Directors (BD) do we needs and how do we decide what differences BD roles?

• How do we keep from growing too fast?

• What changes do we need in our current bylaws and or constitution?

• Do we need to consider becoming a 501(c)(3)? If not now, when and under what conditions?

• We need to change or dues structure? How do we pay dues?

We need your ideas and feedback to continue to improve; Help us make Upstate Monarchs a real voice for Lymphedema outreach and advocacy in the Upstate.

Sincerely,

Bobby Clark

President

Upstate Monarchs