2005 Is Time for Change

In a few short months we will be ringing in the new year, 2005! For me that change in calendar year will be bittersweet, as it will mark the end of my tenure as chair of the Local Section Activities Committee. LSAC is a special committee, and I feel so fortunate not only to be a member, but also to have had the opportunity to serve as chair. Each year brings changes, however, and sometimes it’s difficult to break old habits. But it’s time to change, and time to change things other than the calendar. There are changes in the organization of the Membership Division of ACS, which you’ll hear about in other places, and there are changes in the leadership of LSAC. The officers and committee memberships in ACS are all term-limited. Yes, it’s time for some of us to move on to new things. Most of you have new chairs and officers in your local sections and are finding new challenges, as well as old ones, in your sections.

As I complete six years as a member of LSAC and the last three years as chair of LSAC, it’s timely to look back and see where we’ve been. But first, please welcome Will Lynch of Coastal Georgia Section as the new chair of LSAC. Will has been on LSAC for three years and served as Subcommittee Chair of Technology, Tools, and Operations, and is the master of the annual report revisions and development. He and Mark O’Brien have been the developers of this Leading Together newsletter. And we also welcome Mark O’Brien in a new role as manager of the Office of Local Section Activities. LSAC is in very good hands!

LSAC is one of the best committees on which one can serve. There are twenty-five members of LSAC (twenty members and five associate members), all of whom must be councilors. All review a share of annual reports of individual local sections each year and each serve on one of our four subcommittees. The four subcommittee chairs and the chair of LSAC make up the Executive Committee, which meets in June and early December, in addition to the biennial National ACS Meetings. The committee is aided by the very competent staff of the Office of Local Section and Community Activities, and we all work closely together. Committee members and staff all work very hard to help support the local sections. Why do I tell you what many of you already know? To remind you that we are all always recruiting new members and new leaders, in LSAC, in staff, and you should in your local sections, too. As chairs and chairs-elect in your sections you know this well as you search for the folks who will lead your section’s committees and activities for the coming year, and to develop a roster of future leaders to lead your section. Leadership development and recruiting are activities that need to go on all year long.

In trying to “help local sections be all they can be,” LSAC recognized long ago that we needed to help new leaders get themselves established and succeed in local sections. LSAC developed leadership conferences long ago to assist local section leaders in adapting to their new roles as leaders of their sections. At one time not so long ago, there were four leadership conferences each year in different geographical regions of the country and a centralized meeting for medium-large and large sections. As the leadership conferences have developed, evolved, and matured, other groups within ACS have realized how useful such conferences are and have mimicked, modified, and developed their own conferences—until last year in February when they all merged into one mega leadership conference of various groups meeting simultaneously and together at the same site to train new leaders: LSAC, divisions, new committee chairs, regional meetings and others (please add others). “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.”

As we say in chemistry, “Change is constant,” and so it is in ACS, as well. In my three years as chair of LSAC, in 2002 we had four leadership conferences in the spring (in Phoenix, San Antonio, Tampa, and Boston). In 2003 there were two conferences (in Washington, DC, and Salt Lake City), and in 2004 one large mega conference of many groups in February in New Orleans.

In 2003 we added an Advanced Leadership Conference held in St. Louis in the fall for attendees of that year’s previous Washington or Salt Lake City Leadership Conferences, and we repeated that in St. Louis on October 8-10, 2004. This fall’s meeting focuses more on leadership than the spring meeting, which is more about managing a local section. This focus is especially intended to help chairs-elect lead into the coming year as chairs of their sections. Now how is that for change? We haven’t done anything the same way in at least five years. I would have to say that nothing is constant except that the subject is leadership every year, which is as it should be. Leadership and leaders evolve constantly.

The biggest change for LSAC and divisions in the last three years was the development and passing of legislation in Council, approval by the Board of Directors, and finally, approval by two thirds of the ACS membership, of the petition for Local Section and Division Funding in 2002 and 2003, which modified in the Constitution and By-Laws the funding of local sections and divisions. It was a big change in the way that these two membership groups of ACS got their funding, especially for divisions. Twenty percent of membership dues now go directly for support of local section and division allocation funding. We were happy to support that and worked hard with divisions to ensure its passage. That new funding mechanism also brought $ 115,000 per year for local sections as new money in the form of Innovative Project Funds. LSAC administers these funds in the form of grants of up to $ 3,000. per year for a local section to introduce a new program or activity, especially by combining the interaction of two local sections or a local section and a division in innovative project cooperation. Joint activities bring new ideas and new blood to sections. Deadlines for the brief, two-page proposal are October 1 and April 1, respectively, for funds to be available in January and July for new projects in fall or spring local section joint activities.

Among the many other new projects and activities, this newsletter is one of them. Leading Together was initiated in October 2003, and to date we have published five issues. Credit your new leaders Will Lynch and Mark O’Brien for the enthusiastic leadership they provided toward the development of this LSAC newsletter.

The National Chemistry Week Task Force has a new home in the Office of Community Activities and is finally National Chemistry Week as a subcommittee in OCA. Silver Circle has been established as a working group within LSAC and within the Office of Local Sections and Community Activities with Marisa Burgener’s able assistance and oversight. This grouping exists to provide service, advice, and contacts to the variety of Retired Chemists, Senior Chemists, and Silver Circle members and groups with the local sections. Former ACS President Eli Pearce captained the concept of a place for senior members to turn within ACS, and I’m pleased to say that he joins this committee in LSAC on the Silver Circle this year.

LSAC has also developed a small program of visitations to local sections by a team of two staff and LSAC members to assist local sections. We have visited with about ten sections in the past two years in this still experimental program. Lastly, I mention something new and yet not so new for some sections. The local section chairs and staff and a board member from both ACS and AIChE met this past summer and promise plans that all of the local sections of both societies will be asked to arrange joint meetings of the local sections and of their Younger Scientist and Engineer groups in 2005. About fifteen of these groups already have joint functions of ACS and AIChE.

That’s a big load that LSAC carries. These are all new programs or serious modifications within the last three years. It’s a committee that works very hard, accomplishes much, and has a good time doing it together. And they complain very little. They must love their work. When your term as chair or chair-elect of your section is up, or any other experienced officer, run for a councilor position from your section and, if elected, ask to serve on LSAC. You won’t ever regret it, except when you have to leave.

Au revoir, auf wiedersehen, and until next time we meet, I remain your friend. I have had more fun serving as Chair of LSAC than I can find words for, challenges and all.

Yorke E. Rhodes, Chair (2002-2004)
Local Section Activities Committee

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