As a member of the ACS Committee on Local Section Activities (LSAC) and the Local Section Assistance and Development Subcommittee, I spend a lot of time at national meetings talking to other ACS members about the challenges they face in their local sections. Time after time, the same themes emerge. It doesn’t matter whether a section is large or small, academic or industrial, or geographically dispersed or centralized. Everyone expresses the same concerns:

• We have trouble finding volunteers for our activities.
• We need new ideas for our meetings.
• We have difficulty finding new leaders for our section.
• We need to improve our finances.
• We’re not sure whether we’re serving our members well.

If those issues sound familiar to you, you’re not alone! It seems like every one of the 190 ACS local sections faces these and similar problems. To address these common needs, LSAC has created The Local Section Resource Kit, a collection of resources, strategies, and best practices that local sections can implement to enhance their chances of success. The Resource Kit is available on a CD that has been mailed to all local section officers and is on the new ACS website. If you'd like the CD, please email Cheryl Brown.

What will you find in the Local Section Resource Kit? Here are just a few examples:

• tips on finding new volunteers, including effective use of the electronic roster (eRoster) to target members with specific interests;
• how to develop leadership succession, for example, by starting a Younger Chemists Committee or holding a long-range planning workshop;
• successful program ideas from other local sections, including Science Cafes, networking events, and Innovative Project Grant (IPG) ideas;
• advice on how to deal with volunteer burnout;
• how to handle geographic issues;
• tips for improving your finances and how to fundraise; and
• tools for improving your section communications, including website templates and instructions on importing email addresses from your section’s eRoster.

These are just a few of the items available in the Resource Kit, which will continue to be updated with new ideas and best practices (look for advice about electronic newsletters and e-voting in future versions). Not every new program or event that you implement will be a success. However, you’ll never know if a program will be successful until you try, and The Local Section Resource Kit has a wealth of new ideas to try out with your membership. Use it to kick-start your section into high gear!

Jim Reynolds
Rochester Local Section

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