Check Out Available Resources for Local Sections

Almost all local sections face the same issues—recruiting new leaders, geographical issues, member involvement, and so on. It doesn’t matter if you are from a small or a very large section, you are not alone, and there is help out there.

As a member of the Committee on Local Section Activities (LSAC) and chair of the Local Section Assistance and Development Subcommittee (LSAD), I interact with many members of local sections who share common concerns:

• finding new volunteers,
• preventing volunteer burnout,
• determining whether a Younger Chemists Committee, Women Chemists Committee, or Silver Circle Committee can be started, and how,
• dealing with geographical issues, and
• seeking new meeting ideas.

Many options and resources are available to local sections. For example, go to www.acs.org and examine the current issue of Leading Together, the quarterly electronic newsletter, and the archived publications as well for ideas. The Local Section Resource Kit can also be found on the website and is kept updated by the LSAD subcommittee. This toolkit provides ideas and best practices to help local sections not only better manage their section but also re-energize the membership.

And you can always contact a member of LSAC or the ACS Office of Local Section Activities at olsa@acs.org. E-mail us—we are here to provide assistance or just plain encouragement. As always, thank you for all that you do as a volunteer for the local section leadership!

Jetty Duffy-Matzner Chair
Local Section Assistance and Development Subcommittee
ACS Committee on Local Section Activities

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