to serve on the South Capitol Neighborhood Association Board with us!
Very soon, we will be saying adios to three members of our neighborhood association board – Addie Spencer, Howard Goldberg and Shannon (Sam) Shula. Addie is our treasurer, Sam is a past-president, and she and Howard are at-large members.
So, at our annual meeting, we’ll need to vote in at least three people to replace them. Per our bylaws, we should have at least 10 members and can have up to 20. We currently have 11 – so, the more the merrier – we’d love to have you!
I joined in March of last year – showed up to a board meeting not knowing what I might be getting myself into, and am very glad I did! I chose to be secretary because (as you may have guessed), I love to write, and because the position was open and seemed like a good fit.
I am now a member of a large group of So Cap neighbors who have served in various board positions – quite a few multiple times – over many years!
Unfortunately, I don’t have the names of everyone in that intrepid group and it would be a very long paragraph in this blog post to try and list them all, but you know who you are and please know that we all appreciate your commitment.
I do want to give a special shout-out to those who served during the pandemic because (1) as we all know, it was an incredibly challenging time to do anything, let alone bring people together and organize them with little-to-no-contact and wearing masks, and (2) despite that, they managed to publish and hand-distribute a beautiful neighborhood magazine, and build this excellent website I’m blogging on now. Thank you for persevering during that difficult time.
I derive a lot of pleasure in volunteering, and now that I am retired, I have the gift of time to do it. It’s much harder when you’re working full-time and taking care of a family – many thanks to those, too, who have served while juggling both.
What do board members do? It depends.
Some of the positions take more time to do and some take less – but each is what you make of it. The president, vice president, secretary and treasurer have specific duties noted in the bylaws, the at-large members do not. So, you can choose to do more or less, depending on how much time and energy you are able to commit.
We also have folks who do not serve on the board but perform an equally important role on committees looking into issues (and helping the neighborhood’s collective voice be heard) on things like traffic and speeding, protests and demonstrations, parking, possible school closures and more. Neighbors participate, too, by volunteering to help with events like summer or early fall barbeque picnics and the annual meeting that’s coming up in mid-February.
Personally, I would love it if we had a few more board members than we do now. As the saying goes, “many hands make light work.” The more we have, the more we can spread the work around and not be burdened too much by it.
At our recent board meeting this month, John Saunders, Treacy Duerfeldt and Addie Spencer volunteered to be on the nominating committee to “beat the bushes and get candidates”, as John put it. They will be reaching out to those who have indicated an interest in helping out in some way.
We’re really hoping that some of you will decide to serve on the board. Each term is two years, but you’re welcome to serve longer, if you like. If you’re interested in becoming a board member or want to know more about what it entails, please reach out to us by filling out the form on our Contact Us page or sending an email to info@southcapitolneighborhood.org and we will follow-up with you.
Many thanks again to those of you who have served and have made our neighborhood better by doing so.
South Capitol Neighborhood Association 