Does Your Chapter Sieze Its Opportunities?

I was speaking with the National Membership Chair Maurita Bryant recently and she had some interesting comments about potential members that come to us, eagerly waiting to be recruited.

How often do we miss an opportunity that is immediately before us? The law enforcement profession does not normally lend itself to trusting others and oftentimes, albeit unintentionally, we appear to others as being unfriendly and unwelcoming.

Picture this; a prospective member comes to your chapter meeting and sits near the back of the room. No one comes to great them or to make them feel welcome. First impressions count, if a person doesn't feel welcome at your meeting, there is a good change you will lose a potential member. If you want to make a lasting impression, treat visitors like special guests.

Your membership body should be should be on the lookout for prospective members at meetings and part of your agenda should include introductions and a personal welcome.

The three steps to this process are:
1. Welcome visitors and always maintain a friendly but professional atmosphere at your meetings;
2. Appoint a member to briefly share information NOBLE national and your local chapter;
3. Appoint another member to talk about local and national initiatives.


We do a lot of good work with youth, communities and training in our chapters and to recruit new members we have to do a great job at promoting those accomplishments.

Timing is Everything with Press releases

Oftentimes, I speak with chapter presidents who miss critical opportunities to promote their chapters. The chapter may have concluded an excellent outreach or fundraising event, but they fail to let their communities know of the good work.

With any event that is planned, the president must insure that a Public Relations sub-Committee is appointed to the event committee. The sub-committee is responsible for issuing a media advisory prior to the event, and following the event, insuring that a press release and photographs are sent to media outlets that were not in attendance. Don't forget to send your release to agency newsletters, school papers of scholarship recipients and the NOBLE National Office.

As chapters elect new officers and members are promoted or retire releases should be sent so that these "members on the move," can be officially recognized.

Remember that timeliness is critical and remember the old addage, "the only good news is new news".

Do we really need committees?

I am often asked, "if we have a National Office, then why do we need committees?" This is an excellent question; and the simple answer is that NOBLE is a relatively small organization with an extremely small staff that tries to provide most of the services that peers in much larger organizations do with albiet considerably larger staffs. People are often amazed to discover that we are a volunteer organization and that the work of our volunteer committees allow us be considered among the "big four" in American law enforcement.

Committees are formed by the Executive Board to do one of two things:

• To consider or investigate certain matters and report back to the Board; and/or
• To take a specific action and report back, as directed by the Executive Board

In NOBLE, committees fall within three categories:

• Constitutional Committees - Those standing committees deemed so important that our Constitution requires their continual existence. (These committees will either be chaired by a member of the Executive Board or will have an Executive Board member on the committee).
• Advisory Committees - These committees are usually comprised of members with expertise in a particular field and attend meetings, hearings, conferences and prepare papers that will assist the Executive Board in framing positions on areas of issues and concern. These are special committees that usually go out of existence once they complete their specified task.
• Official Representatives - These persons are appointed by the President and represent the Organization on or before the various boards, councils, commissions, task forces, advisory bodies and working groups to espouse NOBLE's official position

All of the Committee Chairs and Representatives are required to submit quarterly reports of their activities through the National Vice President for inclusion in the Executive Board Meeting Book.

The National President appoints the Committee Chairman (except those Chairmanships required by thye Constitution) and the Executive Board approves the selection. The Chairman selects one person from each region and those other persons the number of which are authorized by the President in his charge. The Chair generally holds an election among the committee members to elect a Vice Chair Chair the meeting in the absence of the Chair), a Recorder ( Serves as the secretary) and an Information Officer or Role-based Administator (who posts news stories in the Online News and maintains the committee's webpage}.

Another question that often comes up is the concept of a Co-chair. Co-chairs generally violate the tenent of Unity of Command, and committees are encouraged to stay away from that concept. The only place where co-chairs may be effective are when you have Honorary Co-chairs whose name recognition or position will benefit fundraising. These Honorary Co-chairs have no role in the operations of the organization but carry the title of Honory Co-chair which is symbolic in nature.

Where the work that the committee charged with is large, then it is appropriate to divide the work into manageable pieces or units called sub-committees. Each Sub-committees has a Chairman who is subordinate to the Committee Chair. The sub-committee reports should be included in the Committee Report and the Committee Chair submits same in written form. `

Unity of Command means that each individual participating in the operation reports to only one supervisor. This eliminates the potential for individuals to receive conflicting orders from a variety of supervisors, thus increasing accountability, preventing freelancing, improving the flow of information, helping with the coordination of operational efforts, and enhancing operational safety.

When the Secretary or the Committee Chair reads the report to the Executive Board, it is considered presented, and it is also considered received by the Board. If there is a resolution or recommendation then the Chair makes a motion to adopt the recommendations of the committee; no second is required.

Very few, if any non-profit organizations could exeist without its volunteer committees. In our succession planning schema, committee chairs play a very important role. In many cases their selections are for their expertise in a given arena, for others, they are being provided an opportunity to hone their skills and to prepare for future leadership opportunities.

Points from parliamentary procedure, "Robert's Rules of Order, 10th edition, Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, MA.

• When a Committee Report is of considerable importance then all of the members of the committee concurring should sign the report and the dissenters should sign noting their dissent or attaching aminority report;
• In this case the Chair ususally signs first and does not include his title;
• When non substantive matters the Committee may authorize the Chair to sign the report certifying that the report has been adopted by the committee;
• If the Chair is signing for the committee then he should include his title (Chairman) beneath his name. (This indicates that the committee concurs with the report);
• The report should neither be addressed nor dated;
• All committee reports should be in writing.

The Secret of Meeting Leadership

My best advice for any president who is a law enforcement official is to always remember that NOBLE is not a law enforcement agency, it is an organization of members, with officers and committee members who are volunteers. Therefore, to be successful you have to be a leader. Chapter/board/committee meetings are not agency staff meetings where if you are in charge you can run those meetings autocratically. In the volunteer organization you should know and follow parliamentary procedure and use "Robert's Rules of Order." You must allow both sides of an argument to be heard and you have a responsibility to insure that all members are treated with courtesy and respect.