As I sit and write this message to all of you, the Special Holidays team of Chris Parker, Pat Colbert, Barb Ruane and twenty-five wonderful volunteers are all working their magic to bring some holiday cheer to MMC. To me this activity embodies everything we aspire to be: a volunteer experience that always engages and inspires our members to ‘contribute with passion’. Our work was acknowledged by Trish O’Keefe, Interim President of Morristown Medical Center, as she wrote in an email to me, “I want to express my sincere appreciation for the WAMMC “elves” who each and every year do such a wonderful job transforming our hospital to celebrate the holiday season!”
During our second annual WAMMC Board Retreat in September, we discussed how this was going to be the “Year of Membership.” Gwynne Wade, Membership Chair, and her committee have been working hard to come up with new and more effective ways to reach out to our new and current members, and our Twigs in order to improve the connection we all feel to WAMMC. It is imperative that we help those members who want to be active within the organization to join a committee and become involved since that is the only way WAMMC will survive. The Membership Committee along with the Co-Chairs of the Website Committee, Carol Tourgee and Kim Lopez, are also working on a new and improved system of paying our yearly dues. More on that to come in January 2016.
I am thrilled to say that although we will not be hosting Mansion in May 2016, we are working on creating a weekend in June with a farm to table supper and garden tours. Linda Kearns, Wendy Barisonek and Nancy Gallagher – all from the Harding Twig – are the Co-Chairs of the supper and Gail Decker and Marianne Ehinger are Co-Chairing the garden tours. These two events are new for us and, I am sure, will be attractive to both current and new members as we will work to create a weekend that incorporates our core values of community, collaboration, fun, excellence and professionalism.
I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday season and I look forward to a productive and creative 2016!