Strategic Funning

While most folks may think that strategic planning is a headache of a process, we here at the WNC Alliance do our best to make things as interesting as possible. Our facilitators (God love 'em) Pam Sugarman and Judy Futch brought us toys, crayons, candy, and paper to keep us distracted from thinking we were actually working. Well, it worked- and here are some fun photos from our weekend.

Linda Tatsapaugh, Julie White, and Kristan Cockerill huff (I mean smell) the delicious scented markers (notice Julie's ball on her lap ie. detachment disorder)

Scary monsters lurked everywhere.


Phillip Gibson maps out Antarctica with an intensity that could melt through icebergs.


Wendy Pataprsty doodles while contemplating buying a vowel.


What a bug sees when flying at Randall Boggs.


And last but not least, the whistling hot water pot. It attempted to serenade us so we evicted it to the hallway (doesn't it look so lonely? I felt a bit "Brave Little Toaster" about this one).

All-in-all, it was a hard working weekend where we took a long look at our priorities and how our members weighed in on what they wanted- and started the design of our strategic plan that will be out next year. Look for the draft plan in your winter copy of Accent!

The Office Buzz

We have been experiencing many needed changes here at the WNC Alliance recently, all to make our environmental work in the community even more effective.

First of all, we started making coffee twice a day. This has increased staff production exponentially.

We have also added on new staff, including a real-life bookkeeper, a capacity-building AmeriCorps Vista volunteer, a not-so-new community organizer/membership and outreach director, and a new Executive Director who starts the 2nd of June. We have two new chapters (Haywood and Buncombe) with a third in the wings- Henderson. We have expanded our outreach to include the Latino Communities in both Buncombe and Henderson, and to that regard have a new Panamanian Steering Committee member. We have a new chair of our Executive Committee- DJ Gerken, who is not only extremely intelligent but also makes everyone around him feel as smart as he is- a great quality to have in a leader.

And we are going through a strategic planning process to increase our effectiveness in our region. We plan on a revamp of the group to figure out what is working and what is not. We continually strive to include our rich 25 year history into our daily work while working to make our group even more progressive. It's not an easy task, but the sooner we master this, the better off we will be!

You should come visit us at our office. 29 N. Market St: It's the new coolest place to hang out.


Not once in our 25-year history have we ever been known as the Waratah National Cat Alliance. FYI.