To kick off 2022, the first General Membership Meeting (GMM) of the new calendar year was held on January 13. The meeting was held virtually, with more than 500 members tuning in via Youtube and Facebook to get important updates from around the League and hear from our guest speaker. Here are some highlights from the evening:
The theme of the meeting was “Setting the Course.” This is an important annual meeting where members set the course for the year ahead. As a collective body, members make decisions that help to ensure the sustainability of the organization and impact throughout the community.
The meeting began with a run through of key voting items. JLC members are tasked with voting on the 2022-2023 Leadership Slate as well as the 2022-2023 Proposed slate of Community Partners. The Leadership Slate includes roles on the Board of Directors, Management Team, Nominating Committee and Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Members were also informed about three proposed Bylaws changes. The first proposed change was to change the The meeting began with a run through of key voting items. JLC members were tasked with voting on the 2022-2023 Leadership Slate as well as the 2022-2023 Proposed slate of Community Projects. The Leadership Slate includes roles on the Board of Directors, Management Team, Nominating Committee and Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Members also voted on three proposed Bylaws changes. One of the changes included changing the titles of our Chief and Vice President of Diversity & Inclusion to the Chief and Vice President of Diversity Equity & Inclusion. Adding the word “equity” to the titles was proposed to better align the titles of the committee leaders with the work of the committee to advance equity and help us to focus on distributing resources, opportunities and power fairly . The other two Bylaw changes involved updating the Management Team leader vacancy and absence notification processes to be more consistent with the current leadership structure (i.e. the Executive Vice President presides over Management Team).
Next, we heard from our guest speaker, Sherri Chisholm. Sherri is the Executive Director of Leading on Opportunity (LOO), a non-profit that aims to ensure that every child in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg community has an equal chance for social and economic success. Sherri has had a lifelong interest in advocacy and education and holds degrees from many prestigious institutions including Harvard University. Sherri stressed that 10,000 kids graduate from Charlotte Mecklenburg schools each year. The hope is that through LOO, those kids will have a community lead system that works for all students and, in time, make Charlotte a strong example of economic opportunity.
The Community Impact Council (CIC) shared some really exciting figures that showed off the amazing impact that the JLC has made so far this League year:
- More than 20,000 people in the Charlotte area have benefited directly from the JLC’s CIC volunteer efforts through November
- More than 1,000 volunteer hours have been contributed to our placements focused on improving school readiness
- Bright Blessings has donated and assembled more than 1,000 hygiene kits and snack packs for children impacted by homelessness and is leading the way in volunteer hours with 173 YTD
- Classroom Central has impacted more than 1,800 teachers and students
- Done In A Day partnered with Smart Start of Mecklenburg County to collect and donate more than 13,500 diapers with the help of League members
To view the replay of the January GMM, click here.
