By now many of you have become aware of this new website which has been in operation at www.noves.org since Tuesday, December 19, 2017. As indicated in the email announcement prior to its launch, it offers all the functionality members have come to expect from our previous site while adding a variety of more intuitive and collaborative functions such as access to individual member pledge data (both total pledged and total paid to date amounts); a more user friendly membership directory (with direct email function); a directory of the NoVES Board of Directors and Staff; a directory of NoVES Committees with their descriptions and contact information; access to blogs maintained by NoVES’s Leader and President; enhanced integration with content from our NoVES Facebook page; a 'NoVES in the News' page; and a host of other functions to enhance communication between our membership and with visitors.
The board encourages each member to further explore this exciting new collaborative communication tool and to begin to actively utilize it to enhance your interactions with fellow society members. It is a 'work in progress' with additional content anticipated to be added. If you identify any typos or errors or have any suggestions for added content, please advise the communications committee at communications@noves.org.
This new website is an initial step towards a broader effort (e.g. a Vision) to increase NoVES’s influence as a whole. An additional step towards this ‘Vision’ has already been established by the board in its meeting of October 2017 wherein the following motion was approved, "The Board resolves to systematically pursue as a strategic goal the increase by June 30, 2020 of the total membership in NoVES to 150 members. Accordingly, the board will actively encourage the NoVES Membership Committee in particular, as well as all Committees, and also all NoVES members, to continue to propose and act on initiatives which contribute to identifying, recruiting, inducting, and retaining existing and new members to achieve this membership target. The Board will regularly review progress towards achieving this goal and consider any additional support which may contribute to achieving this goal."
The board is actively working to further articulate the ‘Vision’ and I have spoken with several NoVES members to date about it as well as shared a draft outline document of what it might entail (e.g. the ‘NoVES Vision 2020’). The primary intent of this document is to succinctly outline a Vision of what NoVES collectively seeks to achieve in terms of greater influence between now and July 2020 and moving forward. It goes without saying, greater influence should not, would not, and cannot come at the cost of sacrificing NoVES's or Ethical Culture's core humanist values.
I encourage any member interested in contributing thoughts and ideas or learning more about the ‘NoVES Vision 2020’ to contact me at president@noves.org.
Best,
Jeffrey
