Martha wants to know how our Central Texas Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies coalition is set up. Actually, rather formally and deliberately. We have found that the better organized we are the less time we waste. We have non-profit status, a tax id, file annual reports, elect officers, maintain a website, etc. We have a large mailing list, but I'd say the core of individuals who do most of the work constitutes about 12-15. Our legislative committee has 7 core members (2 of whom only work on these projects and seldom attend general meetings.) Probably 4 of general members (who attend meetings and work on projects) are attending as reps of their organizations/instititutions. These folks are obviously getting paid during the meetings, but the rest of us attend as volunteers. Our members are varied: RNs, moms, LLL Leaders, LCs, an LD, Health Dept. reps, Milk Bank rep, attachment parenting group rep, doulas. Our legislative comm. chair is a lawyer. We have 2 retired health dept. people who were very senior and know a lot about how the 'system' works. WIC sends a rep. who is very helpful. We keep our meetings organized. Our president prepares an agenda and we stick pretty closely to it. Frankly, I don't appreciate it when meetings turn into a "support group" or a gripe session. I have too much other work to do to spend valuable meeting time on something that doesn't further an action agenda. Our meetings last about 1.5- 2hrs once a month. We have sub-committees that may also meet. We do a lot of work by email -- passing documents back and forth writing and editing drafts (of reports, letters to individuals, press releases, articles, bill proposals, etc). We have occasional lunches where we brainstorm, and any time any of us are together, we run ideas past one another for future projects. We keep notes of these ideas so we don't forget. We set annual goals and strategies, and we evaluate our success/failure to reach them in our annual report. We collect dues ($15 I think) and try to do some fund-raisers. Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC Austin Lactation Associates LactNews Press www.lactnews.com PLEASE NOTE NEW EMAIL ADDRESS: [log in to unmask] *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html