Spring 2011 Orientation Held for New Board Members and Volunteers

by Peg Byron, Brooklyn Chapter

On Wednesday, April 27, nearly 20 new UNA-USA Board members, YPIC Board members and volunteers gathered for this year’s orientation program. Division President Jeanne Betsock Stillman led the event, held in the Conference Room at Midtown Manhattan’s United Nations Foundation office. It was a fitting location that underscored the barely six-month-old alliance between UNF and UNA-USA, with presentations from Robert Skinner, deputy director of UNF’s New York office, Jayan Kalathil, UNF partnerships officer, and Roger Nokes, UNA-USA membership coordinator, as well as insights from Division Vice President Catherine D. White, David Stillman, and other veteran Board members.

The program outlined the history, structure, membership, and mission of both UNA-USA and the United Nations Foundation, noting challenges and opportunities with the merger of the two organizations. UNF’s resources for strengthened messaging and its valuable international programs such as the highly successful Nothing But Nets Campaign and its newer Girl Up Campaign and the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves can work in tandem with UNA-USA’s grassroots chapters and divisions.

This year’s orientation engendered lively discussion about concerns in areas that included UNA-USA’s Young Professionals for International Cooperation (YPIC), membership growth, and social-media communication.

Handouts included listings of “What is the UNA-USA Southern New York State Division?,” “Nuts and Bolts for Chapters and Divisions,” “Eight Areas Where the United States Benefits by Working with the UN,” the UNA-USA publication A Global Agenda: Issues Before the United Nations 2010-2011, and UNF’s “Building Bridges to Solve Global Problems.”

Looking forward, UNA-USA’s newest leaders were urged to take part in the upcoming annual meeting, scheduled for June 12-14 in Arlington, VA and Washington, DC. That gathering will offer skills trainings, issue briefings, networking opportunities, and capacity-building, along with UNA-USA’s most important advocacy event of the year — Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill. To register, go to http://bit.ly/unausa-annualmeeting.