NAEYC Ad Hoc Committee – National Dialogue

NAEYC Ad Hoc Committee – National Dialogue

On April 3 approximately 30 members of the CAEYC State Board along with Local Affiliate leaders gathered for an Affiliate Dialogue discussion with Gwen Simmons, NAEYC Senior Director of Affiliate And Member Relations. 

We shared Membership success stories, which highlighted the importance of putting members first. Many of us can recall our first invite to an event and how life changing that turned out to be, both professionally and personally.

Data to assist in decision making to help us move forward comes in part from the board self-studies, so our homework assignment was to identify three challenges and three opportunities from our individual boards to discuss. The National Dialogue committee will be using this information as one tool to look at the big picture.

In the afternoon we broke into small groups using the Decision Pathway tool to determine key topics that were the most important. The topics were not predetermined and were picked by the individual groups, which included the following:

1. Determine what the new Chapter structure will look like
2. Developing trust, identifying the consistent message that CAEYC communicates to all California affiliates in order to continue to build trust necessary to move the work forward
3. Public Relations Strategies
4. How to address another member's questions about the new structure
5. Membership board retention, understanding the full extent of their tenure

NAEYC has revised the application timeline as well as the launch of the new Affiliate Structure and membership categories. What that means is the application process will open on May 2 and remain open until August 31, 2016. Affiliates wanting to affiliate directly with NAEYC will receive the application, which includes approved policies and procedures, charter agreement and member categories and dues on May 2 immediately following the NAEYC Board Meeting. This adjusted time line gives NAEYC staff sufficient time to review the applications in the fall and then send their recommendations to the NAEYC Board Meeting for approval in January 2017.

The launch of the new member categories will take effect September 15, 2017. This will coincide with the launch of the new association management technology platform.

Branding templates will begin to roll out to Affiliates in February 2017.

The new timeline provides us additional time for the application process. In addition, there is more opportunity to provide feedback about the NAEYC dues allocations amounts. NAEYC will make the final decision about who is qualified to become affiliated.

Besides meeting the capacity thresholds, sustainability will also be a critical issue.

We want to share with you the results of the NAEYC check-in for California:

Local Affiliate (ID with NAEYC)	NAEYC Check-in Response Become a Chapter of an Affiliate or Merge with Other Affiliates (March 2016)	NAEYC Check-in Response Directly Affiliate w/NAEYC (March 2016)
Arrowhead AEYC - 901	No	No
Beach Cities AEYC - 905	No	No
CA Cascade AEYC - 179	---	Undecided
Central CA AEYC - 904	---	No
Central Coast AEYC - 333	Yes	No
Central Valley AEYC - 75	Yes	No
Contra Costa AEYC - 566	Undecided	No
Easty Bay - 6	---	---
Foothill AEYC - 322	Yes	No
Gold Country - 304	No	No
Humboldt AEYC - 223	Yes	No
Kern AEYC - 323	Yes	No
LA Metro AEYC - 325	No	No
Marin AEYC - 421	Yes	No
Mendocino Coast AEYC - 337	Yes	No
Orange County AEYC- 900	---	Yes
Pacific Coast AEYC - 408	Yes	No
Peninsula AEYC - 9	Yes	No
Redwood Empire AEYC - 287	Yes	No
Sacramento Valley AEYC - 10	---	No
San Diego AEYC - 902	Yes	No
Solano-Napa AEYC - 131	Yes	No
Southern CA AEYC - 903	Yes	No
Southern CA Valley AEYC - 330	Yes	No
Stanislaus AEYC - 159	Undecided	No
Twin Cities AEYC - 83	Yes	No
Ventura County AEYC - 354	Yes	No

CAEYC’s National Dialogue Ad Hoc committee will be to continue to teleconference every other week. With help from staff we are working on time lines and priorities that are critical to getting finished and to our own Board meeting in July.

You are more than welcome to reach out with questions and thoughts. This project continues to be about member voice.

Heidi Thumlert
CAEYC Chair National Ad Hoc Committee