(From Empower LA)
I hope our newsletter finds you well. Congratulations to all the areas whose elections are now over and to those NCs whose boards are being seated. We are very excited to greet and meet everyone as we get out to your respective NC meetings. We have met some new faces who are now part of the system, and we are also finding that the seasoned board members are fully participating and engaging with us, on the initial board orientations that staff are providing at meetings.
A great big thanks to the groups that have permitted us time on the agenda during their first meeting to conduct our ninety (90) minute board orientation. Among the groups that have been trained are: Northridge West NC, Northridge East NC, Arleta NC, Pacoima NC, North Hills West NC, and Foothill Trails District NC. We have confirmations with many more of you for upcoming weeks. Please continue to confirm your Board Orientation with us right away. Staff have been and will continue calling you in order to confirm the training.
For those of you who have been involved for some time, I hope the Board Orientations are serving as a refresher on some of the key concepts and information that is vital to Neighborhood Councils. For the new board members, we’d like to get you started on the “right foot” and hopefully inspire you to seek out the information and get familiar with the rules of the game, so that you can be the best board member representative you can be. We know that when you decided to become involved in your neighborhood council and the overall system, you did so because you want to make a difference in your community; let us help you by providing some tools, through our Board Orientations, that you can make good use of while serving on your neighborhood council.
We look forward to seeing everyone out there and working with you to meet your capacity building needs and goals. After the initial months, we will make ourselves available for more in-depth training at your individual board level. We have already received requests from boards who appreciated the nuts and bolts of the board orientation, but who’d like to get more in depth on some areas. We are happy to assist you, but please bear with us and work with us as we get underway and wrap up the basic training for all new boards.
We have also encountered questions about live Ethics and Open Government training by the City Attorney. Please know, that we are simultaneously working on developing regional trainings with the City Attorney’s Office and our Funding Department so that we can bring those two requirements live to you at some point in the near future. For now, as you know, you can satisfy these two requisites (Ethics and Funding) via online if you visit our website at EmpowerLA.org If you need assistance on how to find this information, please contact your assigned Neighborhood Empowerement Advocate and/or our Departmetn’s Help Line at (213) 978-1054 or via e-mail at [email protected]
