Where do we go from here? by Margo Pearce, Secretary, VARCS' Board
From: Alice - March 2004, Volume 7, Issue 3
The VARCS Board of Directors met in January as part of a strategic planning session. There were a few very interesting things that came out of those meetings that we want to share with you.
In discussing where we are we needed to discover who we are. Part of that process involved developing a new mission statement that describes the kind of work that we do with our HIV+ members and their caregivers.
We even talked about the words that we choose to use at VARCS and why they are important to us. Using the term "member" as opposed to "client" is a way that we hope we bring people into a relationship with the organization. Rather than just giving people something, we ask that people take responsibility for their own lives and participate in the programs and services that we offer. We believe this is a more respectful way to work with people than simply being a place where people get things.
Based on those discussions we worked on a new mission statement:
"VARCS assists our members to live the fullest lives they can."
Again, we think that by developing a relationship that involves the participation of our members (and our members are the loved ones and friends of HIV+ people as well), we respect the diversity of people and "fullest lives" is something that each person must decide for himself or herself.
We act as facilitators. We can't do everything for people, and we don't think we should. VARCS can provide people with links and connections to their community for services and programs that already exist. People living with HIV, just like everyone else, don't live in a vacuum - we don't need to create special "everythings" for a person with HIV, but we do need to make sure that people can freely access what's out there. Where there are problems in accessing those services, VARCS can advocate and provide education if needed to improve access.
Relationship, we realized, is the way we do what we do. We value our relationships and now look toward creating new relationships and strengthening older ones. By developing strong relationships, we believe that we can create a community that is more inclusive of people with HIV, their family and friends and that as the old saying goes "many hands make light work". Given the funding crunches that many groups face, we understand that cooperation and collaboration are the most effective way to make things happen.
We discussed the values of the agency which include things like, autonomy, accountability, empowerment of our members, humour and love (we forget that's a valuable value!). It's important to talk about values because our values are what shape who we are in what we believe
We also discussed creating some concrete thing that symbolizes the "soul" of VARCS. The agency, like a person, has a personality and relationships with our members and community partners. We welcome ideas from our volunteers, members and community partners on what that "thing" might be.
We hope that this strategic planning and visioning session will lead VARCS into a more exciting time in the coming year and we welcome feedback (positive and negative) from our members on how we are doing in our work.