January 2023 Board Retreat Recap

The CITE Board of Directors (Board) gathered in January for a two-and-a-half-day retreat to map out the goals for the year.  

As you may know, CITE members recently voted to update the bylaws to set term limits for the Board. This has resulted in a series of new board members being elected. Of the 12 board members, four are just beginning their second year, and another three are starting their first year. We have a strong desire to become a cohesive board so we can continue the great work being done. So, we worked with a facilitator who led the Board and staff through a series of exercises to help develop that sense of cohesiveness. Topic areas included: 

• Increasing member engagement 
• Becoming a high performing board 
• Advancing the relationship between the board and the Executive Director, and 
• Advancing the relationship with volunteer leaders 

The Board has deliberately and mindfully moved from a Working Board, where board members were responsible for tasks around the organizations events and programs as well as day to day operations - to a Governing Board, that clearly delineates the Board’s role from staff’s roles, which is more strategic and is based on ownership, policy, and oversight. Many policies have been implemented and a new strategic plan was completed in 2022.  

The facilitator asked us to look at the topics above from the mindset of asking “a more beautiful question” based on the book by the same title by Warren Berger. According to Berger:  

“A beautiful question is an ambitious yet actionable question that can begin to shift the way we perceive or think about something – and that might serve as a catalyst to bring about change.” 

We went to work developing our beautiful questions for the topics above. We will be working on these questions throughout the year. Each question will be developed in the following format: 

• What if…? 
• Why …? 
• How…? 

Our first effort is the question: “What if membership had better clarity of the CITE Board’s role in supporting technologists in California?” We plan to continue to inform members as we develop our “whys” and “hows” to this question. Stay tuned.