When I entered into the Chairman position, I knew there was going to be added stress because we were taking in an additional 6 counties. This is not an easy task for any chapter. Although it was a struggle, it was worth it. We had issues with personnel and implementation of policy at our second office, but both of these were handled carefully. I’m happy to say that our second office is off and running under new leadership. They are already taking steps to put together an advisory council for the area. I have no doubt that within a few years they will get their charter back and no longer need us.

Not only did our service area grow, our chapter also grew into a newer, bigger home. It provides our staff with a more professional and productive environment. We are holding an open house for the community with our annual meeting at the end of the month.

My confidence in my abilities as a leader has increased dramatically. I am growing more comfortable in my role as the chairman, and I hope that if I am re-elected for a second year,  I can continue to assist in making our chapter the best that it can be. One thing I have taken away from this year is to never doubt your abilities, because you have more potential than you give yourself credit for.

Strive to be the best that you can be. You will impress others — and yourself.

Jessica Mueller, South Dakota (age 25)

Other than expanding myself by taking my first disaster class, my duties have been pretty normal. We easily handled a situation in our Watertown office, thanks to our great new employee there. We are starting to feel growing pains in our office and are in the process of looking for a new office. It’s hard to give up our current location because it is owned by the city and they let us use it free of charge. Our board meets next Monday and I get to propose to them a new location. Unfortunately, the proposal will take a chunk out of our reserves, but this is the kind of thing our big donors would want us to do with the money. The new location we are considering is big enough that we could hold all of our classes there, instead of paying to hold them elsewhere. It also is on one of the major streets in town, so we will be more visible to the community. We will see what the rest of the board thinks. Should be an interesting meeting!

Another great thing happening for my chapter is that one of my college representatives to the board is attending the National Youth Institute. I still remember my time at NYI, and cherish it as one of the reasons I’m so engaged in the Red Cross. I hope Jolene has a great time. Until next time, keep doing what you do so well, fellow Red Crossers!

Jessica Mueller, South Dakota

The first interview went fine and I just thought I was in for a long day. The second candidate walked in, and in the course of her interview, told us there was a fire in her trailer court last night and the family would need assistance. We asked her to find the mom after the interview so she could call our office. We then went out for a quick lunch break.

From here on, I want you to imagine that you are there, real-time, in our shoes…

As we get back from lunch the phone is ringing. It’s the fire victim. Neither the director nor I are fully disaster trained (we both have only taken Introduction to Disaster) so we told them to come in and we’d do the best we can until another volunteer gets there.

As Pat looks for the paperwork in an office that is not familiar to us, I conduct an interview with a crisis counselor – so fitting! What’s more, the victim gets there about 20 minutes earlier than expected so in the open office we have a interview and disaster work going on. It was not an ideal situation but we made it work.

I am also slightly flustered because it starts to bring back memories for me. When I was in 5^th grade my family lost our home to a fire, and knowing this family lost everything, I feel what they are going through.

When the volunteer arrives we turn the response over to her thinking she is fully trained. Pat and I go in the back to discuss the interview I had conducted. In a moment, I peek out and the volunteer calls for me: she just started doing this training, is only trained in mass care and is confused on the CAC forms! Between the 3 of us we figure out the forms with the help of phone assistance from our disaster coordinator.

While the volunteer tries to figure out the form with the disaster coordinator, the victim starts to tell me what happened…. and it really brings me back to our fire. My heart goes out to her.

When we call the hotel to get them lodging, they have not been paid for our last fire!! We had a recent change of personnel and the payment been lost in the shuffle. I get on my cell phone and call our disaster coordinator again and finally get an arrangement made. After an hour, we finally send the victim on their way.

As we conduct our last interview, the volunteer comes back. The last client had left a $43 phone bill with the hotel. We decide to leave it up to the disaster coordinator to figure out and decided we needed to get out of town before something else happened.

The office is part-time but the phone was ringing off the hook while we were there. We even had a girl come in and tell us she wanted to donate blood again. While we were excited, it was not our office and neither of us knew when the next blood drive was. I could only take her contact information.

With the chaos of the day, I was reassured that I’m a part of this organization for the right reasons. This was the first real opportunity to be hands on with assisting clients. Seeing how grateful the client was for our services really impacted me and made me extremely proud to be part of the Red Cross family.

Jessica Mueller, South Dakota

We had our quarterly full board meeting this past Sunday and I’m happy to report that we had 3 new board members there. I have had good luck in recruiting members in the past few months. (I’m hoping they will be extremely active!) All but 3 of the board members are new this year and I’m struggling to recruit a vice chairman, since the previous one recently moved to North Dakota. I can understand why the new members have reservations about taking that step but I’m hoping someone will step up before the next meeting.

In other news, tomorrow will be an exciting day. I am interviewing 5 local high school students who are interested in serving as the high school representative to the board. I’m hoping that with that type of interest, the high school rep we choose will be able to start a high school club. This has been one of my goals since I served as youth liaison to the Midwest Service Area.

Overall I’m excited about the progress being made during my term and hoping to accomplish much more before my term is up!

Jessica Mueller, South Dakota (age 24)

It was interesting to help plan and implement the event as the campus has rules and restrictions they had to deal with first. They had to purchase the supplies from Aramark (campus food system) in order to hold it on campus. That was no big deal.

Then came the communication issues. The group wanted to rent a large griddle from a local foundation. Unfortunately, that fell through 2 days before the event and their adviser had to purchase countertop griddles. They did not communicate what they had or what they needed so when it came to the event we were a little bit nervous.

They had also asked that I round up Red Cross volunteers to help but they didn’t know how many they needed. I sent an email to our board and disaster team and received a few emails. I was hoping that would be enough as this was really a class project and was up to them to basically run it. I had my boyfriend and his mom on standby in case I needed a couple more volunteers throughout the time!

When I arrived at 8 am to set up, the group had everything ready to go and were basically killing time until they could start up the griddles. It was a great scene to show up to. We ended up serving around 125 people from 9 am until 1 pm, and for it being a first time fundraiser, I was happy with that. The group did an amazing job and it all worked out great! We are in the works of planning a campus event for spring as well to gain more awareness.

I would like to take this time to encourage all chapters who have an American Humanics program at their local university/college to get in touch with them and start an ongoing relationship. Not only can the program offer your chapter with amazing volunteers, you are helping those students gain nonprofit experience. I know personally because American Humanics is what provided me with the opportunity to serve in the Red Cross in the first place!

To find out if there is a AH program near you, visit their site!

Jessica Mueller, South Dakota

These past few weeks have been a learning experience. For example, I filled out our chapter performance plan to set the goals for the next year. I am excited to see them come to life and make our chapter even bigger and better! Along with this came the executive director compensation form (pay raise). I didn’t think about the fact that I had to do this because I thought we had set a 5% increase for all of our employees due to the 6 county expansion… he then informed me that it didn’t include him. Whoops!

Someone send me an accountant! This coming week I will be discussing it with my regional executive to hopefully get it figured out. Last week in an e-mail she thanked me for my leadership and told me that I was being professional and asking the right questions. It made me feel great but I’m honestly learning as I go.

A couple weeks ago we held our Regional Council/State meeting. I was the only representative from our chapter and was new to the council but I felt the meeting went well. We discussed events/activities/materials that we need as a state to better serve the mission of our organization. We created a list addressing multiple areas of Red Cross (about 10 different categories) and brainstormed together. I thought this went great and we are going to implement a lot of our goals statewide. We also discussed the status of the Disaster Relief Fund and how we could support the current national fundraising effort. It seems overwhelming at first; however, when I got home and discussed it with my chapter executive, it seems much more manageable! Good luck to everyone on this effort!

I will let you know how my adventures in budgeting turn out in next month’s entry. Until then, good luck in all of your own adventures.

Jessica Mueller, South Dakota

Today marks my first “official” day as chairman of the Brookings County Chapter Board of Directors.  I had expected to just start my duties today but our chairman was unable to attend our annual meeting last night, so I actually started early.  What a start – I didn’t have a copy of the agenda until yesterday morning and was caught off guard on a couple things the executive director had me listed as discussing.  I was flustered. 

We didn’t have too many people there because it is always a struggle to get people to summer events, so that helped to put me at ease.  We surprised our disaster services staff member with the chairman’s award for going above and beyond her duties.  She had no idea, which was the fun part of the evening!  When it came to official business my brain froze and could not remember the word “opposed.”  I went to national competition in high school for parliamentary procedure (how to run a proper business meeting), but when I try to use it in real life, I freeze up.  I just told them I was new and went on with the meeting.  One of the outgoing board members agreed to be my consultant and mentor when I had questions on my duties. It puts me at ease that I have a couple people I know I can turn to. 

Being only 24, I am still a little nervous that I don’t have enough experience behind me to take on such an honor but I’m going to give it my best.  I need to remember that I am American Humanics certified which means I should have the education necessary to take on these types of responsibility.  I am very honored to serve in this position, and will continue to promote the mission of the Red Cross.  There are definitely some things I want to see accomplished in my term.  Until my next update, keep on doing what you do best! 

Jessica Mueller, South Dakota

As of July 1^st my chapter will be expanding by 6 counties, taking over operations of a CSDU that spans all the way to the North Dakota border.  What’s more, this is all occurring as I am being elected chairman of the board of directors.  All I can say is bring it on!  And am I prepared?  Well, no… I’m not quite sure what to expect. No one is. 

We are going into that office and dissolving the advisory board and almost starting over.  Luckily we have been able to hold on to the office manager who will be our go-to person as we add someone in the office to do mostly public relations.  I’m hoping this will all go pretty smoothly. I would be okay if we weren’t expanding, but they will expect me to brainstorm and fix things if we run into a snag during the process.  I fear for them if they listen to me!

I also got my first taste of what chairman will feel like at our board meeting this week.  Our chair was absent so I stepped in.  I felt confident because I have received gold medals at competitions for Parliamentary Procedure (how to run a business meeting) when I was in high school, but oh my did I feel the pressure!  I forgot a few things at first.  I was the youngest at the meeting by at least 25 years, so I kind of felt apprehensive.  Luckily my board is great and just rolled with me as I became comfortable with things. 

We are still working on board recruitment for this year’s board.  There is talk that the mayor may be accepting our invitation.  That makes me very nervous.  I know in my past posts I have said stick up to adults and show them you know how to do things, but when it comes to elected officials, I get a little scared and feel way too inferior.  It would be great to have him on our board, but the first board meeting I will be shaking in my shoes!  My roommate reminded me to that he is just a person.  I need to remember that!  I know that I know a lot more about how our organization runs than he does, but still!  I will keep you updated more regularly as we go through the process of expansion.

Jessica Mueller (age 24)
Brookings County Chapter, South Dakota

Last week the expansion committee had a conference call with our CSM and laid out what we would like to see happen if we take over the extra coverage area. This is huge for our chapter. Just two years ago we were pulling out of our reserves every quarter and now we are so self-sufficient that we can expand!

I’m pretty excited for everyone. Our chapter executive director is working on a transition budget this week to make sure we can get sufficient funding in order to proceed. This proves that if you can get the right board members and the correct staffing, a chapter can bounce back, quickly. And since I was chair of the search committee who hired our executive less than a year ago, I am proud of myself for helping to make the right decision, he is awesome!

Pending funding we will take over the 8 counties starting July 1, as I am supposed to be beginning my two year term as chairman. This is a concern as I will have to head up the changes of the board to include those in the new area. We have decided we need a new office and are deciding what staff increases we will need. Since I’m graduating in December I have offered to come on part time as staff, as either Development Director or Assistant Executive Director. This would mean I would have to resign from the board, but it would start my career in a nonprofit that I am passionate about. We will see what we need in the coming months.

The committee wasn’t thinking about hiring another person for the office until I explained that our executive is going to have too much to do and could use the help.

Our board meets at the end of the month and will make the final decision on whether or not to expand, so next month I will have more to discuss as things will go quickly after. Have a great day!

Jessica Mueller, South Dakota