From East DuPage Deanery Website

1. Meet with your predecessor, your advisor and/or past presidents; find out what has been done previously. Do they have any suggestions for helping your council flourish and grow?

2. Become familiar with the NCCW Guidance and Resource Manual. If your council does not have its own copy; ask to borrow the Deanery’s copy. Then study it and look for ideas and how-to’s for your council.

3. Review or create job descriptions for each board position in your council. Have each board member review the description, and update it, if necessary, so that it accurately reflects what she does.

4. Encourage your board and members to take advantage of deanery and diocesan opportunities for growth: Meetings of combined parish, deanery and diocesan boards, commission seminars, etc.

5. Encourage your council to establish a goal or purpose for the year. Make the goal measurable: not “get more members”, but “have an attendance of 50 for at least one meeting this year”. Then plan how this goal can be achieved. Work together and carry out the plan.

 6. Set up a calendar of events for your council; include deanery and diocesan events. Publish it and make copies available at every meeting, and in a pamphlet rack or bulletin board in your church, if available. Members need to be able to plan ahead.

7. Lend support to each of the other commissions. Read and stay informed so you can give suggestions or ideas to help the other commissions in their work. Be sure you have a plan in place for electing new officers and a new nominating committee.

8. Communicate, communicate, communicate! Use any and all means possible: church bulletin, E-mail, telephone, letters, parish newsletter, posters in church, school, area stores??, your parish’s website (consider your own CCW website); encourage feedback - ask members for their input.

9. Become an individual member of NCCW, and encourage at least all board members to do so also, as well as your general membership. The CATHOLIC WOMAN magazine showcases the national and international work of CCW, and provides proof that the programs and projects of your council really do have a wider impact; in fact, the work of local CCWs is like a stone dropped in a pond - the ripples expand ever outward to the very edges of the pond, or in this case, world. Every parish CCW woman can be proud to belong to such a great organization.

10. Encourage others in their work and give praise when earned. Be sure to report and publicize the results of your meetings and projects. Let your pastor and other parishioners know what you have done and are accomplishing!