The WES staff team is excited to announce our plan for 2021-2022! In addition to retaining Maceo Thomas as Membership Coordinator, Robyn Kravitz as Communications Coordinator, and Tom Hutton as Business Administrator, we are restructuring our Lifelong Learning staff team. Ndara Miles has agreed to increase her hours to half time and become our SEEK Coordinator for the coming year. In addition, Linda Irizarry will add hours to her schedule to be able to coordinate both regular youth programming and the Coming of Age program. 

This plan allows us to leverage the considerable experience and expertise among the staff we already have. Though it would have been nice to have been able to hire an additional half time staff member, the economic uncertainty affecting members means that we’ll need to postpone that goal. On the other hand, the generosity of members who were able to raise their pledge means that we can almost double the staff hours that were available for children and youth programs in 2020-2021. 

During the Cottage Meetings in the fall and in several conversations since then, we have heard from many of you about consistency in staffing, noting that there is a lot of merit in retaining staff who already know how WES works and what the community values are. Our staff team and Board have been working all year on policies and other changes that will help increase staff retention, such as providing consistent professional development expenses and clarifying expectations in the Employee Handbook. We’re glad that these changes are helping to make next year’s staffing plan possible. Ndara and Linda are both highly trained professionals in related fields. They are creative team players. And they know WES.

Ndara and Linda will need volunteers to turn the vision of a renewed program for children and youth into reality. Programs for children and youth have enjoyed robust volunteer collaboration in the past, and we are looking forward to growing and deepening our community through shared learning and shared lay leadership. Ndara, Linda, and Lyn have been working on volunteer training materials and classroom procedures to help make volunteering an organized, supported experience. 

Interim Leader Lyn Cox writes: 

“I have a lot of confidence in our current staff team. They are responsive, professional, knowledgeable about child development and family systems, and great to work with. I hope you will join me in congratulating them on their revised positions and working with them to make WES’s programs for children and youth successful.”

Thank you again to the members whose pledges support the increase in hours for the SEEK Team, and to the volunteers whose collaboration will make possible the renewal of educational programs and all of our WES programs in the coming year.