Several current and new
board members from my MOMS
Club chapter,
including myself, are
leaving MOMS Club at the
end of this month and creating our own group
of mommy friends. This would not be a formal
club. We simply
want to support each other without all
the rules and time away from family to institute, explain,
and enforce all the rules that MOMS Club International
requires.
Why do we want to
leave?
We are tired of
all of the regulations and the time that Board Members
in particular spend explaining and enforcing those
rules. We want to provide support with less red tape
and less administrative duties. We don't
want boundaries. We want to be able to talk about MOMS
Club without fearing that the lonely mommy we met may
live in a different chapter boundary. If someone from
Glendora wants to join our group and they attend once a
month because that is the level of support they need,
what is wrong with that? Where is the harm? I have
friends all over the Inland Empire
and the country. My capability
for friendship
and support does not end at the city limits or
chapter boundaries.
We don't want to battle with
International over boundaries anymore. I have tried so
hard to work with International over the last month
about boundaries and they are unwilling to
recognize a flexible boundary policy because this is
they way they
have always done it. Well, that is not a good enough
reason. Even if a better way comes along, will International
deny it just because it's new and different
from the way things have always been done?
Clearly so. If all
five Chino Hills chapters were willing to recognize
flexible boundaries, as we are, who is International to
say we can't make agreements and work together for the
betterment of our chapters and all moms in Chino
Hills?
It is because
International lacks
the one thing that every successful organization
requires: vision. They are so fixated on all their
regulations, on
micro-managing chapters, that they miss the whole
point: supporting moms. Unfortunately
for the moms seeking out a group like MOMS Club, they
must chose between being lonely and isolated or joining
MOMS Club. Now, there is another choice.
I can't be President
of a MOMS Club chapter when I disagree so
strongly with International
on boundaries. Turning
moms away sends the wrong message when your
mission clearly
states your objective is to support moms. If you decide
to stay with MOMS Club, I encourage you to continue
pushing this issue. I am simply to tired and am ready to
put my energy into creating
something new and
positive rather than trying to fix a problem that
is way beyond my power
within an organization that clearly doesn't care
what their membership wants.
I am a member of two other 501(c)(3)
organizations that have meetings in Southern
California:
ICAN and
La Leche League.
Their missions
are support and education. They don't care what
meetings you go to. They don't care if you go to the
evening West Covina meeting this month and the daytime
Rancho Cucamonga meeting the next. They trust you to
determine what works best for you and your family. They
trust you to determine which group you feel most
comfortable in. Their mission is support
and they don't concern themselves with dictating,
controlling, mandating, or limiting when and how
you may obtain that support. They trust you to make
those decisions for yourself. Their actions are
consistent with their mission.
We want to be able to have a
YahooGroup
without International requiring
they be a member and reading all of our emails as
if we are the enemy and can't be trusted. Despite the
fact that we are a chapter that follows the rules, and
thus have nothing to hide, I still can't help but
feel spied on. Then International
states that you give your Big Sister a monthly update
despite the fact that she's on your YahooGroup and gets
all your emails, monthly calendar as well as your
newsletter. What else is there to discuss? We are all
busy moms.
We want to have the opportunity to
have more than one evening activity a month and be
trusted that we, together with our husbands, can decide
what is best for our individual
families.
We don't want to do Annual Reports and have to list
every single thing we did during the year - we are busy
enough as it is just being moms. We don't care about
winning "The Best Craft Activity" award at the Annual
Luncheon. We
don't care about getting service project credit for
helping a former member whose husband passed away
and now is a widow with three young children at 29. It
disgusted me when International told me to count our
activities as a service project. My friend is not a
service project. My motivation in reaching out to her
was not to "get credit," but to support her as my heart
cried for her. I couldn't believe International would
suggest such a meaningless thing at a moment of such
profound loss.
We don't want to have dues,
deal with a budget and report every cent to
International only to be threatened with probation if
you are $9 off. This is especially frustrating when
International's most recent completed fiscal year is
2001-2002 according to their
website.
(I'm sure International will quickly remove the file now
that I've brought attention to it, but
if you are interested in reading it, just email
me.) I have contacted
International repeatedly asking for the latest
report as I would like to know how International spends
their money. Clearly, obtaining accurate
and current information from us at
whatever time interval International mandates,
is vital.
Sharing information with us is not.
We want to be free of the
rules that seem to change depending on who in
International you speak to. I
have had the opportunity to speak with other Presidents
from around the country and had heard their
experiences. Some chapters have been told that
they can't have Christmas or Halloween parties. They
must be Winter/Fall Festivals. Chapters
should be able to determine, based on their members'
religious affiliations, what holidays they do and
do not wish to celebrate. Other chapters have been told
that they can't use
evite.
Some chapters are told they can email newsletters,
others not. Some
chapters are told they can't have a Bible Study group.
Some chapters have been told they can't have
bunco nights because some states consider that gambling,
even though their specific state does not forbid it.
Why does International insist on making these decisions
for chapters? We do not need MOMS Club to micro-manage
us and tell us what activities we can or can't have and
further what we are permitted to call those activities.
Provided they are not breaking the law, each
chapter should be able to decide what works best for
their membership.
Maybe that is why
International recently dismantled a YahooGroup created
by a MOMS Club President for MOMS Club Presidents - so
we wouldn't find out how unorganized this organization
really is with their inconsistent application of the
rules. International
put the coordinator of this group AND her entire chapter
on probation and threatened her with the disbandment of
her chapter if she didn't take the group down. They
punished her entire chapter, women who were not even
aware of the existence of this YahooGroup, for her
actions. The only other way Presidents had to connect
was through the heavily censored and moderated PrezList.
Moderated means that every single email to the group
went to International first and if they approved of its
content, they permitted it to be included.
International doesn't want Presidents communicating
without them having complete control over content and
thus, who gets to participate in the dialogue.
Successful
organizations are able to grow, adapt, and improve over
time based on the needs of their focus demographic.
Unsuccessful ones are rigid, antiquated, and ultimately
lose support from the ground up as evidenced by the
exodus International will surely witness in the area
surrounding Chino Hills as well as all over the country
in the coming months. International would benefit
greatly if they actually listened to the needs of their
members rather than simply shutting them down because
they don't like what is being said.
We don't want to be
associated with an organization who is so
technologically unsophisticated and unknowledgeable that
they have an inherent mistrust and
fear of the internet, evite, emails,
chapter websites, and YahooGroups. Has anyone
considered what happens to rosters or
newsletters when they are put in the trash? I
doubt every single member around
the country shreds their roster
and newsletter. How
about rosters and newsletters going through postal
service? What if they are sent to the wrong address?
What if it's accidentally delivered to the wrong house?
What if someone steals a member's mail? These realities
are a greater risk to our chapter's security and
privacy than including the location of a Park Day
in a private,
secure
YahooGroup.
We want to be able to have
whatever information we see fit on our website,
YahooGroup, or evites rather than having International
tells us what we can and can't say. I am a member of
several YahooGroups and I have seen how successful they
can be in facilitating communication and planning,
reducing the administrative time required
of those planning, while keeping that group private from
the public. I really wish MOMS Club could see how
things could be easier and their members happier.
We want to be more like a
group of friends, than a corporation. We want to get
back to what MOMS Club was supposed to be about -
supporting moms. Instead, that vision has been lost
amongst the bureaucracy, hierarchy, and enforcement of
rules. No
matter how much this
philosophy undermines
the mission, MOMS Club
continues on running over new ideas and innovative
members at full speed.
I thought MOMS Club was just
a social group before I got on the Board. Now, after
being President for a year, and spending so much time
away from my daughter and husband so I could do things
the way MOMS Club wants, I have
come to realize how
the mission of MOMS Club has deteriorated
into virtual extinction amongst the rules and the
enforcement of those rules. My
husband is thrilled that I will no longer be spending
time on "MOMS Club stuff."
All the time that is
required to institute the bylaws, policies, procedures,
unspoken rules, emailing "can we do this" questions and
going back and forth with International, fighting for a
mom outside the boundaries to join our chapter, creating
agendas, holding business and board meetings, creating
flexible boundary petitions and going back and forth
with International about that ... all of this adds up to
a huge time commitment which has seriously detracted
from the time I personally spend with my family.
Whenever I got
frustrated with International, I would focus on the
lonely mom who needs to connect with other stay-at-home
moms during that especially difficult post-birth, no-job
transition period because I had a very difficult time
adjusting to full-time "mommy-hood" and I have great
compassion for women who feel the same way. Now, I can
leave, join this new group of mommy friends, and know
that I can continue the support that I tried to
provide as best I could within the strict constraints of
International's regulations.
What would we lose
and gain by forming our own mommy group?
We would lose our
501(c)(3)
status. With
that change in status, we lose the
infrastructure and all the rules and regulations that come
with it for the
$2/year/member that we pay International. This
means no board, no financial reports, no
mission statement, no by-laws, no manual, no Robert's Rules
of Order, no executive
training, no dues, no budget, no boundaries, no
Annual Reports, no Big Sisters, no State
Coordinators, no censoring,
no moderating, no documentation requirements, no
rules on evening or weekend
activities, and no
rules regarding parties.
If we wanted
to fundraise and support a non-profit organization, we
simply have donors write their check to that non-profit
directly.
What would we gain? The freedom
to be what we want - a group of mommy friends having fun,
sharing, supporting, while our
kids have fun and make friends
in a no drama, non-political, less structured environment. Based
on the interests of the women who join us, we can
have luncheons,
parties, beach days, Disneyland days, camping weekends, a
preschool co-op, swap babysitting, craft days, book clubs,
cooking clubs, dinner clubs, storytime, Bible Study, weight
loss support, exercise groups, couples night, weekend
activities, moms night out, and playdates by age or
interest. We can still do all the fun activities
that we do now. We can still have all the things we love
about MOMS Club - the
friendship, the support,
and the fun calendars - and leave the stuff we don't
like behind.
Please understand that none
of us hate MOMS Club. In
fact we still strongly believe in the mission of MOMS Club
and together hope to continue with that mission as it was
originally intended in our new group of mommy friends.
What we disagree with is how MOMS Club is run. If
MOMS Club works for you,
you are happy, and
it meets your needs, know
that our
objective is not to convince
people to leave or steal away MOMS Club
members.
I just know in
speaking with many of you around
the country that there are many moms, in many
chapters, who are very unhappy with how MOMS Club is run.
I want
to let those moms know that there is now
another option created by ex-MOMS Club board
members
and other people can follow our lead and do the same around
the country. My objective is to create an
alternative for moms who want to enjoy their friendships
and support fellow stay-at-home moms without having
all the rules. If you
would like to share our vision with your fellow chapters,
please feel free to do so.
A year ago, before I joined the
board and experienced International first hand, I would have
never considered leaving MOMS Club. In
fact I was considering becoming a Big Sister because I so
believed in the mission of MOMS Club, as I do to this day.
However, as I thought about this new mommy group
over the last few days, I have
become more
and more excited because the focus will be supporting moms
and enjoying this special time
of our lives with our children and each
other.
The freedom to openly plan, socialize, and support each
other without documentation or fear of punishment from
International will be a very nice change of pace.
It saddens me greatly
to walk away from an organization that I have given
so much to during the past year as President, but
I will not be a member of an organization that rules with
such a heavy hand under the auspices of "support."
While I feel tremendous support from the women in my
chapter, I do not feel supported by International.
Further, I am dismayed by the stories I have heard from
other chapters about how they are treated by International. International's
actions clearly state, "If you don't like it,
leave." Well, we will.
For those of you who wish
to immediately forward this to International, don't
bother. They were cced on this email.
Group of mommy friends is just
that, a group of friends. We are not a club or sorority. We
are interested in enjoying our children, making friends, and
having fun.
If you share our
vision, you, together with your friends no matter where they
live or whether they are a current MOMS Club member or not,
are invited to join us in a new mommy support group
where the focus will truly be support. Our activities will
begin Thursday, July 6, 2006. Please contact me if you
would like to join us.
Warmly,
Jen B.