In 1927, when Mrs. William Read opened our historic building, she expressed the members’ aspirations for the new campus and the exciting work of serving the community through the support of arts and culture that would take place within our building’s Italian Renaissance walls.
Mrs Read said, “so we may at last dedicate this house to service in its highest form: to the culture of the heart, that fine and broad culture, which comes only through service to others.” She added, “Let us dedicate this building to friendship, one of the most prized human possessions. Dedicated to the most satisfying form of friendship, not that which comes from mere social acquaintance, but that which comes from thinking, planning and working together.”
We are doing that thinking and planning in spades at The Ebell over the next several months. This month we have launched our Master Planning process that will produce a comprehensive plan for how to secure our building. This month we also begin our strategic planning review process, re-examining our vision and mission and developing the best organizational structure we can to achieve our goals. We are very excited to be working with two leading strategic consultants, Allison Sampson and Karen Constine, thanks to a generous grant secured by our Executive Director Stacy Brightman from the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.
My thanks to Christy McAvoy for her leadership on planning the building and Randi Jones for her leadership as chair of our organizational planning process. I look forward to sharing progress reports with you every month, perhaps even in between the months, as we work to complete our organization planning process by July 1.
We want to make sure we include as many Ebell members who would like to participate. Please let us know if you are interested in being part of the this process.
