Mary Porterfield's NVA speech
From AFSWiki
I’m not above telling an AFS story or two to remind us of our motivation How many have facilitated or been present for an AFS visualization activity during orientation?
This will be a visualization in fast forward Last Sunday 2 AFS students and I took off on a road trip. Close your eyes and come along. Long, straight highway. No trees. Flat land. Green wheat fields. Just passed a buffalo herd. There’s a herd of antelope. We have to slow a bit for a cock pheasant to cross the road. Oh, the wild turkeys think they have the right of way, so we’d better stop. Slowing down again—some farmers cows have escaped from the pasture and are grazing on the shoulder of the highway.
Where are we headed?
To the heartland of the USA
To a little town of 1600 people about 20 miles south of the geographical center of the continental United States. To Osborne, Kansas, and an AFS Chapter in the Heartland Team. We’re here to help them celebrate their 40th anniversary as an AFS Chapter. 39 students in 40 years. What other organization could expose this small Kansas town to the international scene? A hosted student went back and was the translator for the Japanese prime minister. A man in the audience was an AA to Germany in 1957—he was one of those “boat people”. Only AFS could have such a profound impact in such a small place.
One more AFS story: After a Chinese and a Japanese AFS student met at an orientation in the Heartland of AFS-USA and discovering that they might not really need to hate each other based on past history, the Chinese student wrote an essay which included these words: “I think the reason that the wars happen is because people don’t understand each other. It seems that this world is really enormous but actually understanding makes it much smaller. We need and we have to understand each other. This is our obligation, especially our generation. I wrote this article not only for Chinese people but also for the people who are living on this plant. No matter whether you are Asians, Africans, Americans, white, black, yellow or brown; we are all human. I hope we can understand each other; know each other more and more so that our colorful planet will be much more beautiful. There would be no destruction, no isolation, no racism. Instead, it would be full of peace; full of love; full of happiness.
And isn’t that our motivation?
When asked to speak, decided I needed a theme for the speech and the upcoming year. Several came e-mails with “next steps” so “NEXT STEPS”, it will be. We have lot of projects on our AFS plate: Volunteer Restructuring—last fall, building up our chapters, empowered volunteers through the NVA, improving quality with on-time placements across the organization, transitioning the National Council to a volunteer voting body, reorganizing the AFS Board of Directors and having the Board and the NC work together to decide the best governance structure to lead and guide AFS-USA, developing an effective communication plan between and among volunteers and staff to help address the continuing communication challenges.
We have lots of steps ahead
Some want to run. They wanted it done yesterday. Some are only comfortable with baby steps—or even are dragging their feet because they aren’t comfortable with change or don’t agree with the exact direction we’re heading. With the passion for AFS behind our volunteers and staff, we will find the right pace, the right steps to move forward.
Since this is the NVA, I challenge the volunteers in the room to take the following steps: First Step: Read thoroughly the electronic Volunteer Newsletter “Coming Together”. We’re making an effort to make it our main method of communication with volunteers. As volunteers, we have to do our part by reading it. Open the links within the newsletter. This is part of an effort to find the correct balance between too many e-mails and not enough information. Scott Hume’s department is doing a great job with this new communication tool. Second Step: Really start to use and become familiar with the Wiki. Some love it, some are still finding their way. We had the same struggle with the transition to AFS Online a decade ago. The Wiki will soon be open to read and print without a password. Make it a habit to check the AFS News section at least once a week. Third Step: go back to your chapter & Team and check on your progress for: Chapter chartering, compliance issues, offer help with hosting and sending. Consider placing one more student than you were personally committed to placing. Help make sure that the students get on the planes. Fourth Step: Learn how to use Global Link. Next year at the NVA, I’d like to be able to report that readership of the newsletter is up; complaints about not knowing how to find things on the Wiki are down; and that the comfort level with Global Links has risen.
You and I are the grassroots leaders of this great organization. In conjunction with our fantastic AFS Staff, we’re ready to take those next steps!
