A number of communications have been shared with the membership over the last few months regarding the transition of the GNPS Board to a State Board. This will happen in January 2020 following the approval of new by-laws and the election of the new Board at our Annual Business Meeting on November 12th.

We’ve compiled a page of information to help members understand the background and the changes associated with this transformation. We’ve talked a lot about the goals for improving our impact in the state as a result of this change, but it’s important to realize the change on the members that were never associated with a chapter before in the Atlanta area. Members in the Atlanta area are particularly affected by the change in that these members now need to come together to create one or more new chapters to help keep education and events happening in their communities.

While developing the metro Atlanta chapters will be some work, we hope that it will be an opportunity to elevate existing members to leadership positions, to bring new local ideas to the organization, and to develop educational events closer to our members, especially given the challenges associated with driving in the metro area. A group of folks are already working on an educational event in Alpharetta.

At a chapter formation meeting we held in Dunwoody recently, we emphasized that there are no preconceived notions of where metro Atlanta chapters might form. Members have expressed interest in having chapters in metro-north, metro-east, and metro-south areas. People who step up to lead chapter formation activities are the ones who will determine where these initially form and where future meetings will be held. The Strategic Task Form Team is available to help facilitate the initial communications between members looking to organize. You may reach the Strategic Task Force via email: strategic@gnps.org and chapter questions may be directed to chapters@gnps.org.

Specifically, we can help in the following ways:

  1. Provide a list of existing members in the chapter area so you can reach out to them for events, board positions, and energy.
  2. Provide GNPS materials such as brochures for your events.
  3. Provide introductions to locations for meeting venues that we have worked with; also provide ideas for speakers and event topics.
  4. Provide publicity for your events through the website, emails, and our social media channels.
  5. Provide a quick-start chapter guide to help you come up to speed quickly.