Zonta Club of Eindhoven has 30 members. In the age between 41 and 83.
Every 2 years, our club takes a moment to reflect on the strategy and focal points for the coming 2 years (coinciding with the change of board members). Once every 4 years, we make more time available in the form of a half-day brainstorming session.
In addition to determining the focal points for the coming years we discuss bottlenecks, important developments and opportunities bottom up. Every voice is equal.
This session was prepared by 3 Zonta Members (including the Club president). In one evening session. Defining roles, rules and location.
Goals of this meeting:
Reflect together on our Zonta strategy: What are our shared values? Are we on the same track together? Are there Points of concern or improvement?
The way forward: What are our focus point next 2-4 years? What to achieve? How?
Resulting in a new impulse for our club, happy and passionate club-members and we want to go for it!
Meeting:
Saturday September 11th 2021, we started our meeting at 9.30 hrs. at Plan B in Eindhoven, a creative scenery in a former Philips Factory Building. The arts studio of one of our club-members
Our Club President kicked off with “setting the scene” and “rules of communication”:
Basic attitude and rules: Give each other space and time in conversation. We want to create a confidential atmosphere, with room for positive and negative reactions.
And with a common goal in mind: Improvement, so we all benefit. Check question: Does anyone feel that they can express themselves openly, is there a trusted environment?
We meet VITAL: Alternate sitting and walking. Stand up when you are doing your story (your brain is much more creative when you exercise).
During the break, we visited the art studio of our Zonta member.
One Zonta member had the role of facilitator.
The session consisted of 4 parts:
How well do you know the Zonta members? Everyone wrote down a personal slogan (anonymous) that suits you on a piece of paper. These were collected and read out randomly. The Zonta members had to guess which slogan matched the Zonta member.
Life Line: What is your intrinsic motivation to become Zonta Member? Because of which person (role model?) are you here? By what situation? What part of yourself are you proud of? What are you proud of our club (Eindhoven). What do you tell others with a proud smile?// What do you maintain? Every member has 2 minutes to tell her story.
One (random) club-member takes the stand: Every member can ask “in-depth questions” to the Zonta member in the middle: What part of yourself are you enormously proud of (and you does not dare to say )? What are you proud of our club (Eindhoven). What do you tell others with a proud smile?
Wrap up by our Club President:
What will be the course of the club in the next 2 years?
New committee-structure, introduce occasional teams.
Adapt 2 or 3 themes every year: Work more around a theme (with occasional teams). E.g.: Women in technology, Orange the world, recruiting new club members.
Follow-up:
Working together around themes gives a lot of pleasure to our Zonta members. Some members in the committees feel more attracted to the education theme and others for instance to the Zonta says no campaign. We decided to set three themes for this Zonta-year; i) our Women in Technology scholarship in the Eindhoven region, ii) the Orange the World campaign together with external clubs and iii) Zonta Club activities for our members and potential members. In this new structure, every committee delegates one or more members to a certain theme. They represent and keep in touch with their own committee. The reinforcement was great, it really gave a boost to the drive, motivation and pleasure of everyone in this corona-period. The result of this matrix of Zonta Committees and themes was a trigger to put every member in its strength and get the intended synergy effect.
Zonta Eindhoven
