There’s an old saying that goes something like…”Failing to Plan is a Plan to Fail”. The Board of Directors for Southeastern Cotton Ginners adopted a Strategic Plan about 20 years ago. It worked well but over time had been all but forgotten.

Earlier this year, President, Steve Sterling appointed a committee to review and revise the Strategic Plan with no limitations on what the committee could do to it. That Committee met recently in Athens, Georgia. With the help with faculty from the Ag Leadership program at the University of Georgia, the committee spent a day and a half on professional development and review of the current plan.

After that review, the committee decided the plan only really needs to be updated to reflect some of the issues that are higher priorities in today’s environment vs 2002. The committee could have completely trashed the plan and started from scratch but decided that wasn’t necessary. It is a testimony to the leaders of the past that their original plan is continuing to meet most of the needs of the Association’s Operations.

This doesn’t mean the work is done… to the contrary. The time the Committee had was too short to truly dig into the nuts and bolts. They will continue to meet over the coming months to put more flesh on the bones that they established at this first meeting. Additionally, the committee will be looking at the programs and services the Association is involved with and how those can be improved. Finally, they may end up looking at the general governance of the organization. does our Board and Committee structure reflect the industry today vs 53 years ago when the organization was founded.

At some point in the process, we will be asking for your help. We will likely be surveying the membership and possibly the Associate Members to elicit some input in the process. We’re likely some time away from this but wanted you to begin to think about it. When we do put out a survey(s) we will need as many people to participate as possible.

As always, don’t hesitate to call if you have questions.

DSF