NCRA's Writing Our Future initiative moves to "Discuss & Debate"

In March and April, more than 2,800 NCRA members took part in a survey as part of the Writing Our Future initiative. Now, the Board is asking for all members to participate in the "Discuss & Debate" phase of the initiative, which begins with the introduction of discussion threads on the NCRA Forum and online chats scheduled for next week. The Freelance Community of Interest will chat on Tuesday, May 10, at 9pm Eastern, and the Officials Community of Interest will do the same on Wednesday, May 11, at 8pm Eastern. On the table for discussion and debate are four possible scenarios for NCRA's future. If you completed the survey, you might remember there were five scenarios at that point, one of which was removed from the Discuss & Debate phase because members clearly did not see it as a viable option for NCRA's future as an organization (that scenario, by the way, was for NCRA to become a realtime-only association).

NCRA now has a special Writing Our Future section, which includes descriptions of the background and steps within the Writing Our Future initiative, additional descriptions of the four remaining scenarios for NCRA's future that are up for discussion and debate, results from the Writing Our Future survey, and links to NCRA Forum discussion threads on the scenarios as well as links and instructions for accessing online chats.

For the chats and forum threaded discussion, please note that NCRA has recently made two important changes: 1) The chats now will take place within the upgraded NCRA Forum rather than on the old Community Server platform; and 2) To access the NCRA Forum (and thus the chats), you now use the same username and password you use for access to the main NCRA website to log into the forum. We recommend that you test your access to the chats in advance on the computer you will be using to work out any potential problems.

The NCRA Board will use information gathered on the forum and from a second scheduled Writing Our Future survey in June to determine how to approach the next phase of the initiative...whether members will be in a position at July's Annual Convention to make a decision on NCRA's future or whether more discussion and debate must take place in the months ahead. In any case, the Board wishes to emphasize that no fundamental changes can or will be made without clear support from members to make such changes.