[Gina Ward]

As anyone had to write up something about RE for their annual board report? If so, what did you write? We've never included anything about RE before, so I don't have anything to go off of from last year. Oh yeah, I was just told to have this done by Friday Noon.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

[Witch]

You could take this several ways, I guess it would help us to know why the interest in a report now.

Is your organization new to RE, is that why they want a report? Or has the Board just now decided they want to know how it works.

I’ve had the occasion to do this twice for different reasons at two former organizations. Unfortunately, I do not have copies of what I wrote.

For one, it was an introduction, just letting them know the basics of RE and how the conversion went. For the other, it was just a basic update on what we are using RE for and what perhaps we might consider for the future. I was able to draw on information from my own knowledge and the BB website to compile these.

My advice, which you probably already know is to keep it short and simple, the Boards I have dealt with usually aren’t interested in the nittty gritty details.

Good Luck.

[Gina Ward]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dstengl

Is your organization new to RE, is that why they want a report? Or has the Board just now decided they want to know how it works.

Denise,

Thanks for your reply - to further clarify, our organization is not new to RE, we've just not had a database administrator before now. I'm not sure why it needs to be in the board report, but the development director would like it added. So that is why I'm trying to pull something out of the hat.

Anyone know any good hat tricks?

[Doug Creek]

I don't know how helpful these will be, but these are crystal reports (that now that I look, I REALLY need to take the time to go back through them and clean them up and beautify them) that show what records we have in the database, etc (no laughing! We have an enormous amount of cleanup to go through still), but this gives my director a quick run down of what we have. These are over "all time", so they are really snap shots of where we are... Other then that, I don't know what I would present to our boards if I was asked...

Doug

[Witch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gina Ward

to further clarify, our organization is not new to RE, we've just not had a database administrator before now. I'm not sure why it needs to be in the board report, but the development director would like it added. So that is why I'm trying to pull something out of the hat.

I'm not trying to be funny or anything but can't your development director tell you what he/she wants. How are you suppose to come up with anything, without some direction from him/her? He/she should know what the board is expecting to see?

When I am hit with requests that have no direction, I keep asking questions and pushing til I get something I can work with.

I know it's not much help and I sympathize with your situation.

[Peter Gulka]

Whenever my director requests a report, at the very least he needs to provide me with a scribble on the back of a napkin to start with. 90% of the time he asks me if I can automate a spreadsheet that is being maintained manually.

It is their responsibility to know what they want and ask for it specifically. That is part of a director's job. If yours doesn't even know what the report should look like, or why he wants it, then he probably doesn't really know what he is supposed to be measuring.

[Melissa Siobhan]

If they want somethign ABOUT RE then is it simply a matter of getting something off of the BB website as a summary of what RE is for the Board. I would even go to your account rep and see if they have a summary information sheet about RE.