The Houston meeting was the first opportunity for all 12 Council members to meet and work with the facilitators from Leadership Strategies.

Prior to their arrival each Council member received a 2-inch-thick notebook containing the survey results from members, subscribers, elders, employees and Council members. The notebook, known as the briefing book, also contained statistics from Ministerial Services, Financial and Media, along with demographic studies related to our work.

Dave Register, Strategic Planning Steering Committee chairman, reported that much of December and all of early January were spent compiling the information in the briefing book and recording all the written comments, known as verbatims, from the survey respondents. A team comprised of Dave Register, Linda Register, Jason Lovelady and Diane Bailey compiled 500 pages of verbatim comments from the surveys, which were given to the Council members on a CD in advance of the meeting.

We received responses from 1,349 GN online subscribers, 3,224 attendees/members, 259 elders/employees and 97 employees. We were extremely happy with the number of people who chose to participate in the survey.

The purpose of the two-day Houston meeting was to focus on the front end of strategic planning. Day one began with a situation assessment—a look at where we are now as an organization using the briefing book and the verbatims as assessment tools. During the two days the Council moved through positioning and visioning exercises, goal assessment and, by the afternoon of the second day, the most difficult exercise, objective setting.

At the conclusion of the retreat home office staff member Jason Lovelady took the meeting notes back to Cincinnati where they will be compiled and sent out to the members of the Council in early February. This will set the stage for the next two-day retreat in San Antonio, Texas, Feb. 26 and 27 on the front end of the next regularly scheduled Council meetings.

The Council of Elders would like to thank the members, elders and employees for the tremendous level of response to the surveys. The information and the comments will be of great value in creating the current and future strategic plans. UN