6 minute read
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
by Debbie Dwelle, Mazama President
Greetings to this incredible community!
I’d like to introduce myself and provide a little background for those of you who do not yet know me. My name is Debbie Dwelle and my pronouns are she/her. I joined the Mazamas in 2015 and took BCEP in 2016, which absolutely hooked me! I followed that with ICS and Advanced Rock, and became a climb leader in 2022 and a Mountain LEAD Certified Mentor in 2023. My husband and I currently co-lead the LGBTQ+ BCEP team. I joined the Board in January 2024 and have enjoyed this new role while learning a tremendous amount. I am honored to have been voted into the Board President role for 2025. The Mazamas is an organization I am quite passionate about and serving on the Board has offered me an opportunity to support and guide the organization in a new, important, and exciting way!
I want to start by saying a heartfelt THANK YOU to our outgoing Board President, Greg Scott. Greg has been a tremendous leader throughout his tenure on the board and has helped guide the organization in some critical areas. He has also been a mentor for me for the past year as I’ve immersed myself into my role as a Mazama board member. I have been reflecting on Greg’s comments in his last President’s Message about the promise of the Mazamas. As we look to the future, one of my overarching goals will be to honor this promise as we continue to collectively move the organization forward.
The Board and Rebekah recently had a full-day retreat focused on strategic planning for the organization. Some people have asked me, “Why is strategic planning important?” One way to think about it is that strategic planning is like plotting a route to the summit. Just as a mountaineer needs to choose the safest, most efficient route to reach the summit, a mountaineering organization needs to chart a course to achieve its long-term goals. Without planning, climbers may get lost, run into dangerous obstacles, or waste resources. Similarly, a lack of strategic planning in an organization can lead to aimlessness, inefficiency, and risk.
If you recall, we sent out a member survey earlier this year. The information gathered from you helped us better understand what’s most important to you as members and volunteers, and guided our thinking throughout this entire process. At the end of the retreat, the Board established a framework for a new threeyear rolling strategic plan. We focused on the organization’s mission, vision, values, and priorities.
For the mission statement, our goal was to more clearly articulate what is at the heart of the organization; what is it we do and how do we do it? While we loved our current mission statement, we felt it didn’t quite capture the community aspect that is truly the heart of the Mazamas. That’s all of you! So we modified the statement slightly from “To inspire everyone to love and protect the mountains” to “To build a community that inspires everyone to love and protect the mountains.”
As we contemplated our vision, we asked ourselves “What does successfully meeting our mission look like?” Through brainstorming and discussion, we came up with the following vision statement: “We envision a vibrant, inclusive community united by a shared love for the mountains, advocating passionately for their exploration and preservation. Through education, collaboration, and service, we aim to create a future guided by a spirit of adventure, respect for the natural world, and a collective commitment to safeguarding mountain environments for generations to come.”
As we considered the organization’s values, we wanted to honor the current identified values and also recognize what the founders envisioned for the organization. Our goal was to streamline, modernize, and consolidate where possible to strengthen focus areas. Through this process, we landed on five core values:
■ Inclusion: We value every member of our community and foster an open, respectful, and welcoming environment where camaraderie and fun thrive.
■ Safety: We prioritize physical and psychological safety through training, risk management, and sound judgment in all activities.
■ Education: We promote learning, skillbuilding, and knowledge-sharing to deepen understanding and enjoyment of mountain environments.
■ Service: We celebrate teamwork and volunteerism, working together to serve our community with expertise and generosity.
■ Sustainability: We champion advocacy and stewardship to protect the mountains and preserve our organization’s legacy.
The next step was to identify the organization’s priorities for the next three years. Through the process of understanding current pain points, reviewing member survey data, brainstorming, and healthy debates, we identified the following five areas as priorities to focus on:
■ Establishing a sustainable revenue model.
■ Developing and strengthening member and volunteer pipelines.
■ Auditing and updating our program offerings.
■ Optimizing our facilities.
■ Further developing our board and governance structure.
As far as next steps, we will be engaging in another full-day meeting in late January to continue the strategic planning process, which will involve identifying in more concrete, measurable detail what success looks like in each of these five priority areas. It is important to note that key volunteers will play an important role in helping us develop and achieve our goals. We can’t do this without you! Our current goal is to finalize phase one of the broader strategic plan and communicate this out to the membership by the end of the first quarter of next year. We are excited about the process and believe that having an updated and evolving strategic plan in place will help focus and guide the success of the organization now and in the future. We want to reach the summit!
I look forward to being in a leadership role on the Board in the coming year and to getting to know many of you better through this process. You are the absolute heart of this organization! There really aren’t enough words to thank you for all you do to make the Mazamas such a wonderful community to be a part of. I know my life has been forever changed for the better because of the Mazamas. I hope yours has too. Let’s keep climbing!
Mission Statement
“To build a community that inspires everyone to love and protect the mountains.”
Vision Statement
“We envision a vibrant, inclusive community united by a shared love for the mountains, advocating passionately for their exploration and preservation. Through education, collaboration, and service, we aim to create a future guided by a spirit of adventure, respect for the natural world, and a collective commitment to safeguarding mountain environments for generations to come.”
