By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Farm Bureau Federation (OFBF) is restructuring, said Executive Vice President Jack Fisher, striving to find that niche so every member can enhance the value of their membership and help OFBF accomplish its mission of forming a partnership between farmers and consumers and enhancing Ohio’s quality of life.
Fisher and President Bob Peterson introduced the restructuring at OFBF’s 2007 Leadership Conference.
“We have streamlined into three operating departments,” Fisher said. “One is public policy, where we develop policy from the farm level up, where we do our political activism: recruiting candidates, lobbying at the county, state and national level for legislative matter and regulatory matters. ... In today’s global world, it is also international.”
Communications is a second department. It reaches out to the membership with the new “Our Ohio” brand, print publications (a newspaper and magazine), weekly television and radio shows and an active daily-updated website.
“It’s about how we get the message of what we’re doing in Farm Bureau and how we need volunteers and members to participate,” Fisher said. “I like to focus on the fact that there are a lot more intangibles in Farm Bureau that I don’t think we promote enough.”
Farm Bureau stands for quality of life, good government, a fair tax policy and strong environmental movement – all the things that citizens want, Fisher said.
The third department is organizational. “The county farm bureau has to have a place to meet, keep their records and books, do audits,” Fisher said. “It’s all about organizational services during our Farm Bureau annual meetings, conferences, all of the support services so our members can be the most effective volunteers possible.
“The whole key to this restructuring is this: That we want to mold Farm Bureau to fit the needs of our members. We’re not trying to fit the member into Farm Bureau. We want Farm Bureau to be something that every member can find a way to participate in. That’s the driving force behind it.“
The restructuring goes into operation on Sept. 1. The conference was an opportunity for members to learn about it and opportunities to be an active volunteer, and to develop leadership skills.
At the conference, Farm Bureau members participated in breakout sessions on topics such as public speaking, running an effective meeting, setting goals and priorities and how to lobby. American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman spoke on current farm issues at its luncheon.
Peterson said, “This is the kickoff of our program year at Farm Bureau. We’ve got an exciting group of 630 or so farmer-leaders and a lot of enthusiasm and passion for agriculture in the room.
“We have a lot of issues to deal with in agriculture, and we need farmer-leaders to deal with those issues.”
This farm news was published in the Aug. 29, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
