Long-Range Planning

November 17, 2022

Chairman Catherine Whitham, Three Chopt Garden Club

At her first Board of Directors meeting in 2012, President Ann Gordon Evans stressed the importance of thinking and planning long range, saying, “the Garden Club of Virginia Centennial in 2020 provides an opportunity to unveil our future while celebrating our past.” She announced the creation of a Long-Range Planning Committee with Catherine Whitham to serve as chairman of the committee.

The Long-Range Planning Committee began gathering information from the membership about what the GCV will be best known for and how we can make a difference in the Commonwealth. To that end, focus groups met in each of the six GCV districts, as well as with the Board, Former GCV Presidents and staff to seek observations and insights. The committee also developed questions for a special external focus group of local business leaders and heads of selected local and statewide organizations to see how aware they are of the GCV and its work across the Commonwealth. In April, the committee conducted an electronic survey for all GCV members.

Preliminary findings revealed there is considerable interest to support a statewide project to commemorate the Centennial and, disappointingly, that the GCV is not well known outside the membership.

The committee engaged Katherine Whitney with Warren Whitney, a management consulting firm specializing in non-profits, to begin a yearlong process of developing a Centennial Vision 2020 that will coincide with the end of Ann Gordon’s term. The yearlong process will involve conversations with GCV leadership, staff and various key stakeholders, such as club presidents and committee chairmen, some of which has already begun.

Throughout the fall of 2013 and winter of 2014, workshops and conversations took place. Katherine led spirited discussions with GCV club presidents that resulted in numerous possibilities for a capstone project.

The committee spent much of the fall analyzing the possibilities to determine which projects or combinations are most viable and will produce the most visible impact for the GCV. The committee also expanded its vision and talked with local and state officials who might provide ideas for a capstone project that was not considered by members.

The committee reviewed comments from the 2013 survey about changing demographics and the “world view” of our younger members. In order to better understand the impact that changing demographics are having on GCV membership, the Long-Range Planning Committee engaged Matt Thornhill, Director of the Boomer Project in Richmond, who gave a short presentation to the Board on Directors talking about demographic, societal and cultural trends and how an organization like the GCV needs to position itself for the future.

At the 2014 spring Annual Meeting, Long-Range Planning Committee Chairman Catherine Whitham was pleased to announce the Board-approved centennial project, but before revealing the project, Catherine read the following:

“This is a story of Connections. Who would have thought that the state organization with whom we recommend a partnership would be one with which the GCV already had an 80-year history? Furthermore, who would have remembered that in the 1960s the late FitzGerald Bemiss, husband of Margaret and Honorary member of the GCV, would chair the Virginia Outdoor Recreation Study Commission, which created the blueprint for managing this state organization today? And finally, could we have imagined that the director of this state organization already knew the GCV well, having worked with members of the Princess Anne Garden Club on the acclaimed First Landing State Park project in Virginia Beach? Astonishing connections were coming together in a serendipitous way. What is this state organization? It is the Virginia State Parks.”

The Long-Range Planning Committee proposed a partnership with Virginia State Parks to strengthen visitors’ experiences and support implementation of innovative technology in visitor centers to introduce a new generation of Virginians to the rich natural and cultural history of our Commonwealth. Catherine introduced Virginia State Parks Director Joe Elton who narrated a video explaining how GCV can make a difference.

Catherine continued, “This recommendation, however, represents only the second half of the work of the committee over the course of 2012-2014. The first year was spent listening to various constituencies within the GCV about the direction the organization should take over the next five years and changes that need to be addressed.”

She concluded, “The strategic directions developed in 2006 have, for the most part, been accomplished. New strategic directions must be developed if the GCV is to grow toward its Centennial celebration and beyond.”