Announcements

Reminder: Dues should be paid during the month of May. Mail to the treasurer.

The June Sedalia Business Women’s meeting has been CANCELLED due to COVID-19 concerns. The following slate of officers were approved by electronic vote for June (July) installation: President – Debbie Ulmer; President Elect – Robin Balke; 1st VP – Amanda Davis; 2nd VP – Betty Albrecht; Secretary – Katie Kirby; Treasurer – Della Schnakenberg; Director – Lori Haney.

Sedalia Business Women

The July 2 Meeting will be installation of officers & other club projects delayed due to Covid-19

This meeting will be held at the Sedalia Country Club.
5074 State Hwy Y, Sedalia, MO

Members, please let your caller know no later than Tuesday prior to the meeting if you plan to attend. We must have an accurate count! If you would like to visit a Sedalia Business Women’s meeting, please send an email to sbwmail@sedaliabwm.org no later than the Monday prior to the meeting. We welcome visitors! For a meeting schedule visit our Calendar page.

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Pardon our mess! We are in the process of archiving some of the past years’ website pages.  

Visit our Latest News page for photos and meeting recaps!

For archived news posts

visit the Past President page.

Lori Haney
President 2019-2020
To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow

When I decided to assume the role of president again, I was tasked with creating a vision for my year as president, but also a vision that would carry our club forward past my time as president.  As I searched for ideas I came across a quote from Audrey Hepburn that would become my theme for this year, “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”  As soon as I read this quote, I knew this would be the theme for my year that guides the vision I have for Sedalia Business Women.  A garden is great metaphor for the future of our organization.

• Have a vision for your garden. You can’t just grab a bunch of random seeds and throw them around willy-nilly, and hope for the best.  Instead you have to know what type of garden you want.  Just as you must have a vision for your garden, we must have a vision for our club.  What kind of organization do we want to be?  What’s our mission?  What do we hope to achieve?
• You need to prioritize. When planning a garden, you start with a wish list of everything you would like to grow.  However, when planting a garden there are certain limitations like available space, climate, season, and your time.  If you try to plant everything at once, you’ll end up with a huge mess that will soon be unmanageable.  In much the same way, when planning for our club’s future, we must start by creating a list of everything we want to do, but then we must prioritize that list by determining what we want most.  We must plant the seeds that will bear the fruit that are most important to us.
• You need good soil. Whatever it is you want to plant in your garden, it won’t grow well unless you have healthy soil.  The soil is the very foundation that promotes vibrant growth.  Fortunately for our organization, the very foundation that our club was built upon in 1923, is rich in history and tradition that bore the fruit of the organization that remains today.  It is our duty as a club to nurture that foundation to ensure continued growth.
• You reap what you sow. If you want tomatoes, you plant tomato seeds.  You don’t plant hemlock seeds and then wonder why there’s a poisonous plant growing in your garden instead of delicious, bright red tomatoes.  We have to ask ourselves what kind of organization we want to be, and then make sure we are planting the seeds that will produce those results.
• Assess your garden’s conditions. Different plants need different environments to thrive.  How well your garden grows depends upon climate, sunlight, water, etc.  As a club, we must take into account our strengths, our weaknesses, and the varied personalities that make up our organization.
• A garden needs constant tending. After preparing the soil and planting seeds, there’s still a lot of work to do from watering to pulling weeds to pruning to fertilizing.  Just as a garden needs tending, so does our club.  We must devote time to tending to the needs of our organization to allow for healthy growth.
• Reap your harvest. After all your hard work, your garden should start producing a bountiful crop.  Much like a garden, we have a strong foundation.  We have planted seeds that have produced strong roots that have thrived season after season.  We have planted new seeds that have changed the face of our organization, and with tending, guidance, and vision, we have produced, year after year, a crop of women ready to lead the organization into the future that can continue to nurture the growth of members to come.

As I consider this metaphor in reference to my presidency, I asked myself what seeds I wanted to plant to yield a harvest for the future of this club.  These will be my goals as your president.

1. Restore organization, order, and communication

As your president, I am committed to enriching the soil, the very foundation that is Sedalia Business Women.  My goal is to place emphasis on our mission which is to achieve equity for all women in the workplace through advocacy, education, and information.  To do that I plan to ensure that our committees know what is expected of them and what deadlines they need to adhere to while promoting communication through weekly presidential updates to the membership.

2. Promoting women in business

What are the seeds we want to plant today for the garden we hope to grow in the future?  My answer is to invest in the women in our community, the women that aren’t members of Sedalia Business Women, but should be.  When people think of women business leaders in our area, Sedalia Business Women is one of the first things that should come to their minds.  It is my aim to build a speakers’ list that highlights women business owners and/or community leaders.  And I strongly encourage committees to use this list when selecting speakers for monthly meetings.  This a great way for women in our community to get to know us and the benefits they would reap by being affiliated with Sedalia Business Women.

3. Member retention

As a previously said, a garden needs constant tending.  It’s not enough to just get women to join our organization.  We must tend to that crop.  It is our duty to introduce new members to all the activities and connections available to them through membership.  We must help them find the places they feel most comfortable within our club.  I am tasking the individuals on the membership committee to serve as mentors to our newly installed members.  Reach out to newly installed members to introduce them to SBW and promote a greater understanding of their role within our organization.

4. Sustainability 

I want a garden that continues to flourish year after year.  To do so, we have to plan for the future.  We have to plan for the years to come, not just this year in front of us.  From the presidency all the way to the 2^nd Vice President, 4 years of the future of this club are represented in our Executive Committee.  But who will take our places in the years to come?  Who will help to ensure this club can continue to be a place for professional women to flourish?  This starts with each Executive Committee officer installed this year.  As an Executive Committee, we must be looking to the future and your plans for your presidency, creating goals and agendas that can be built upon from year to year.  As a club, we must start communicating openly and early to the membership about the importance of joining the Executive Committee.  We must identify members that have exhibited leadership skills and encourage their participation on committees, at board meetings, and future Executive Committee officers’ positions.  Who are the leaders of our future?  What changes would you like to make to promote growth?  What impact do you want to have on this club?

I don’t claim to be a master gardener, but I have found that when I set my mind to it, and plan for and tend to a garden, I’m pretty good at it.  Each year, whether it be vegetables or flowers, I try to plant something.  I get on my hands and knees, digging in the soil, planting seeds, hoping the fruits of my labor would produce a hearty, plentiful crop.  It took time and patience and a lot of work to make those gardens grow, but as I sat back and enjoyed the beauty of the blooms in my flower beds and the sweetness of my cherry tomatoes, I knew all my hard work was worth it.  So I ask of each of you to look at Sedalia Business Women as a garden and each of you as a gardener.  Please help our club to grow.  I promise you the fruits of our combined labor will yield a bountiful crop that will nurture our future members of tomorrow.

Lori Haney
SBW President 2019-20

Click here for SBW Committees 2019-20