[OMS_MANAGERS] Question Regarding Committee/Board Sizes for Main Street Organizations

[Elaina Turpin]

You can definitely have too many people sitting on a board. I think 7-9 is a good number in order to reach a consensus and move forward. I've worked for organizations with boards over 20 people and really at that point, the executive committee make all the decisions and the rest of the board doesn't do much. My background is more in the Chamber of Commerce industry but still very similar as far as building consensus, creating a team, working on projects. I mean if you have a committee for each of the four points, then the board of directors, with 7-9 members each you'll end up with 35-45 people in total. That's a lot of involvement!


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Elaina Turpin
Assistant City Manager
475 SE Main St.  | PO BOX 958
Estacada, OR 97023
cityofestacada.org<https://www.cityofestacada.org/>
Phone: 503.630.8270 x 203




From: OMS_MANAGERS <oms_managers-bounces at omls.oregon.gov> On Behalf Of Eli Heindricks
Sent: Tuesday, November 1, 2022 1:14 PM
To: oms_managers at omls.oregon.gov
Subject: [OMS_MANAGERS] Question Regarding Committee/Board Sizes for Main Street Organizations

Hi everyone!

I hope everyone is having a great day! Since I haven't had the chance to meet everyone yet, I want to quickly introduce myself before I ask a quick question. My name is Eli Heindricks and I'm the AmeriCorps RARE member working with the Northeast Oregon Economic Development District. During my service term with NEOEDD, I'm specifically working to develop a regional Main Street program in Wallowa County!

We're still in the early stages of putting this program together, so I wanted to quickly reach out to everyone and get your thoughts on an administrative question we've been trying to work out. As we're thinking through the structural components of our regional main street program, we're planning to house the program in an existing organization (examples may include NEOEDD or the Wallowa Chamber of Commerce) that would be responsible for many of the administrative aspects of Main Street work. Each of the communities represented by the regional program would then be represented by a committee of local stakeholders. These community-specific committees would have the opportunity to focus on more of the placemaking aspects of Main Street, particularly as they relate to the Main Street Approach's Transformation Strategies and Four Points.

While thinking about the make-up of these committees, we've been pondering how big they should be. Our goal is to have a broad swath of community members, business owners, and other stakeholders represented on these committees. With that being said, we'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what size of committees we should aim for. What board or committee sizes have worked best for other Main Street organizations? Can we have too many people sitting on a board or committee?

Thank you all for any help you're willing to share with us! We really appreciate it!

Best,

Eli Heindricks, Regional Main Street Coordinator
Northeast Oregon Economic Development District | AmeriCorps RARE Program
Email: eliheindricks at neoedd.org<mailto:eliheindricks at neoedd.org> | Phone: 541-426-3598 x5
www.neoedd.org<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.neoedd.org_&d=DwMFAw&c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM&r=TwFzQoYdKgBBxNDsCkAw0SCh-aH2gZV4sICZ9unG5pY&m=6I5mqGmrJq3R1WPDLr_hAuIN3x5RtwZKvuLaEr1Tzik&s=9IdwdTdlgIupu7YJ9HoFqVdCIiQJqoCcUW9ETvBuCvA&e=>

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