___ Your idea: _____________ ___ Your idea: _____________ ___ Your idea: _____________ ___ Your idea: _____________ ___ Touring NABO film festival ___ Membership drive ___ Sister-city program ___ Pilota / pala workshops ___ Mus promotion ___ Shared entertainer(s) tour ___ Euskara classes (adults) ___ Euskara classes (youth) ___ Txistu lessons/workshops ___ Dance lessons/workshops ___ Build a clubhouse ___ Promote Basque Studies at our local college ___ Keep things going as they are with picnics, meals, etc. ___ Online resource center with video/audio for Basque folk dances

___ Regional Basque educational tours ___ 09 NABO Convention in D.C. ___ Creation of an "Euskal Taldea" group of animators in your club ___ Regional inter-club shared event(s) ___ Facilitate greater involvement in educational programs for all ages ___ DVD creation of learning popular dances for everyone at Basque dances ___ Creation of Basque-English songbook ___ Basque song promotion/Bertsolari workshop ___ Internet based radio/video program ___ Facilitate greater cooperation with international Basque entities ___ Book creation of "Basque  Literacy: Everything you wanted to ask about the Basques but didn't know to ask" ___ "Urazaindi" online meeting place for worldwide Basque youth

Declaration of intent:  Over the next four years (2008-11) NABO and its membership aims to increase participation by animating and deepening the identification with being Basque.

1. Analyze our current situation (ongoing; 2008 objective)
Ø       Making informed decisions possible
Ø       Delegate research; fact-finding; survey of members
Ø       Involving key people: core team; buy-in; assessment
Ø       Understanding your members: find out what they want
Ø       SWOT analysis:
Ø       Identify areas for improvement
Ø       Assess whether you need to improve your methods
Ø       Role of team
Ø       Do you have the right people in place       

2.  Formulate a Plan
Ø       Issue: What does this mean to me and how I live my life?
Ø       List of what will be desired in the future; prioritize:  high impact and high urgency
Ø       Look for big improvements from change projects; if it won’t bring definite benefits then it’s not worth it.
Ø       Select which to develop
Ø       Be confident about the future but realistic about what you can achieve
Ø       Work hard for long-term goals, while striving for immediate results
Ø       Thinking short and long term
Ø       Brainstorming/planning never stops throughout the strategic process
Ø       Determine advantage: Why identify as Basque?
Ø       Remember that whatever worked yesterday may not work tomorrow
Ø       Set boundaries: planning what not to do is as vital as planning what to do
Ø       Encourage debate on priorities to keep team engaged; gain consensus on focus
Ø       Estimate a budget
Ø       Focus people on the positive aspects of change
Ø       Always present one consistent strategy
Ø       Communicating clearly: Seek feedback; two-way communication
Ø       Detailed and summary reports; periodic updates
Ø       Defining objectives: Stretching: should challenge the organizers /        Measurable: must be quantifiable / Achievable: must be realistic / Related to membership: should improve offerings / Time-targeted: definite start-end dates 

3. Implementation:  Recruiting “Taldeak” (teams)
Ø       Commitment: everyone should agree that a new strategy is needed; feel confident that they have developed the right plan; feel personally committed to making the strategy happen
Ø       May depend on making far-reaching changes and learning new skills
Ø       Identify & facilitate (i.e., train, fund?) local and regional worker
Ø       Promotion:  DVD / Powerpoint presentation to communicate the strategy to everyone who needs to know about it
Ø       Action plan:  Objective /  Measure / Deadline / Actions /  Allocating responsibility / Milestones
Ø       Motivating people:  Review roles and responsibilities / Rewards:  Saying thank you; rewarding people / Investing in training
Ø       Monitoring progress:  Organizing reports: give people only the level of detail they require / Color code projects:  green, yellow and red
Ø       Holding reviews:  Be firm when running meetings; stay on task / Make it a hard and fast rule to start and finish meetings on time / If plans are not working, change them now rather than later