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The Atheist movement is growing and thriving, but some groups find themselves stagnating, struggling to attract and retain members, or find volunteers who are willig and able to help organize and plan for the future. AAI’s new Ambassador Corps, established in July 2009, is designed to address these issues and more by working to achieve a strong and coordinated worldwide Atheist community. Providing AAI’s affiliates with resources to grow, improve, and refine their organizations is the mission of the Ambassador Corps.
The Ambassador Corps is a collection of volunteers
who have been trained in leadership, organizational skills, and
expertise that specifically pertain to running and sustaining a
democratically-oriented freethought group. The Ambassadors are
available to our affiliates to help solve pending or chronic
organizational problems so that our affiliates will be successful.
Ambassadors also serve as a resource to facilitate communication
between our affiliates, as well as between affiliates and AAI,
augmenting, but not replacing, the role filled by the Affiliate
Directors. By sharing “Best Practices”
between groups and developing resources to address common challenges,
the Ambassador program will help our affiliates grow stronger and serve
a larger community. Many of our Ambassadors have successful speaking
careers and special areas of interest related to atheism and
freethought that they can offer to our affiliates as meeting
presentations. By offering this cornucopia of support, AAI continues to
fulfill its commitment in meeting our mission in helping affiliates be
successful in building a community to create a world based on reason
and empiricism. As of this writing, we have
nine Ambassadors in various areas throughout the United States and
Canada and are recruiting to fill the remaining areas where we have
affiliates. Each of our affiliates will have been contacted by the
Ambassador assigned to them by the end of 2009. Our goal for 2010 is to
personally visit 100 percent of our U.S. and Canadian affiliates at
least once. I encourage you to use your
Ambassador not just to answer questions about AAI, but as a resource to
help solve organizational and leadership problems, or even as your next
meeting speaker. You can find out more about our Ambassador Corps
online at the AAI website at www.AtheistAlliance.org and clicking on
the menu link to AAI Ambassadors; or by following the AAI Ambassador
Corps on our own blog site, which you can visit at
www.aaiambassadors.blogspot.com. In addition,
please feel free to contact me at any time if you have any questions,
suggestions, or anything else at all. You can reach me at
AmbassadorDir@Atheist Alliance.org.
Sincerely,
Noelle George
AAI Ambassador Corps Director
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