The last few days and weeks have been very hectic in the world with Covid-19 affecting all of us. We hope that all of you and your families are safe and well.

We would like to remind you that AFAM's board elections will be held this spring to renew the board.

 

Given the impact Covid-19 has been having, we wanted to update the timeline for AFAM elections. The official new team start date is still June 2020. But we have decided to extend the call for board member and executive team application until April 30th. We will run the election process in May 2020.

 

Both Eric Benhamou and myself, who have been part of the executive team of AFAM since its inception will be leaving. But both Eric and I are willing to remain board members of the new non executive team. Marc Amblard, who has been CFO since 2018, is willing to continue in his role.

 

We would very much like to encourage diversity of origins and gender in the composition of the team - so to all female and minorities A&M alumni in the USA, please apply!

 

All positions in the executive team are open for election, and now more than ever we are looking for fresh blood. New candidates will be presenting their short plan on the election form all of you will receive in May. We hope this will contribute to engage the broader AFAM community across the USA.

 

For the CEO role: the AFAM would greatly benefit from someone with a track record of involvement with the A&M community, leadership experience professionally or personally, and a clear plan for how AFAM can grow into the future - be it under its current culture of operating or with a new one.

 

For the secretary role: the AFAM would greatly benefit from someone with experience and a care for processes, governance and communication, and the ability to contribute to any topic ongoing at AFAM.

 

If you want to know more, please email me tferre@gmail.com or albina.patou-chebykina@americanfriendsam.org. We are here to help in this process. We encourage new members applying to reach out to us and existing board members.

Over the past nearly 13 years I have been privileged as founding CFO for 7 years, and then as secretary to help build a successful startup charity. Since the publication of our 10 year report in 2018, I have sensed a new era coming to AFAM. Today it would be more appropriate to call it a scale up, in both brand, staff, outreach, tools and ambitions. I look forward to a new team bringing that energy to engage the A&M community and take it to the next level.

Thomas Ferré, AFAM Secretary