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Strategic planning begins this summer
May 10, 2002 8:00 AM
By Stefan Eady - Faculty
Nearly five years have passed since the last strategic planning committee went to work and that means it is time to start all over again. During the summer of 1997, the Darlington Board of Trustees charged the School to undertake a comprehensive strategic planning process to chart the course of the School through the year 2002. The board appointed Frank Stegall '62 to chair an eight-person steering committee, which began its work in August 1997 and produced a completed plan that was approved by the Board of Trustees in January 1999. The plan was fully implemented by the end of the last school year.
This will be the fifth plan Darlington has undertaken, the others having been published in 1983, 1988, 1993, and 1999, and this one will take the School into its second century of independent education. Unlike those that preceded it, this plan will be built around the School’s six mission areas, intellectual, cultural, social, moral, physical, and spiritual. It will address enrollment, leadership and governance, finance, facilities, and development as a function of the School’s mission.
John H. Irby ’81, a partner in Wilson Brock & Irby, L.L.C., Atlanta, will chair the strategic planning committee. The planning process will include three stages: 1) creative brainstorming, 2) strategic plan development, and 3) business plan development.
Hardin M. Byars ’67, a former Darlington teacher who now owns a consulting firm in Atlanta, will facilitate six brainstorming retreats this fall that will involve 20-25 people each, with each retreat focusing on a different mission area. After much consultation, the President, David V. Hicks, is inviting alumni, parents, trustees, and friends of the School to participate in the retreats, which will meet as follows:
· Social mission – Aug. 16-17, 2002
· Moral mission – Aug. 23-24, 2002
· Spiritual mission – Sept. 6-7, 2002
· Cultural mission – Sept. 13-14, 2002
· Physical mission – Sept. 20-21, 2002
· Intellectual mission – Sept. 27-28, 2002
Each retreat will begin on Friday evening with a social gathering followed by a briefing and then dinner. Participants will work in groups on Saturday. At the end of each retreat, Byars will prepare a report for the steering committee responsible for drafting the plan. “Accountability will be a big theme throughout the strategic planning process. In each mission area, we’ll try to identify what constitutes growth and how we intend to measure it,” Hicks said.
By October, the steering committee consisting of representatives from each retreat as well as Irby and Hicks will take all of the ideas generated during the retreats and mold them into a strategic plan to present to the Board of Trustees during its winter meeting in January 2003. The Board of Trustees will appoint a committee of its own to develop a business plan to support the strategic plan that it adopts.
“This committee will address resource accumulation and allocation with the goal of presenting a report to the board for approval in its spring meeting,” Hicks said. “I see this as a crucial time to deepen our consciousness about who we are and why we’re here. The strategic plan is our dream of what we can become if we take seriously and imaginatively every aspect of our mission, and the business plan will give our dream wings.”
Hicks encourages anyone with thoughts or ideas about the strategic planning process to e-mail him at dhicks@darlingtonschool.org or write him at the School.
This will be the fifth plan Darlington has undertaken, the others having been published in 1983, 1988, 1993, and 1999, and this one will take the School into its second century of independent education. Unlike those that preceded it, this plan will be built around the School’s six mission areas, intellectual, cultural, social, moral, physical, and spiritual. It will address enrollment, leadership and governance, finance, facilities, and development as a function of the School’s mission.
John H. Irby ’81, a partner in Wilson Brock & Irby, L.L.C., Atlanta, will chair the strategic planning committee. The planning process will include three stages: 1) creative brainstorming, 2) strategic plan development, and 3) business plan development.
Hardin M. Byars ’67, a former Darlington teacher who now owns a consulting firm in Atlanta, will facilitate six brainstorming retreats this fall that will involve 20-25 people each, with each retreat focusing on a different mission area. After much consultation, the President, David V. Hicks, is inviting alumni, parents, trustees, and friends of the School to participate in the retreats, which will meet as follows:
· Social mission – Aug. 16-17, 2002
· Moral mission – Aug. 23-24, 2002
· Spiritual mission – Sept. 6-7, 2002
· Cultural mission – Sept. 13-14, 2002
· Physical mission – Sept. 20-21, 2002
· Intellectual mission – Sept. 27-28, 2002
Each retreat will begin on Friday evening with a social gathering followed by a briefing and then dinner. Participants will work in groups on Saturday. At the end of each retreat, Byars will prepare a report for the steering committee responsible for drafting the plan. “Accountability will be a big theme throughout the strategic planning process. In each mission area, we’ll try to identify what constitutes growth and how we intend to measure it,” Hicks said.
By October, the steering committee consisting of representatives from each retreat as well as Irby and Hicks will take all of the ideas generated during the retreats and mold them into a strategic plan to present to the Board of Trustees during its winter meeting in January 2003. The Board of Trustees will appoint a committee of its own to develop a business plan to support the strategic plan that it adopts.
“This committee will address resource accumulation and allocation with the goal of presenting a report to the board for approval in its spring meeting,” Hicks said. “I see this as a crucial time to deepen our consciousness about who we are and why we’re here. The strategic plan is our dream of what we can become if we take seriously and imaginatively every aspect of our mission, and the business plan will give our dream wings.”
Hicks encourages anyone with thoughts or ideas about the strategic planning process to e-mail him at dhicks@darlingtonschool.org or write him at the School.
