Part Two - Beginnings

When the president of that group dismissed the secretary, she let the others know that she had been "fired". Unbeknownst to the secretary, only for a short time, the president of the previous organization sent a group text out to the one remaining board member and the few others that were involved and becoming involved with him. The text was informing the group that he had, without proper board action, dismissed the secretary. When they all received that text, the secretary began getting calls from the remaining team members wanting to know what had happened. All day long and into the early evening, all but one team member was communicating amongst each other. No one wanted to remain with that organization if the secretary wasn't going to be there.

People recognize who the strong players are in organizations, they recognize who does and does not possess the required knowledge and skills to make things work. They know what and possibly who is keeping a team together, usually it is the leader along with the help of the leaders team, which means the leader must have organizational skills and be a team player as well. This was not present in this organizations team leader, the president.

Because the purpose, objectives and vision of the previous organization was the sole driving factor, the team was distraught at the thought of the mission not being accomplished. They all knew that there was no possibility of any of this happening without the secretary being there to help with the organizational aspects of the foundation. They confided to the secretary that they too were not interested in continuing if she was not going to continue on with that organization.

Amazingly, to everyone's surprise and delight, they all decided that the mission had to be accomplished, because their passion was so strong and the reasons they became involved with the previous organization, they were all willing...…...to start over, and so they did.

OUR BEGINNINGS

ReNew St. Louis was formed February 27, 2019, quite unexpectedly, after a few of ReNew's members, who were involved with a previous organization realized that the goals they had would never come to fruition. This was due to one member that did not understand how nonprofit organizations need to function, did not want to follow the rules and regulations required by states and government and basically didn't have the knowledge or skills of running an organization, leading a team and maintaining the vision of the organization.

On that day, none of us had any clue what was to transpire. One of ReNew's members was just considering joining the other team. The secretary had just spoken with the potential new member the day before and encouraged him to join. Then, over the other person's personal money issues that the secretary/friend was helping him manage, the secretary questioned him regarding whether or not he had purchased a lap top for the organization as he said he was going to do instead of buying a television for himself, he lost his temper, "fired" and blocked the secretary at that moment. He did not seem to realize, you don't hire and fire board members or friends for that matter. He didn't know that to remove someone from an organization, it takes board action, majority vote, minutes, resolution, etc.

If an organization of any type is on shaky ground and one or more of the strong individuals leave due to poor management or no management, others will naturally follow. The day that the secretary was "fired", she thought that was the end of something that could have been amazing for a community in distress and its people. There was so much potential to be had, and she was extremely sadden at the thought of the end of great things that could have been, her initial plans were to walk away, focus on her everyday job and just move on. But to her surprise, it wasn't going to end.

RENEW ST LOUIS Making changes, brick-by-brick, block-by-block.

Helping communities, helping people.