ILLINOIS WATER ENVIRONMENT ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER
Volume 25, No. 3 - Fall 2004

The 2004 WEFTEC Conference marked the beginning of a new governance structure for the Water Environment Federation. At the previous conference in 2003, major changes were approved which replaced the former Board of Directors with two new bodies, the House of Delegates and the Board of Trustees.

The Directors representing each of the member associations (MAs) are now part of the House of Delegates. As WEF Vice President Michael Read said at the meeting, “This marks the beginning of a new era for WEF to seek grass-roots input from the MAs.” The issues important to IWEA were identified at our own Executive Committee meeting before WEFTEC and these were then submitted to WEF and used as the focus for some of our discussions at WEFTEC. Twenty-five other MAs also submitted their critical issues for discussion. Toby's report highlights more specifics on these issues.

In addition to the new House of Delegates that was created to focus on MA interests, the new governance structure also establishes a Board of Trustees that will focus on the budgetary and administrative issues of the organization. One of our first tasks was to ratify and approve the new Board of Trustees members, who were nominated by member associations and/or the WEF Officers. The Board of Trustees is comprised of 10 distinguished environmental professionals from varied backgrounds ranging from attorney to equipment manufacturer and from sanitary district manager to consultant.

At the second meeting of the House of Delegates (HOD) on October 6, much of the discussion was on the process of how the HOD should function. We discussed how to maximize our meeting time to focus on what the MAs really want WEF to address in a more efficient and effective manner. At this first WEFTEC under the new structure, most Directors (or Delegates) were trying to gain a better understanding of their new role. As we move forward, the HOD should become more effective at addressing MA issues. A couple of suggestions that came through included getting more information submitted to Delegates in advance of the meetings and spending more time on the small group discussions, where opinions were freely exchanged.