Here are a few milestones that occurred during this past year:

✻ A success of this past year was the transitioning of the strategic plan to a new leadership team. Throughout the year, there has been synergy around mission which has kept the “train on the track” toward the accomplishment of goals. We have innovated and adapted strategies around newly expressed hopes.

Reflection: The Provincial Team built into its schedule of meetings regular opportunities to meet with staff to plan and to think strategically. It created a full-time staff position to ensure continuous and integrated planning across the multiple planning-related committees. This decision reflects a strong commitment to province planning and it is a strong statement by the Society about its commitment to mission in North America for many years to come. We are still learning together how to integrate reporting on the plan with forward thinking and visioning for the future.

✻ Our plan is a “living document.” A review of the quarterly reports of the plan on the website readily indicate how new strategies were added to reflect the new realities of province life, new hopes, our ever-changing community and the calls of the world. The new goal on Canada and the strategies on the Stuart Center are two examples of this adaptation which is essential if plans are to be more than just words on paper.

Reflection: There is a need to more effectively align finances, budget and mission advancement with the planning process. This was one of our goals in designing the strategic planning process, but we really have not fully completed this part of our work. This “working holistically” takes a combined effort and the talents of many. It takes time to do it well. In the year ahead, the Office of Planning is looking forward to working with the Finance, Mission Advancement and Investment Committees to accomplish this alignment.

✻ More effort has been made to improve transparency and communication in the area of planning during the past year. Regular reporting occurred after quarterly meetings, periodic reports were provided on various teleconferences and, for the first time, strategic planning was added to the website so that all RSCJ, friends and colleagues could track the progress and accomplishments toward each goal.

Reflection: As we all know, some people wish to know a great deal while others want the “bottom line” or a condensed version.  We are trying to discover the right balance. Another challenge that relates to this one is the challenge of how to engage everyone in “conversations that matter” given the broad demands on time and participation that mark most of our lives.

✻ As we move into the coming year – 2013-2014 – we move into the fifth and final year of the current strategic plan. It is hard to believe that at the end of the coming year, we will have been working with a strategic plan as a province for its full cycle of five years. In the beginning of the last year of a strategic planning cycle, the “sunset process” begins. Thus, in the first half of this coming year, the province will begin to put systems in place for the development of a new plan.

Reflection: As the United States and Canadian Province, we are challenged to work in a broader and inclusive way as we complete this planning cycle and initiate another one. The work of the Organizing Committee will flow into the development of a new plan.

✻ One of the first committees to be launched by the new team was the “How We Organize Ourselves Committee,” chaired by Jean Bartunek, RSCJ. During the year, it conducted multiple analyses of data from past processes and consultations, a “Diary Study” of the provincial team, a survey of the staff, and a survey of area directors. In June, the committee sent out several models and engaged the province in giving feedback on those models. A significant number of RSCJ responded with feedback.

Reflection: Organizing for our future now continues into its second year to incorporate the “Futuring process” of Canada with ongoing strategic planning in the province. There is a remarkable synergy in all that is happening in the new province. The convergence of events such as the Age Cohort meetings planned for this year and the restructuring of the Network with the new Conference model provide many opportunities.

✻ The Governance and Accountability for Mission in Sacred Heart Schools Committee, chaired by Suzanne Cooke, RSCJ, is responsible for a major stride forward during this past year. In the coming year, the Society and the Network of Sacred Heart Schools will institutionalize new structures and procedures to strengthen the relationship between the Society and the schools for many years to come in the form of the new “Conference of Sacred Heart Schools.”

Reflection: We will have to make some course adjustments as we put these new structures in place over the coming years. Effective leadership is needed to ensure that these structures do, indeed, work for the “sake of the mission.” Progress will take imagination, inspiration and commitment.

✻ It has been fully 10 years since the Society offered a trustee education program in a formal setting for RSCJ members of boards of Sacred Heart schools. A milestone of this year has been beginning the design and implementation of a Trustee Education Program for RSCJ currently serving as trustees on boards of Sacred Heart Schools. Four sessions of this six-session program have been conducted. The presentations have been posted on the web.

Reflection: Over and over, heads of schools, board chairs, former heads, and RSCJ who have served or who are serving as heads, former provincials of the Society and others have expressed how important it is that RSCJ who serve on boards be present and prepared in their service. This program connects and supports RSCJ in service to this mission of the Society and its curriculum will be used with a larger group of Sacred Heart educators in the months ahead.

✻ The Society has worked closely with the Network of Sacred Heart Schools – its board of directors through regular participation in meetings, its executive director through regular meetings with the provincial team, its membership through participation in meetings and its various committees, especially the Formation to Mission Committee and the Membership Committee. This year, we said “Adieu!” and “Merci!” to Madeleine Ortman for her ten years of gifted service to the mission of the Society through the Network of Sacred Heart Schools. As the year ends, the Network expanded with two Sacred Heart Schools—one in Montreal and one in Halifax. Both of these schools will be developing plans for SHCOG in the coming year and strengthening their relationships with other schools in the Network.

Reflection: Nourishing and navigating the many types of relationships that exist between the Society of the Sacred Heart and schools requires an enormous amount of time and increasing levels of expertise. The new “Conference on Sacred Heart Education” and restructured Network model that goes into effect in the first part of the year will reflect our value of collaboration and put responsibilities  into the hands of those with the special competencies that are needed. It is both exciting and curious to recognize how the Network is continuing to grow. With more schools interested in becoming members, it raises important questions about capacity and quality.

✻ Throughout each year, the Sacred Heart Commission on Goals (SHCOG) goes about the essential work of accountability for mission. Their work makes it looks effortless while, in fact, the efforts of all those involved are substantial. Headed by Ann Taylor, SHCOG worked with five schools during this past year to form, evaluate and support the life and mission of the Society.

Reflection:  The honesty, transparency, openness to growth and fidelity to the mission as reflected through the SHCOG process is impressive—a real confirmation of the spirit. SHCOG’s work continues through the new Conference on Sacred Heart Education.