ATTILA E. PAVLATH, ACS PRESIDENT

Over the past 15 months, I have been working with the Planning Committee on the 2001–03 ACS Strategic Plan. This 12-member panel, with the help of an outside consultant, established a 10-point plan setting guidelines for ACS activities in the next three years. The committee is to be commended for carrying out this difficult task. As ACS Board Chair Nina I. McClelland pointed out at the beginning of our work, a differently constituted committee could easily have come to different conclusions. Fortunately, the committee was not charged with establishing priorities among the 10 points; otherwise, there might have been very different preferences. While the document elaborates on each point, the details are only guidelines and are subject to individual interpretation. What is the next step Where do we go now

	PHOTO BY PETER CUTTS

In my presidential message (C&EN, Jan. 1, page 2), I outlined the plans and programs I would like to carry out during my term. Over the past 30+ years, I have received many communications from ACS members expressing their concerns and proposing actions. I have chaired several committees and participated in many deliberations to learn about the challenges we face, and I was involved in many debates to hear all sides of the arguments. This experience, however, does not make anyone omniscient. I want to establish a consensus on the actions needed to make the society, as I have stated many times, a home for everyone equally--from the youngest chemist to the most respected Nobel Laureate.

Therefore, I acquired the services of a highly reputable commercial polling organization to conduct an electronic poll of our members on what they consider the most important ACS activities, whether existing or proposed. If your e-mail address was registered in the ACS database, you will have received an e-mail message from me asking for your help by answering questions about your opinion in this matter. We have about 50,000 e-mail addresses, so even if the response rate is the typical 10 to 20%, the poll should yield statistically and demographically significant results.

Naturally, I don't expect that this poll will pinpoint any single action we can take to satisfy every member. After all, the demographics of our members are very complex and so are their expectations from the society. I do expect, however, that this brief survey will establish the wishes of various segments according to age, gender, workplace, and so forth. I have already created a task force that is standing by to evaluate the responses. I will host a special Presidential Forum at the Chicago meeting in August to report on various aspects of the members' responses. I will also place them on my website
(http://www.pavlath.org) and disseminate them to various ACS units.

The most important point is this: How do we implement the wishes of our members within the parameters of the strategic plan In the past, we generally established actions at the top and sent them on to the governance and other entities in the society to be carried out. I am planning the reverse method: the grassroots approach. I am asking our members "in the trenches" what they propose toward meeting the wishes of the membership as delineated by the electronic poll. Their recommendations can then be collated and coordinated for implementation.

For this purpose, I am asking each division and local section to ask its members which items in the strategic plan they want to study. Members of local sections can easily form task forces and deliberate on those suggestions that they agree are of particular interest. Similarly, with the ease of e-mail communications, divisions can recruit interested members for discussion. A letter has been sent to the chairs of every division and local section asking that they contact their members to establish such task forces. In this connection, even a five-member group can propose meaningful and valuable evaluations for actions in their areas of interest.

Any topic can be discussed, but I want everyone to work together. If we can get many members involved in these activities, I'm convinced that we can improve participation in the life of each division and local section.

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