LAFF Society

NEWSLETTER

President's Message for Spring 2012

 

 

I am really pleased to be able to announce the April launch of LAFF’s new website. I hope you will enjoy it, contribute to it, and help it to fulfill its mission of facilitating profession and social contacts between you and other former Ford staff. Together, the new website and Newsletter constitute our efforts to provide LAFF members with news about and ideas generated by their colleagues. The website in particular hosts a set of new features including an open source page for members offering consulting services, and a closed-circuit classified ads section for housing swaps or rentals and other offerings of interest to LAFF members. In addition to news clippings about or by LAFFers, there are links to members’ web pages and blogs, and – importantly – a page for volunteers to sign up for the myriad editorial and other tasks that need to be undertaken for the Newsletter and website to continue to serve you. Developing the website is an on-going task, and we welcome your inputs to make it ever-more user-friendly and of value to our membership.

 
I am grateful to Aaron Levine for shepherding this complex effort to completion, and to our volunteer web developer, Peter Ford, for his extraordinary talent and good will. Susan Huyser has used her excellent graphic skills to help design a terrific site, and Thea Lurie continues to provide wise counsel on all matters of communication. As managing editor, John Lahoud, with the help of his editor colleagues (Dick Magat, Will Hertz, Bob Tolles and now, Aaron Levine), is drafting an editorial policy to govern content for both the site and newsletter and to help those of you who submit copy and materials (we hope an ever increasing number!) to know what is of interest to readers and what the editors think might be more appropriate for other venues. Look for a briefing on the editorial policy in a separate box in this Newsletter.
 
I want to offer special thanks to Michael Seltzer and the members of the program committee for the excellent programs they have offered throughout this year. The April 25th Spring Outing in the Central Park Zoo is going to be a very special event, with host Steve Sanderson leading a tour of the zoo and reflecting on how threats to the natural environment and human communities can best be met. I will still be enjoying our Brazilian environs in April and unable to join you, but know you are in for a real treat and look forward to reading about the event and Steve’s remarks in the Newsletter and on the website. I hope our regional chapters will be inspired to host local events for their members and will also share those with the rest of us on-line and in the Newsletter.
 
When I joined the Foundation in Rio 35 years ago, I was fortunate to have Prescilla Kritz, a long-standing Foundation staffer, assigned to me as my secretary/assistant/counselor/guru. Prescilla not only guided me though the administrative ways and means of the Ford Foundation, but also the Foundation’s culture and all things Brazilian. More importantly, she has remained a dear friend in the 32 years since I left the Rio office. On March 10, Prescilla and I celebrated her 88th and my 74th birthdays with a small group of family and friends at 4 o’clock tea overlooking Copacabana Beach. We reminisced about our wonderful years at the Foundation and the extraordinary colleagues with whom we worked. Two things in particular stood out for me as I reminisced with this remarkable woman: first, the importance of those long-standing Ford Foundation staff, particularly those in secretarial and grant administration positions, who make the work of program officers and managers not just possible but successful; and secondly the centrality of memory to our lives. 
 
LAFF is a channel for our memories as well as for our current thoughts and activities. Please volunteer to help us make the Newsletter and new website as vivid and lively as they can be.
 
I wish you all a happy spring.
 
Shep   

 

 

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