KNOWLEDGE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 55
Local 53 before he became State Delegate in 2001.“ It’ s more than just reading the bylaws and going by what you think that position holds. We really want our members to know the duties of every position, from sergeant-at-arms to president.”
Dudley also sought out dedicated members across the state, like Ebert, who made it clear from the committee’ s inception that he wanted to be involved. Ebert joined the committee in the hopes of giving all Local members another resource to get involved and learn about the PBA.
“ The idea was to increase the knowledge of our general membership,” Ebert stresses.“ A lot of members who aren’ t involved with their Locals don’ t know enough about the PBA or the union until they’ re in trouble or have a problem. Then all of a sudden they want all of the answers right away.”
The Education Committee met for the first time at the State PBA headquarters in Woodbridge in early May. Each of the 10 members arrived at the
roundtable discussion with distinct knowledge and a list of ideas to start building the program. They immediately started to combine their concepts to design courses geared to provide PBA members with necessary information that, until now, has not been covered in focused classes.
One example of the first-of-its-kind course that the committee felt members could benefit from is the“ Engaging with Local Legislators” class that will feature PBA Director of Government Affairs Rob Nixon providing instruction on the best ways to engage with elected officials.
“ After the last eight years with the state leadership that we had, there’ s a lot of people in our line of work who might be gun-shy of dealing with politicians,” Dudley notes.“ I think that learning how to interact and who to talk to and about what is an unbelievably important tool for these guys.”
With courses designed to improve labor-legislator relationships, generate more cohesive executive boards, understand QuickBooks and learn about health plan options, the Education
Committee is eager to receive feedback from members that will help fine-tune the design for each class. The committee also looks forward to the launch of a fundraising course that will provide valuable tips to Locals big and small about unique and successful ways to raise money, in addition to the Below 100 training course that will keep officer safety in check.
There are plenty of reasons why the Education Committee feels motivated to wise up members on a range of subjects that each hold a clear benefit. But at the end of the day, the collective mission of the program all points back to Ebert’ s comment that has quickly become the Education Committee slogan.
The educated member is the strongest member – and the committee is equipped to boost the knowledge.
“ Every member’ s goal should be to make the organization stronger, because that’ s what moves it forward,” Dudley expresses.“ We want to build a foundation now to educate our members and make for a stronger union down the road.” d
56 NEW JERSEY COPS ■ MAY 2018