Claire Potter for Board of Directors

First of all, I want to thank the members of the nominating committee for having such faith in a relatively new member of the club that they have nominated me to the Board. If I were to characterize what I bring to the Board, I don't think I would speak about positions on particular issues, although I am not averse to developing positions -- I just prefer to do so in conversation with others. For example, I am predisposed to working something out with the Hopkins school, but doing it in a way that works for both sides and that is primarily oriented towards acquiring the resources and personnel that will make NHRC an even more competitive masters rowing club. But I would also like to put that statement in the context of what I do for a living and how I do it to demonstrate how I hope such an issue would be resolved. As someone who has twice chaired an academic department at Wesleyan, and also a major university committee, I believe that organizational decisions are usually best reached through conversation, consensus building, compromise and transparency. It is sometimes less difficult than it seems to achieve this, and having the most support possible for any given course of action is going to be crucial to our success as a club over time, and be crucial to supporting the racing success of individuals (or team boats) in the club. I also think that an organization can serve different constituencies well: in our case, a racing constituency and a recreational constituency -- with perhaps the addition of a third, young people who are not permanent club members, from the Hopkins School or elsewhere.