Help GSMOL Grow Leaders!
For those who REALLY want help us grow, we can put you on a leadership path to really make a difference in your park and your community.
It often takes awhile to gather enough members in a park to form a Chapter, but the nice thing about leaders is that they can come out of nowhere. You can live in a park without even any GSMOL members and get the idea that you want to step up and help. You don’t have to wait for someone to reach out to you.
There are two roles that a member can take which don’t require a Chapter or even any other GSMOL members in the park.
One is Legislative Contact (LC), who acts as a liaison with the Legislative Action Team (LAT) Committee to help encourage residents to support our bills. See more about the LAT and LCs under the LEGISLATION tab.
The other is Membership Coordinator (MC), who helps to “recruit” new GSMOL members in the park, which can lead to the formation of a GSMOL Chapter..
As an LC or MC for your park, you are at tbe end of a pipeline that leads up through several levels of leadership to the GSMOL Board of Directors.
GSMOL’s Leadership Structure
GSMOL has the State divided up into six Zones. They are as follows:
Zone A – Inland Northern California
Zone A-1 – Coastal Northern California
Zone B – Inland Central California
Zone B-1 – Coastal Central California
Zone C – Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Orange Counties
Zone D – Riverside, Imperial, and San Diego Counties
(See the map on the Contact Us page)
Each Zone has a Zone Vice President who sits on the Board of Directors.
Within each Zone are two or three Regions, each Region covering one or more Counties. There are fourteen Regions in all.
Each Region has a Region Manager.
Within each Region there are Associate Managers, each one assigned to a specific area within the Region. This area may be a County, a City, part of a City, or whatever the Region Manager and Zone VP decide. A lot depends upon the density of MH parks within the Region and the number of Associate Managers there are.
And finally, within each Associate Manager’s territory are parks that have GSMOL Chapters and Super-Chapters. (A Super-Chapter is a Chapter that has members from more than one park.) Chapters and Super-Chapters have officers: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer (the elected officers) and the LC and MC (appointed officers).
So the Chapter officers are the “first tier of support” in a pipeline that leads up through the Associate Manager to the Region Manager to the Zone VP.
Holes in the Net
The network of leadership that branches out from the Zone VPs to the Region Managers to the Associate Managers to the Chapter Officers would be a strong support for GSMOL members if it was complete.
But there are currently a lot of holes in the net. And as we all know, a net with holes catches no fish.
So it would seem that we need to have more Chapters, in order to have the “entry level” leaders who will rise up the food chain. But the big problem is that often it is hard to form a Chapter because nobody wants to be an officer.
However, some of us in GSMOL leadership think that a member is more likely to agree to become a leader – at any level – if they know they will get some training and will have another GSMOL leader as a mentor whom they can go to for guidance.
GSMOL Leadership Training Committee
So GSMOL has established a Leadership Training Committee, with the goal of helping our leaders both in their own learning and in their efforts to raise up and train new leaders. The committee works on the following projects:
- Evaluating and updating GSMOL’s existing resources
- Seeking out other good resources that our leaders can use
- Developing new resources, keeping in mind that different people learn best in different ways, so that our collection will include
- Resources on paper
- Online programs and information sources
- Videos featuring expert speakers
- Zoom and in-person workshops
- Apprenticing trainees to a mentor
- Establishing connections between members who want to become leaders (or have already taken on the role) and a GSMOL leader who can mentor them, if there is not already someone doing this.
Our aim is not to dictate how any leader should either learn or teach the knowledge and skills that a good leader should have, but rather to provide as many resources as we can for our leaders and prospective leaders to learn in the way that works best for them.
Suggested Resources for Learning
The Committee will add to this list as we do our research and development.
- The MRL Handbook, published by the Senate Select Committee on Manufactured Home Communities. In addition to the MRL (Mobilehome Residency Law) itself, this booklet also contains the MRL FAQ, which is a great place to look up answers to questions about the laws; a section on other state laws relating to mobilehomes and mobilehome parks; and a Community Resources directory for every county in the state. Find it under the Resources tab on the GSMOL website.
- GSMOL’s “Mobilehome Q & A”, a knowledge base system that includes questions and answers on the MRL, HCD’s Codes & Standards, Resident-Owned Parks, and more. Find the link in the footer section of the GSMOL website.
- GSMOEF’s “Ed Fund Academy” website with “courses” on the MRL, HCD’s Codes & Standards, and Bruce Stanton’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance Manual. Each “course” consists of short articles which you can read or listen to.
So Are YOU Ready to Step Up?
Even if you don’t have a Chapter in your park, you can volunteer to be a Membership Coordinator or Legislative Contact. This could open the door for a Chapter to be formed in your park! Contact your Associate Manager, Region Manager or Zone VP (find there information HERE)
