Remastering local sections

Hello, American Chemical Society! I am very excited and honored to be selected as the new chair of the Committee on Local Section Activities (LSAC). Members are the lifeblood of the society, and local sections are critical for membership activity. Over the last 3 years under the leadership of Beth Lorsbach, LSAC successfully completed our strategic plan by organizing and expanding the Officer Toolkit, creating an ACS Speaker Directory, launching a monthly webinar series, hosting local section showcase events at ACS Spring and Fall meetings, and conducting the local section leaders track at the ACS Leadership Institute. This past fall, LSAC and our stakeholders created a new strategic plan focusing on you—our local members!The key to advancing local sections is to help build membership engagement while reducing the management burden. Our first objective within the new strategic plan is to address community connections. We have heard you! The long loading times and the excessive reporting requirements are being addressed. As part of this effort, we are embarking on a Component Enhancement pilot program. Our vision is to support all component groups (local sections, divisions, and international chapters) with a core set of tools to streamline operations, harness best practices, enhance engagement, and integrate reporting. The goals of the pilot are to drive consistent member experiences across all component groups, facilitate direct access to templates and guidance, and reduce administrative tasks. Among the initial tools envisioned for the pilot will be enhanced functionality to support communications and roster management, bulk emailing functionality, and