Carter County Tomorrow’s board of directors worked toward finalizing the organization’s mission statement during the group’s fourth strategic planning session Wednesday.
The board has held four strategic planning meetings to discuss the future of CCT and what its focus should be in the community. The group will have a fifth meeting in December to finalize its long-range goals.
CCT Director Tom Anderson said Wednesday’s discussion was productive and the group had largely agreed on the new mission statement, which a condensed version of the current one.
The new statement reads, “Carter County Tomorrow is a unique agency created by local government and community leaders to help recruit, maintain and grow businesses; facilitate economic activity; provide a means for meaningful discussion and action shaping our community’s economic future and serve as a voice to achieve these from a local and regional perspective. We will do this while protecting our heritage and natural resources, and improving the lives of those who live, work, visit and invest here.”
By developing the mission statement, the board will be able to move forward with the final phases of the strategic planning. The next steps will be to develop the goals for CCT and the “action items” to determine whether goals are being met.
The group initially had developed close to three pages of goals, which will be consolidated during the next session, Anderson said. These goals focused on business retention, tourism, workforce development and recruitment.
“Next we have to come up with a way to measure these goals,” Anderson said. “When we have the mission, we can set the goal, but then we need action items that will show to the public these goals have been met.”
The CCT board moved to have the series of strategic planning sessions to help clarify the agency’s purpose, and to help introduce new community leaders to CCT’s’ goals.
“Carter County Tomorrow is in its seventh year,” Anderson said. “It is important to adjust and change as time changes. A lot see it as this nebulous organization that is everywhere. These sessions can help answer the questions people have of what we do and why we exist.”
The next session will be held Dec. 11 at the Elizabethton/Carter County Chamber of Commerce from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.