President’s Message

Happy New Year and Happy Winter, everyone!

 I will admit that it’s not my favorite season, but I try to not be a downer about it since you can’t really avoid it completely when you live in Michigan. I liked it better as a kid, when someone else cleaned up the pile of wet clothes when I came in from playing in the snow (or shoveling it), and someone else drove on the icy roads to get me somewhere.

For us clerks, winter can be a bit of a respite from the seemingly never-ending election cycle. (Even if you’re a Village clerk and don’t run elections, it’s probably nice to get a break from listening to the rest of us moan about them!) The ‘off-year’ really isn’t so “off” anymore. But for the couple months between mid-November and mid-January, we can mostly set aside the election calendars, maybe take a vacation (always somewhere warm, for me), and take a look at all the other things that get nudged aside during the election crush—things like reviewing policies and procedures, gearing up for setting the next fiscal year’s budget, getting the W2s and 1099s out, organizing all the paperwork. (There’s still so much, even when you go as paperless as possible!) For the last few months of 2025, I was the point-person in my office for upgrading our computer and phone systems (yay, 21^st Century equipment and VOIP!), helping our library director upgrade her library management system, and finally getting a camera installed to surveille our ballot drop box that’s been next to the front door since we moved into the office in 2017. Phew!

I know most of us go straight to our fellow MAMC members with all the election questions. Who better to answer those, right? But don’t forget that we all handle all kinds of other jobs for our jurisdictions, regardless of whether we do election. So, your MAMC friends can also answer questions about IT, HR, A/P, budgeting, marketing, or purchasing. They’ve probably looked at or tried out different filing systems, phone systems, or vendors for all kinds of things. And stand back if ‘color-coding’ comes up! The questions clerks have can run the gamut of not just governmental matters, but anything that keeps any office operating; and many newer clerks might just now be having some of these operations questions come up.

Which brings me to MAMC’s Clerk to Clerk Mentor Program. I know most of us feel like we need someone to mentor us. Even when you’ve been clerking for years, it seems like there are always new questions and things you haven’t encountered before. But it’s time to flip the script on that! Look at all the things you DO know! If you’ve made it through the last few years in one piece, you’ve probably developed skills you don’t even realize you have. You may not have all the answers—none of us ever will. But you could have a really helpful answer for someone else! And sometimes, mentoring isn’t even about having the best answers. Sometimes it’s just checking in every couple months to find out how things are going, making a connection that lets your mentee feel more comfortable asking questions.

Mentoring doesn’t need to be about elections and it isn’t a life-time commitment. It doesn’t need to be. Even the newest clerks start to get a handle on things by the end of their first election cycle or first year in office. The phone calls and emails come less frequently and there’s a shorter list of questions each time. But the connection remains! Your mentee becomes a friendly face, with a big smile when they run into you at their first conference. And you get to introduce them to all your other clerk friends there. Maybe they become part of the group going to lunch together during the Education Day break. And then, slowly, maybe they begin the transition from mentee to mentor themselves!

We all have different skills and specialties. And someone out there is looking for a person with just your skillset to help them. Anyone can be a mentor! Maybe you already are the ‘go-to person’ for a newer clerk in a nearby community. If you’re both MAMC members, you can formalize that relationship and as a mentor you can earn points toward your MiPMC. Don’t care about the MiPMC points? That’s fine! Helping out a new clerk is really reason enough to sign up! The MAMC Board has already had a lot of interest from new clerks looking for a mentor. Once we have enough mentors available, mentees will be able to approach anyone on the mentor list themselves. Once you have a mentee (or two), you can take your name off the list until you’re ready for a new mentee to find you.

Many years ago, after just a couple years as deputy clerk, when the only real job my clerk gave me was running elections and maintaining our QVF, I was mentoring new clerks (and some more experienced ones) in nearby communities in election administration and QVF-wrangling because it was something I knew well. It seemed strange to me that people felt I was capable of mentoring others and recommended me as a mentor. I’m over that now! I’m happy to step up and be a mentor! And I know many of you are just as capable of being great mentors to other clerks in need of a hand learning the ropes. Put yourself on the list and become a mentor!