Normally what happens is that you become a member of either a Mended Hearts Group or a member of a satellite group. When the satellite gets enough members it may petition Mended Hearts to form its own chapter. So, you would need to get enough people in your immediate area to join the satellite group and then have those members request to form their own satellite group. If you satellite group obtains enough members then it could petition to form its own chapter.
ZIP Code 17603 (Lancaster, PA) is in the area that has one Mended Hearts group, which is Chester County, i.e., Chapter 198 - Chester County, PA Satellite which is about 40 miles from Lancaster. Lancaster, PA, is in the Northeast Region and the contact is Mr. Robert Hoffman, (860) 841-3530.
vrome@166.netI was a Mended Hearts Chapter President. The chapter needs a good many dues paying members and you need to set up a bank account. You also need various officers, i.e., a president, vice president, treasurer, someone to be in charge of volunteers, etc. After you have members you need to get volunteers to visit patients in the hospital and they need to go through an approved training program.
Once you have everything up and running you need to have a Secretary to write reports showing what happened at each meeting. Part of the monthly program includes having a guest speaker from the hospital you are affiliated with or other speakers who can provide relevant information. You need someone to set up the schedule for each meeting and to be in charge of inviting guest speakers.
Although not required, many chapters have meals at their meetings so they have to find a place to get the meals and then have someone to physically get the meals to the location where the meeting is being held. You might be able to obtain space in a restaurant for meetings a the members can just buy meals at the restaurant. You might be able to arrange lower prices for the group members when the meetings are being held.
The first thing I would suggest is to contact Mr. Hoffman named above.
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David Fessler
Houston TX
(281) 498-0876
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-02-2017 08:42
From: Rod Martin
Subject: New Chapter
After working for over 18 months with three different hospitals in Lancaster County, Pa., Lancaster General agreed to start a Mended Hearts Chapter. Aside from being very excited to be able to be a part of this, I'm also a bit nervous as to how to go about doing this. So I'm looking for any advice/direction you may have for me. Lancaster General is obviously doing all the admin and hospital end of it, but as to running a chapter (that right now consists of - me), I'm open to ideas. I'm looking forward to your responses.
Thanks