LLL US Western Division Presents
TEAM 2004: Essential Pieces

Address to the attendees of TEAM 2004:

Hi, I’m Marcia Lutostanski, the Chairman of the La Leche League International Board of Directors. Thank you for inviting me to this event. This is the first time I have attended a USWD TEAM and I am pleased that you’ve allowed me the opportunity to experience it. This has been a wonderful event for me personally and as Chairman of the Board and a reflection of the exciting things going on in the USWD. The LLLI Board is pleased with the changes that we see and we encourage you to continue in your pursuit of developing better ways to fulfill the purpose of La Leche League, including improving ways in which Leaders work well together.

The LLLI Board sets the overall direction for the organization. This direction is based on the beliefs that the philosophy is strong, that LLLI Leaders are passionate and capable women and that mothers and babies deserve access to the breastfeeding information and mother-to-mother support that La Leche League provides.

Maintaining and increasing access to LLL support and information is an important priority to the LLLI Board. We think that the people who work directly with mothers and babies know best how to provide that access; we trust that in the mother-to-mother process.

Each of us breastfed our babies; we know what we wanted and needed and what made it possible for us to be successful at breastfeeding. We learned what worked for us. We also share the experience of working with other mothers; we have learned what those women need and want and what helps them to have successful breastfeeding experiences, or not. Our experiences, our passion and our commitment to becoming a learning community combine together to help us expand the entire La Leche League community’s ability to better serve mothers and babies.

Leaders are the ones who decide what they are going to do to fulfill the purpose of LLLI. This is what a distributed system means – those who are distributing La Leche League support and information make decisions about what they will do and how they will do it.