Groups, Chapters, National Organization
What’s a Sierra Club Group? What’s a Chapter?
Understanding the Sierra Club structure and organization is a little like figuring out quantum physics. What is the Great Waters Group? Aren’t we the John Muir Chapter? And how does that relate to the big national Sierra Club headquartered in San Francisco?
All Sierrans are members of the national Sierra Club. The national Club is governed by a 15-member volunteer Board of Directors. Michael Brune, formerly of Rainforest Acton Network, recently succeeded Carl Pope, who continues in a new role of executive chairman. The Club has somewhere around 700,000 members.
One level beneath National is Chapters. Each state is a Chapter and a name. Wisconsin was lucky enough to be named by one of the founders of the Sierra Club, John Muir. So, we are the John Muir Chapter, made up of about 15,000 of those national members. We have a State Executive Director, Shahla Werner, with offices in Madison.
Finally, each state is partitioned into Groups. In Wisconsin, we have eight (8) regional groups. You can see the names of the Groups and where they are in the State on the map below. Our local Group is called the “Great Waters Group” (GWG). Lying in the southeastern region of the State, our 3,000 members cover Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Waukesha, and Washington Counties. We have a Volunteer Leadership Committee that offers Outings and environmental actions for our local members. This website is an example of a GWG initiative.