ACE Thursday HOD Recap
Chad Sines
This was the last House of Delegates meeting and only two hours long. Many wondered the purpose of sending a delegate to ACE for only two hours, but anyone who has ever been to ACE knows that you need to be present for the Board of Directors Meeting, House of Delegates, the other meetings, and industry updates if you want to have an informed membership. Much of what is learned comes outside the main business meetings as you can see from many of the tweets and Facebook posts.
The agenda was very light and tame, but here is a recap with my perceptions.
Speaker’s Address
Bonnies shared some personal feelings with regarding her experience and the change with the loss of the HOD. Bonnie was elected to the new leadership board and will be a district director.
CEO Address
Here is where I expected to hear something that made me fall out of my chair twittering with delight, but sadly there was nothing new. Nothing fresh. No new direction given by the CEO. Keeping in mind that the position is only 60 days old, I want to be fair here. Still, I have to wonder why conversations with staff, current directors, and past presidents would not have allowed a simple 3-5 list of “This is what I will focus on the next year. This is what I WILL make sure happens. This is what I insist we change to.” So iuno. I am confused and a bit worried. But I will try to remain positive.
Treasurer Report
This came later but the story is the same. We are hurting bad financially. We need new revenue streams and they will be…….. Yeah. I was hoping for a wow moment here but it did not come. Still another couple days to hear something that makes me excited. Crossing fingers. We have some bright minds out there.
Jay Vance
This was the main highlight of the meeting and a major redeeming factor. Jay is a fellow techie and promoter of social media as well as a new district director. AHDI is working on a centralized director area where each director can share blogs, messages, video, etc. Members can go to one place to have contact with all directors. Hopefully it will reduce the many duplicated pieces of information we all get. Many of us often have to delete messages simply because we cannot sift out new information from repeated information. It will go live in the near future and I hope everyone will take a look at it. I do challenge each director to blog frequently, share personal feelings, and not word speak. Doing this will really connect members to leaders in a way that we just have not fully grasped to date.
Local Only Members
The topic of local only members keeps coming up. It was already decided before it was brought up to delegates that it would be going to a full member vote, so this was really little more than a chat session on the topic. Regardless of any insights, it was still going to members with the recommendation to remove the local only member by 2013.
I had one serious question “Is this really what we need to be focusing on now??” Don’t we have more dire issues to address? A few members emailed or IMed in real time to say just the same.
It turns out that there are about 300 or so local only members. These are people who only belong to the local chapter. They may pay dues there, but they pay none to national and they have no voting rights anywhere.
The argument against local only members is essentially that they take resources and information and give nothing in return. Basically they are not really involved in their profession. But is that really true? What additional costs do local only members bring? If I speak to an audience of 10 or 100, my effort is the same. Same cost for emails as well. If my message is something that needs to get out, I want that 100 no matter how I get them.
The bigger question I have is “What harm do local-only members bring?”
AHDI suffers from a perceived irrelevance according to most MTs. Sad but true. Our membership numbers state it clearly. AHDI needs to get its message out to these nonmembers any way they can, so why would we turn potential ears away simply because they do not want to pay us $135 a year?
Vallie, from Florida, shared that their local chapter invites students to meetings and provides a free local only membership with attendance in the 50ish region. How many components even at a regional level would kill to have that number of monthly attendees?
I think the issue is that we as the Association have failed to properly market the local-only concept. Few components have used it as a tool to bring in nonmembers, get them involved at a local level, and ultimately transform them to national members. I can also see a huge opportunity for state/regional-only members who, for whatever reason, are not ready for national membership.
Turning potential ears and members away feels elitist to me. I heard many references to the need for them to be fully committed, real participants, etc, but in the end the question for me is simple. Why is it that these local only are hearing our message and not joining? Does the fault lie in them or in our message?
It is something to think about when you get the ballot to vote.
Summation
With a total change of leadership and structure I want to hear a big wow factor before I leave. I have to hear it. I need to hear a list of new revenue streams, a new commitment to credentialing that includes all directors coming from an MT background to test for their RMT or CMT this year, to require all ACCP schools to have all CMT instructors and program director. I need to hear that we will develop a marketing plan to expose predatory schools as well as weed out current schools that are approved but not upholding the highest standards. I need to hear how we will recruit and retain members. I really want to hear how we will work with CDIA if they cannot or will not actively and honestly support mandatory credentialing. The biggest thing we all need to hear is how will AHDI lead the way in retooling MTs so that they will be relevant in the new EHR era and not left behind.
Chad Sines
AHDI-Southeast Delegate