Our Approach to Membership
Michael
if we can do the same for membership, which has had a good discussion
recently at the board meeting.
Traditionally, we have had a sponsorship/invitation approach to
membership. It is not surprising that this has led to new members who
share the same demographic profile as current members (not that
there's anything wrong with that!). Recently there seems to be
considerable interest in moving to a different model - one which would
encourage application from anyone who shares our mission and is
willing to participate actively in it. There is a plan to have a
booth at Love Notes. What should that booth be prepared to hand out?
I think it should have an information sheet which includes membership
categories and dues levels. It should have an application form which
stresses the importance of active participation in both our fund-
raising activities and our Club maintenance activities.
What do you think?
Michael
els...@umext.umass.edu
I'm happy to see that we are moving our membership approach to the front burner!
We have had a few people come to Amherst Club because the program information is
in the newspaper and we let them know how much the lunch is.
Last week Ruth Beebe sat next to me and was asking me about membership.
Unfortunately, our membership chair was not at the meeting.
However, I think that we should have membership brochures right along with the
name tags. In that way, if a person has read about the Amherst Club program in
the paper and comes and asks about membership, we would have the information
readily available.
I told her about our fundraiser, our weekly meetings, the cost, etc.
I did NOT inform her that she would have to APPLY for membership, have the
membership committee VOTE, and then have the Board VOTE.
I hope that we can have some serious discussion about this issue.
When I discussed this process with a person who is not yet a member, I was asked
if we were "snobs"!!
It seems that if a person is willing to participate and is able to pay the dues,
we should be happy to have that person aboard.
Elsie
Jer...@aol.com
els...@umext.umass.edu
Since we will be discussing this at our December meeting, it will be important
for the membership to decide whether we are going to encourage application from
anyone who shares our mission and is willing to participate actively (and also
be able to pay the dues).
I am NOT a marketing person, but I am sure that some of our members have
marketing expertise. I am reminded of the posters with Uncle Sam pointing the
finger "We need you!" Instead of Uncle Sam, we could have the Amherst Club.
I think that we should have a really nice PROMOTIONAL hand out which would
motivate patrons of Love Notes to join - and to distribute it their friends who
might be interested.
Elsie
Hubbard Smith
From: future-of-the...@googlegroups.com on behalf of Jer...@aol.com
Sent: Mon 10/12/2009 11:18 AM
To: future-of-the...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Our Approach to Membership
Lorraine Desrosiers
with me.
I agree, Michael, that we need this open discussion as a way to consider
ideas freely and completely, so thanks again for this idea.
I have been with the club for over 25 years now. I joined about a year
after it was formed. At that time it was by invitation only for people who
were already invoved in community service, who were in positions of
authority in their work, and/or who were willing to contribute real time to
our enterprises. This high standard for membership was thought of as a way
to garner influential and professional level support and give our activities
the best chance possible for success, keeping in mind that benefiting the
town was the purpose, not merely forming an exclusive club. I have to say
it was a central strength in the beginning when so much planning had to be
done merely to organize ourselves and get started, including our definitions
of who should belong. I truly believe that without the enthusiasm, high
standards, and talented ability of those very first members (I came a little
later, so not about me) probably the club would not exist today. Yes, they
wanted people like themselves, quite understandable. I can see how that
might have been interpreted as elitist, even more so today than then. As
the years have gone by, although some early members remain, more have
dropped away for a variety of reasons perhaps having little or nothing to do
with the club itself, and for better or worse, so did the rigorous attitude
they possessed, and this loss can and does go both ways. Now we may be
poised to make some new decisions about membership. This is not the first
time this particular issue has come up for discussion, but I am glad to say
it may be the very best time for it.
Elsie, before we decide how to promulgate our desire for new members in the
most visible and active ways possible, I believe it is essential to decide
who we want our new members to be, especially if it is a departure from the
earlier model, although this departure has been creeping up on us willy
nilly, not the best way to make decisions. I think it's time for a
conscious decision, one that I hope can be reached by consensus. So let's
have this discussion before we plunge into hasty action about visibility and
calls for membership. I think, given some of the very pointed discussions
we have had so far, we can do this fairly quickly.
Cynthia, like you, I am not at all worried about people joining who will
bring us down, although we have had a very few interesting and flamboyant
individuals over the years who, for reasons as inexplicable as they were
themselves, dropped out fairly quickly. My concern is that we have a club
membership we can all feel proud and happy about, a membership that will
rally to the call of service, offer creative solutions to problems, and
provide a wide variety of resources to accomplish our tasks. The question
before us is: who might these people be and what are the attributes they
will have that will tell us what kind of member they will be? How shall we
define eligibility for membership? And even more pointedly, should we
define eligibility at all? You can never tell about people, maybe the least
likely will turn out to be the most valuable, and of course, vice versa. I
am in favor of a general call, but I want to see what others may bring to
this discussion, things I haven't thought about yet.
Once this discussion can be allowed to play out, Hub, I think it will be
time to take a vote. I'd like to hear from more of us in the days to follow
and see if we are approaching some kind of general agreement. Let's go to
it.
JEAN MILLER
mean a club with clear expectations and goals (which we have), and
one that looks forward to people who wish to take part. I see no
need to be hesitant about inviting the public, indeed I think we will
be enriched by it. People who join and do not "fit" will drop away.
Imagine that you were a new visitor. You think that this might be an
interesting club to join. When you walk in, you see a room
predominately filled by seniors, even elderly seniors. That may or
not be what you are looking for. Then once the meeting starts, as
members get up to make announcements, etc, you see that these are "do-
ers", and you like that. You like the friendly atmosphere. You like
the talk of the day. So right away, after even one exposure to the
Amherst Club, you get a real "feel" for it. It either appeals or
doesn't.
So I have no fear at all of the uninvited public wanting to be
members. In fact it shows gumption for a stranger to arrive.
One other thing: it seems a bit hasty to have to apply after one
visit. If we offer one free lunch, and a person wants to come again
before making a decision, is there a way they can pay for their 2nd
lunch on the day they come?
Jean Miller
Hubbard Smith
From: future-of-the...@googlegroups.com on behalf of Lorraine Desrosiers
Sent: Mon 10/12/2009 3:58 PM
Lorraine Desrosiers
Hubbard Smith
Lorraine Desrosiers
Lorraine Desrosiers
additional?) lunch and paying for it is covered by the same procedure for
all guests, which is that the person who invites them can pay or the guest
can pay directly with a check to our treasurer. We do open our lunches to
the public when we advertise speakers. Many members invite their friends or
spouses to repeated lunch visits as guests.
Lorraine.
----- Original Message -----
From: "JEAN MILLER" <jean...@verizon.net>
To: <future-of-the...@googlegroups.com>; "Michael"
<mlgree...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 4:40 PM
Subject: Re: Our Approach to Membership
>
Arthur Kinney
I think a booth is a good idea and we should have the material that
Michael suggests. The addition question is what to do about a free
lunch. The would suggest a welcome without an instant commitment and
might be more appealing to new people, but how we pay for it--sharing
guests? tackling the hospitality fund?--is a real question.
Arthur
Michael Greenebaum
1. An applicant fills out the application form and it is sent to the
Membership Committee.
2. The Membership Committee reviews it and if all is in order invites
the applicant to lunch.
3. At the lunch, the Membership Committee asks a Club member to act
as host to the applicant, answer questions, and make sure that the
applicant is prepared to be an active participant in Club activities.
(We will need to create a fund to pay for applicant lunches.)
4. If all is in order and the applicant indicates a desire to join,
the applicant receives a written invitation to join, along with a
pro-rated invoice for dues. Upon payment of dues, the applicant
becomes a member in good standing.
Note that this sequence does not include an "approval" component.
Michael
els...@umext.umass.edu
Our present policy allows a member to bring one prospective member as a guest at
no charge to the club member.
If a present member is the one recommending the prospective member, it might be
more "comfortable" if the invitation for lunch came from the club member.
I certainly liked your idea of not having an "approval" component.
Elsie
Lorraine Desrosiers
process as it was. We never really vetted prosepective members, that is,
checked their reported descriptions, never asked the inviting member to sing
the person's praises, or went in any meaningful way beyond the skimpy
application form and the rather light touch of the membership committee.
As for your suggestion of four steps, comments as follows:
If a prospective member invites himself or herself, that is, does not have a
sponsoring member, which can happen if we open membership, then it would
seem natural for the first contact to be membership chair. Next step would
then be an invitation to lunch if the new person has not been yet. Then it
would probably make sense for the membership chair or a committee member to
invite and host that new member. Hard to imagine selecting just anyone to do
this task, although not impossible. With a sponsoring member in existence
it would make sense for that person to host the new member. We already have
a way of paying for the lunches of prospective members one time, and it is
by means of our savings account, which is fed by our weekly raffles. The
Board, in your suggested four steps, seems not to have a role. Your plan
does logically expand the role of the membership committee, which has been
rather perfunctory up to now, and this would make sense. At present our
president issues a letter of invitation, and information flows to the
registrar and then to all members, as Larry did today by email for our
newest member. These steps could also be done by the membership commitee.
I like the idea of expanding the role of the membership committee. We still
need to have further discussion about opening membership and I wish anyone
who disagrees with that would weigh in before we get much farther along.
Lorraine.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Greenebaum" <mlgree...@gmail.com>
To: <future-of-the...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 10:44 AM
Subject: Re: Our Approach to Membership
JEAN MILLER
yet???
Jean
Arthur Kinney
Lorraine continues to make sense to me. What happens when someone comes
to the club we might have hesitations about? As I did last week and
today when she invited herself back and brought her own guest? (You may
remember the year she blocked the door into Love Notes and made all our
concertgoers take her leaflets for Not Bread Alone although Michael and
I repeatedly asked her to go behind her table as the other recipients
did.) Do we not worry about such people even when we know they would
be disagreeable to some of the membership?
Arthur
Lorraine Desrosiers
members who belong, has always wanted to join but was never asked, attended
Love Notes and was smitten, is joining at the same time as a good friend who
has been to lunch, is ordered to join by his or her boss, saw our float,
belonged to an organization that was helped by the club or was helped
individually, or merely was impressed by word of mouth or mention in the
papers. I'm sure there are more reasons, this is just off the top of my
head. Maybe I have too high an opinion of the club's virtues in thinking
members would flock in without effort on our part.
To be fair, perhaps it is unlikely that someone would attempt to join
without knowing more about us by attending lunch. I tried to make sense out
of Michael's sequence for joining, which appeared to assume someone would
want to join before attending lunch so yours is a reasonable point.
Lorraine.
----- Original Message -----
From: "JEAN MILLER" <jean...@verizon.net>
To: <future-of-the...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 4:55 PM
Subject: Re: Our Approach to Membership
>
Lorraine Desrosiers
is essential. I have to laugh, though, about the variable behavior of our
members and prospective members. The French have an interesting name for
"hell", which they define as "all the others". Very French.
I don't know what to do about behavior that irritates or is inexplicable. I
don't think we can eliminate it even if we do have something to say as a
group about who does or doesn't join. We are what we are, we humans. We
have to put up with us. What else can we do?
Arthur Kinney
What else we can do is avoid trouble.
Arthur
Carlton Brose
NancyB.
Arthur Kinney
I helped to write our current statement of membership read at the
induction ceremony,. I'm proud of that, especially the word "community"
that is at the center of it--community service. I have already
commented on my own interchange with a person nominated for membership,
a nomination I oppose. No one in my 45 years of living in Amherst that
I can recall has been the subject and participant in as much divisive
commentary and newstories in the Amherst /Bulletin/ than she has. How
can we possibly think of her as being a helpful and congenial community
member of the Club? We could, of course, inquire of people at First
Congregational Church or I could resign from the Club myself to make
room for her and the consequences.
Arthur
Lorraine Desrosiers
have to say. I am not as familiar with the situations you describe as some
others may be. But I must caution all of us not to discuss individuals in
this particular forum, which is open to everyone in the club. If you wish
to adhere to the process we now have in place for accepting or rejecting
individuals who apply for club membership, you must also comply with the
discretion of that process. Until it changes, let's not have that
discussion here.
Only yesterday, I remarked to Michael after lunch that there are some in the
club who feel strongly opposed to an open membership and that we must hear
from them before we consider the changes proposed. I cautioned that I could
imagine some members resigning from the club just as we make these changes,
and, Arthur, you have validated my prediction for concern. I could name
other valued members of our club who might feel the same, and their
membership is more important to me than these proposed changes. I want to
hear more from you in general terms as well as others who want the
membership system now in place to continue as it is. Please do join the
discussion.
Lorraine
Arthur Kinney
Thank you for understanding, as I had predicted. What I am proposing is
some review step at some point before an invitation to join is assured.
Lorraine Desrosiers
membership might be possible with some creative thinking, although I'm not
sure everyone would agree. The Board might still have a role in granting
membership even in a more open context. Perhaps a member who sees a newbie
at lunch can contact the membership committee and put a word in and the
information passed along to the Board. Some years back I brought someone to
lunch, and a member told me not to put that person's name in so I didn't
because the reason seemed a good one, something I had known nothing about.
I had some explaining to do, but this was better than the other outcome.
The early rule required that a prospective member not even know his or her
name was being put forward in order to avoid difficulty of this sort, never
mind being invited to lunch before being asked to join. The onus was on the
nominating member to be sure a prospective member would be acceptable, not
always possible. But the rule was not enforced. Eventually it came to what
we have now where members invite others to lunch with the express idea of
having them go on to membership. And there were always individuals who on
their own quietly asked a member if they would sponsor them. Once again,
this happened to me and I refused but she went to another member who did
sponsor her. She was not a good fit, my original judgement was correct, and
her tenure was short-lived. But you can see how this is a difficult touchy
area. Intuitively it seems there is no simple easy way to deal with this
without social awkwardness, open membership or not.
One more thing -- with open membership, people who join and find they are
not a good fit will leave of their own accord rather quickly most of the
time. If we open membership this might happen more often than it does now,
but with fewer consequences than one might imagine. Something to think
about.
I hope others will come forward with ideas about this.
Arthur Kinney
I agree with Lorraine throughout except in a case I have in mind the
person would not ever realize he/she was not a good fit and not resign.
That is the problem in a nutshell. So some review needs to be
undertaken, the more private and confidential, surely, the better. When
I was membership chair one of the persons nominated was not passed on to
the club.
Michael Greenebaum
notion of "good fit." Are we really so monochromatic that someone who
otherwise meets our criteria might not fit the club? I don't think
so. Considering the Club as a social group, I think civility and
respect are the criteria and perhaps the only criteria beyond those
stated in our guidelines.
Michael
On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Arthur Kinney
Lorraine Desrosiers
need for exclusion on occasion might make more rather than less sense. That
there are people willing and able to work hard for our cause who are in some
ways objectionable on grounds of one sort or another, imposes a thoughtful
and tolerant choice on us. An overabundance of caution can be limiting.
But perhaps this is sort of what Michael is saying, sorry if my comments are
redundant.
I do think Arthur has a point, however, in our having at least some small
review.
Roger Webb
past, but I think now that we are in the position of having a slowly
declining membership, and a membership which is aging, the policy needs to
be changed if we want the club to survive for the next 25 years.
At present, membership is by invitation, and not surprisingly new members
turn out to be pretty much like ourselves. Although they may fit in well, I
would estimate that the average age of new members brought in over the last
decade roughly matches the average age of the existing members. If this
continues, in 10 years time the average age of club members will have
increased by 10 years, and we will find it harder to mount vigorous
fundraising campaigns such as Love Notes, and in 20 years many of us will
perforce no longer be members.
I would prefer to see the primary, or even the sole, function of the
Membership Committee changed from a vetting role to a recruiting role. And
for membership to be open to anyone who is willing to accept an active role
in the club. If this means we have some members who are controversial or
even disruptive, so be it - isn't that what makes for a vigorous democracy?
I would also like to see Associate Membership open to new members - many
younger community members cannot commit to coming frequently to lunch
meetings, but could still be interested in helping the club in its service
role.
I accept, though, that many members do not share these views. The role of
this group is not to make decisions, but to formulate ideas. So I think it
would be helpful for this group to formulate 3 or 4 clear alternative
policies, ready for a membership survey. Possibly the survey could include a
brief summary of the arguments for each option, similar to the summaries for
the Massachusetts ballot questions (but hopefully shorter!).
Roger
els...@umext.umass.edu
I like Roger's idea stated in his last paragraph about formulating 3 or 4 clear
alternative policies ready for a membership survey.
Michael, I don't think that I understand the "process" for making changes. I
realize that the Board of Directors must discuss all policies. However, will
this be brought up to the membership or will the Board of Directors make the
decision? When you mentioned the month of December, I didn't know if all of
these issues would be brought up at the December BOARD meeting, or are we
scheduled to have a meeting of the MEMBERS in December?
Thanks!
Elsie
Michael Greenebaum
is really this group) give a progress report to the membership in
December at a Tuesday lunch. That discussion would help the Board
formulate policy when it is ready to do so, but no deadline has been
set. I think Roger's idea would be an excellent way of soliciting
members' opinions on the issues before us.
Michael
els...@umext.umass.edu
Thank you for such a prompt response.
Do I understand that instead of a speaker at one of our Tuesday lunches in
December, the Task Force would have an opportunity to give a progress report to
the membership?
If so, do you think that we should try to draft a membership survey so that we
could share the results of that survey at the December meeting?
Elsie
Jer...@aol.com
Lorraine Desrosiers
----- Original Message -----From: Jer...@aol.comSent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 11:14 PMSubject: Re: Our Approach to Membership
Carlton Brose
NancyB.
Carlton Brose
NancyB.
Carlton Brose
have become president of the Club.
Willingness to be of service fit my criteria, including someone who enjoyed
being with others of like mind.
I know this is all after-the-fact, but it seemed to pertain. This
discussion is all good stuff, I'm thinkin'.
NancyB
Hubbard Smith
From: future-of-the...@googlegroups.com on behalf of Lorraine Desrosiers
Sent: Fri 10/16/2009 7:08 AM
To: future-of-the...@googlegroups.com