Re: Decline is not innevitable

[cemahan@aol.com]

Changing the size of the Bulletin or the designation from month of issue to the season will neither attract not one new member. Nor will it prompt any member to renew his/her membership. The?most effective approaches?to gaining new members?are organizing more local societies, having iris shows and rhizome sales at places that attract large crowds, having fall iris shows, and getting garden writers for local papers to write article about irises and AIS. After you gain a new member, ask him/her to be a clerk at a show or do another job at a show or sale...i.e. involve them. All written, in my humble opinion, of course.:)


-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Pries <robertpries@embarqmail.com>
To: AISdiscuss <aisdiscuss@aisboard.org>
Sent: Sat, Aug 1, 2009 5:13 pm
Subject: [AISdiscuss] Decline is not innevitable



I hear too often that plant societies are in decline as if this were just the
innevitable situation in todays present economy. Of course this is not true.
The plant societies that have refused to change are in decline, yes,B and this
is a majority. but there are many examples of where plant or gardening
societies have made changes and are beginning to show growth again. Of course
some have made shanges but they still have problems, perhaps because they
haven't changed enough and others have seemed to get much right quickly and
are really growing rapidly. And then there are those who refused to change but
balme their failure on society not caring anymore. I don't believe we should
view ourselves as in competition with any of these groups. I do think that
paying attention to their successes and failuresB can help us analyze our own
situation. I am afraid the desire to keep everything the same may try to
justify that position by saying that all is hopeless. it is not. It may not be
easy, but we really have no excuse for own present situation than our own lack
of determination to be all that we can be as they say in the army ads.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to the AIS Secretary
<aissecretary@irises.org>
The archives for AISDiscuss are at:
http://www.aisboard.org/lists/aisdiscuss/

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to the AIS Secretary
<aissecretary@irises.org>
The archives for AISDiscuss are at:
http://www.aisboard.org/lists/aisdiscuss/