Re: Fall Board Meeting Motions and exhortation

[Robert Pries <robertpries@embarqmail.com>]

There is often little understanding of why the AIS board does what it does. It
is often very complex. I can not speak for the board but I can share what was
going through my mind as the decisions regarding the symposium took place.

First off one should know that the budget for the coming year projected at a
$30,000 deficit. Knowing this I fully expected that we might have to reduce
the number of times the bulletin comes out to 3 a year. More than 90% of each
membership goes to printing the bulletin. Without other sources of funds the
bulletin is the only place to cut. But we did not cut an issue or raise dues
two things that did not seem viable to be on the table in our present
economy.

Secondly we have been declining in membership at the rate of about 5% a year
and dropping a bulletin would surely cause an acceleration of this loss. So we
were looking for any ways to raise money and reduce expenditures. We did a
remarkable job in that we reduced the expected loss for next year to half.
Most officers and committee chairs do not ask for reimbursement for most of
their expenses. If the real costs of doing business were not being assumed by
many of us the organization would have failed years ago. Remarkably we still
have a $78,000 reserve that can help us get through this difficult time. But
if we didnbt cut that loss we would be dead in 3 years.

Given this background, I and probably most of the board were looking for ways
of cutting costs but still providing as much service to our membership as
possible. In that perspective I donbt feel that shifting the small cost of
printing a symposium ballot to those that vote by mail is much to ask. If they
are truly interested the cents that are added to their voting should be little
concern. I might note that it is much more efficient than printing ballots in
the bulletin when so few people now use those ballots. If people can vote
online than 75% or more can do it this way. To print a ballot in each bulletin
4000+ ballots and only 300+ are returned and of those 75% could vote online we
are talking about roughly 75 ballots that someone might not send in because
they had to have them printed out by someone in the club with a computer. To
gain those extra 75 ballots we would have to spend several hundreds of
dollars. It seems little to ask of someone to support the society by a small
effort that saves hundreds especially when we have been squeezing everything
in the budget..

Many of us on the board feel that the affiliates do not feel an integral part
of the society. Of course there were garden clubs before the creation of the
Iris society but the society was created because of the need for banding
together to get and sort information and eliminate the chaos, confusion,
misinformation and fraud that existed before the society was formed. To
support the affiliates and to create greater communication with them we
authorized a new discussion forum that will have a representative from each
affiliate and that is unique to that affiliate. Hopefully information will be
able to flow back and forth from the central structure of committee chairs,
RVPs, board members, to and from the affiliates. Perhaps the affiliates will
guide us along a path that creates new members or new ways of fundraising. To
paraphrase someone more eloquent than myself , ask not what the society can do
for you, but what you can do for the society. Most plants societies are
failing to adjust to the environment which presently exists, and many may
disappear in the next ten years. It will not be what the board does or
doesnbt do but what the board and affiliates do together that will decide
our fate.

----- Original Message -----
From: "K Brewitt" <just1moreiris@gmail.com>
To: aisdiscuss@aisboard.org
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 8:08:11 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [AISdiscuss] Fall Board Meeting Motions

Am I to infer then that non-internet users are to be encouraged to
participate in the Symposium however the expense associated with their
participation, i.e. printing and possibly mailing or adding extra pages to
newsletters, is being offloaded to the affiliates?  Making sure I clearly
understand is important to me because 25% of Region 16 membership fall under
the category of non-internet users.
Kate
2009/11/16 Jody Nolin <jody.nolin@gmail.com>

> I assume that you mean the Affiliates Liaison, Lynn.
>
> I'm not sure I'm the best person to recap all the discussion on the
> topic of printing the Symposium, but I can give it a try.  I'm sure I
> will miss some important points, so the rest of the group can forgive
> me, or add what I leave out.
>
> Kate, as you can see by the various motions, we kicked this back and
> forth for a while.  At one point the continuation of the symposium
> itself was debated.  (The feeling was that most sections have their
> own version, and TBIS has a TB version.)
> I think the final decision was based on a couple of factors:
> 1. low number of votes, even before the change to the current format and
> 2. high cost of the pages in the Bulletin and
> 3. the static nature of the list of winners.  Little change is seen
> from year to year.
>
> Suggestions for ameliorating the situation for non-computer users
> included printing in regional newsletters and bringing printed copies
> to club meetings.  There were more, but, again, I don't have all the
> discussion commited to memory.
>
> So, I hope I got that close to right.  I'm sure someone will tell me
> if I didn't.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 6:10 PM, Gerry Snyder <geraldcsnyder@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > cheryl deaton wrote:
> >>
> >> Lynn,
> >>
> >> Why would the Affiliates Chair answer a question that the Symposium
> Chair,
> >> Gerry Snyder, should be answering?
> >>
> >
> > I assumed one of the board members who supported the action would be
> eager
> > to explain it.
> >
> >
> > Gerry
> >
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