|
Bob,
I can see your argument BUT any Exec
or Board is put in place to make the hard decisions & to provide
unbiased leadership. While consultation is fine, it can certainly bog things
down ... and I doubt that the GFA has too much time to waste on this
issue.
Mark's words are a good place to
start ...."We need lots of new pilots, enough new
money coming in to grow the fleet & everyone having fun".
I think it is entirely appropriate
for the Board to commission outside expert advice on how this and a refined set
of aims can best be achieved.
We are all "the converted" and that
is never the best base to sample or to canvas for initiatives.
What the GFA needs is expert advice
on how best to convert the unconverted, including a properly undertaken survey
of how the Sport is perceived.
I suggest that you can ask input
from the converted membership after the expert's report is received &
published .... then ignore all of the converted's advice that is partisan or
which does not make a spectacular contribution to the outcome being
targeted.
Regards Geoff
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 1:09
PM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] A NEW APPROACH
TO GFA PROMOTION & MEMBERSHIP??
Robert Hart wrote:
> Geoff Kidd wrote:
>
>> I would council the GFA to take (pay for)
professional advice on
>> key issues such as marketing etc.
>
> Agreed - but only after some extensive consultation in-house - ie
with
> the members. It is the members' organisation and they should
have the
> major say in the direction their organisation takes. Once
the goals are
> known, expertise to help achieve those goals can be
paid for.
Don't agree, Robert. The goals are already known;
Extensive
consultation with the members is going to deliver the same
outcome
we're already talking about here, namely that the sport needs to
be
grown.
The particular ways in which it is grown aren't (or
shouldn't be)
important to the current members. We all happen to fit
in to a
culture that says lots of time and not much money is an ok way
to
learn how to fly, otherwise we wouldn't be here. So our ideas
about
the way to go about this, as shaped by our personalities
and
experiences are automatically incompatible with the potential
customer
base we're talking about here.
In short, if GFA engaged in
detailed consultation with the members,
and the members recommended the
particular direction to take, then
the members would effectively sabotage
the process by recommending
a direction which was familiar and (for their
demographic) "tried
and true." The safe option is the one we already
have, because (for
us) it has worked.
Taking a new direction
requires the organization's management to
take a risk, to do some stuff
which hasn't been done before which
is targeted at growing the sport.
Consultation with outsiders, not
insiders, is necessary -- outsiders will
have perspectives that would
simply never occur to the likes of you and me,
and (by definition)
they're the kinds of people we need to appeal
to.
> but I would suggest that there is a heap of untapped
expertise
> amongst the GFA membership.
... and look where it's
managed to get us.
Forget it. Just pay someone who really knows
what they're doing,
instead of relying on volunteers who *say* they know
what they're
doing.
Frankly I don't give a rat's arse about whether
the strategies
employed by the GFA to grow the membership are compatible
with the
views I'd put forward if I was consulted, as long as they
work.
The end justifies the means.
> I am not suggesting that the
membership take
> on entirely the production of the business plan (few
members will have
> both the time and expertise available to do that),
but this is where we
> should start as the membership will have a set
of views that are bound
> to illuminate the issues in interesting and
useful ways (some of which
> will be negative - also good to
know).
Yeah, great, if we want the whole process to get bogged down
in
bureaucracy for five years while half the membership argues about
whether
they've been consulted enough and the other have bitches about
the
fact that their responses to consultation have been ignored,
then
that might be a good idea.
There are too many prima-donnas in
the gliding movement who will be
only too happy to vociferously oppose
anything that they, personally,
don't feel happy about. When you have
enough people like that with
opposing views, it's always easier to blow
them all off and just get
on with the job. Who cares if there are a
handful of seriously pissed
off people who think they're being ignored if
hundreds of new pilots
are joining the sport every year? That's an
acceptable price to pay,
in my opinion. We don't *need* the entire
existing membership to be
happy if there are plenty of new members coming
in to replace the ones
who are upset enough to leave.
> Hmm - *I*
do not want to set the principles and aims - but *we* (the
>
membership) should do so.
We already know what the aims are: lots
of new pilots, enough new
money coming in to grow the fleet, everyone
having fun without having
to get emeshed in the day-to-day running of the
national body.
I doubt that there has been a single national exec in
the last ten
years who hasn't known what those goals are. They
haven't failed to
achieve those aims due to ignorance of what they are,
they've failed
to achieve them because the stuff they've tried hasn't
worked.
If you spend the next five years consulting, you'll have
arrived at the
same answer and wasted five years, and you'll *still* have
an exec who
knows the right answer but doesn't know how to implement
it.
So stop wasting time, hire someone who does, and make the problem
go away.
-
mark
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I
tried an internal
modem,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
but it hurt when I
walked.
Mark Newton
----- Voice: +61-4-1620-2223 ------------- Fax: +61-8-82231777
-----
_______________________________________________
Aus-soaring
mailing list
[email protected]
To
check or change subscription details, visit:
http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
|
