November 13, 2015
Dear Everyone:
First of all, my cold is abating, although taking its own sweet time in
doing so. “Jeannie” reports
that she has caught “my” cold; but I assured her that it was some other
cold that was bothering her.
In other news…
Last night should have been “ARMA* night”, but for the third time in a
row we had to cancel the meeting.
Only two people signed up, apart from the Board Members, and not
even all of them signed up either.
What’s going on?
In September, the first meeting of the fiscal year, we sort of dropped
the ball, having to change the location at the last minute.
So people could be forgiven for not wanting to have to find an
unknown restaurant in another town at late notice.
Nevertheless, “Clancy”, who used to be our Chapter president some years
ago, and who is now the Pacific Region Advisor for Marketing and
Membership, was of the opinion that we were “out of touch” with our
members. All three dozen of
them. “Clancy” wanted “us”
to do a survey, to find out what the members really want.
Never mind that we had done plenty of surveys in the past, all with the
same results. So I went
ahead and used an
online “free” survey service to generate a brief
questionnaire (only seven questions in all).
I even made sure to include the questions that “Clancy” wanted.
And sent it out a few weeks ago.
In all, we got four responses.
That’s about 11%. Oh,
well.
In October, we dropped the ball again, this time giving the scheduled
Speaker the wrong date. So
we switched back to the Speaker we would have had in September, but in
the usual location, on the usual fourth Thursday of the month.
No one appeared to notice, one way or the other.
However, “Clancy” decided that this time the reason no one was beating a
path to our door was due to the description of the intended
presentation, which was about how to do an assessment, with specific
examples from a recent project at a district here in the San Francisco
East Bay. The description
was provided by the Speaker.
Bear in mind that getting a Speaker to give you
any description of any
kind is like pulling teeth.
They like to keep it vague, in case what they actually present isn’t
quite what they said it would be.
According to “Clancy”, the description was “boring” and lacked “upfront
catch words or phrases to attract attention”.
In fact, he opined that it looked like a “really good” resume
that he would toss into the reject pile without reading.
My response to that was to offer “Clancy” the opportunity to
“advertise” the November meeting.
In November, we dropped the ball twice.
We gave the restaurant the wrong date, then the intended Speaker
couldn’t accommodate the changed date.
But we found another Speaker, with a more “interesting” subject
of How to Give and Receive Feedback.
And we gave “Clancy” his head to promote it for all it was worth.
He promptly added the words “The Art of…” to the title.
OK. “The
Art of Giving and Receiving Feedback.”
Later, he add “A Training
Seminar” to the title.
Apparently, “Clancy” believes that “training” and “seminar” are magic
words that will cause people to drop everything and sign up.
Didn’t happen.
Remember last spring when we held a Seminar and nobody came?
“Clancy” even held a “brainstorming” teleconference to discuss
why no one came. We never
did come to a conclusion as to why the Seminar was a big, hairy flop.
Didn’t stop “Clancy” from using the “magic word” again.
And again, only two people indicated that they were interested.
Once is an inconvenience.
Twice is a coincidence.
Three times is a conspiracy.
To quote Samuel Goldwyn, of
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Studios:
“People are staying away in droves.”
And we have no idea why.
“Clancy”, is all aflutter over this.
True to form, he has scheduled yet another “brainstorming”
teleconference so we can all “discuss” what the problem is.
Are we “out of touch” with the members?
Are the programs “too boring” for words?
Or… Could it just be that
the members are giving us feedback loud and clear?
Are they saying: “Stop
bothering us! We gave you
money. We get the
periodicals. If we want to
come to the dinners, we’ll come.
Apart from that, just leave us alone.”
Or maybe it’s something different altogether.
Love, as always,
Pete
*ARMA = Association of Records Managers and Administrators
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