[acb-hsp] affiliate growth

Mon Jul 23 16:15:24 EDT 2012

Greetings Darian & HSP Members:
My name is Kenneth Semien, Sr. of Beaumont, Texas.  Please be informed that
the Workforce Diversity Workshop was enlightening and because of the
impression that Darian made upon me, I felt compelled to become a member
immediately following the workshop.  Peter provided insight in regard to
diversity and I enjoyed the team assignments.  I am proud to be able to
report that I acquired information that will be useful during an upcoming
meeting with my Southeast Texas Regional Workforce & Inclusion Council that
I serve on.  I was glad to pay my dues before leaving the workshop and will
try my best to participate on each call.  I am currently serving in several
capacities within ACB and am a candidate for President of ACB of Texas, of
which I serve on the majority of our committees as well as Second Vice
President.  I do understand that many of us are very busy and often have to
determine what is most feasible at the time, therefore schedule conflicts
will arise at one time or another.
I look forward to meeting each of you by phone and hopefully in Columbus
next summer.
Have a great and productive week.
Kind Regards,
Kenneth Semien, Sr.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Darian Slayton Fleming" <darehart56 at hotmail.com>
To: "Discussion list for ACB human service professionals" <acb-hsp at acb.org>
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2012 2:40 PM
Subject: Re: [acb-hsp] affiliate growth

Hello List:

I have been following this thread for the past few days and thank everyone
for their comments.  I thank Andy for his comments as well.

I have remained silent, because as President, I want to be careful and fair
in what I say, for the sake of officers and other list members.

I want to say first, thank you to Peter for presenting to those who attended
our program.  He gave an excellent presentation.  I felt it was pretty well
attended, and we learned a great deal,, including that we might want to
build on the subject at a future program.

Our activities this year were sparsely attended with 10 at the networking
session, 2 at the business meeting and closer to 20 at the Diversity
Program.

Several officers were unable to attend convention this year due to finances
and other commitments.  I attended, even though finances and my husband’s
health were of great concern to me.

We intended to have a business meeting including elections, but we did not
have enough members for a quorum.

In regards to the conference calls, we cut back to every other month due to
low attendance and low participation in presentation.

In terms of affiliate activities, officers may organize events, but it takes
the membership as well as the officers to make events successful.

We have had strategic planning conference calls, also attended mostly by
officers and few members.

We have sent articles to “The Braille Forum” to help publicize, but although
we get them in by deadlines, the editor does not print them for months, so
by the time they are published they are not timely.

We have advertized events on the leadership list, but that has not increased
participation.

We developed a schedule for the entire year of 2011 with planned topics for
each conference call.  Still these calls were sparsely attended.

We have partnered with other affiliates in the past, and plan to in future.

Some of these issues are brought forward by people who do not necessarily
participate in phone or face-to-face events and who are not paid members.
Some of the complaints are offered by people who do nott share the entire
story. For example, presenters who agree to speak on calls fail to show up
on time and only join calls when they receive calls asking if they were
going to present, and then they join the call 30 minutes late. This after
reminder emails have been exchanged and assurances of attending on the
prescribed date. These calls are on Sunday evenings, and those in the
Eastern time zone, especially, are on the phone late in order to fulfill
their commitment to the organization. If a speaker shows up late, this makes
calls longer, and people are anxious to get off the phone when it is that
late.  So, let’s all remember that there is always more to stories than we
may hear at times.

As president, I am very aware of my other life obligations, and that my
officers and friends/affiliate members, have lives beyond HSP.  I understand
that my attending only through Thursday indicates a lack of commitment.
However, I submit that I weighed my commitment to HSP against my hardships
and feel I made the best compromise I could-I arrived in time to place an ad
about functions in the student paper in time to publicize events.  I was
available for affiliate role-call and I attended the nominating committee
meeting.  I asked at affiliaite role-call if any other members of HSP were
present at convention, could they help represent the affilaite durign
voting.  No one offered to help.  I learned later, throughout the week, of
members who were present, but to heavily committed to other activities to
help.  I chose to leave early to honor my commitments to my marriage and my
family.  I felt this was the best compromise I could reach given my
circumstances.

We welcome input and participation.  I would appreciate hearing from people
as things arise.

I intend to hold a business meeting by phone prior to our August 5th
conference call. I hope we will have enough paid members on the business
meeting part of the call to allow us to have elections. If not, I may need
to appoint people to positions that are vacated because current officers
cannot continue to serve. Marlene will send out a conference call reminder
shortly.

I urge you to attend the call on August 5th.  Let’s discuss what you want
out of this affiliate, what part you are willing to take in improving the
affiliate and make a plan for the next year if we can.  Please be thinking
of ideas.  I expect to discuss current problems and solutions.

Sincerely,

Darian Slayton Fleming
ACB-HSP President

Sent: Monday, July 23, 2012 11:38 AM
To: Discussion list for ACB human service professionals
Subject: Re: [acb-hsp] affiliate growth

Actually, at least in this group, that is what we do.  But, you can lead a
horse to water, but you can't make him drink.  We had a conference call in
June, and I think that all of 4 of us showed up, and half of that 4 were not
going to convention, and the other half were leaving on Wednesday.  This
isn't the NFB. Many people do not attend convention, and many who do do not
stay the whole time.  I recall Mitch saying on Friday that there were so few
people there that he could identify all of the voices that he heard. Perhaps
organization business should be shifted to earlier in the week.

Andy

From: acb-hsp-bounces at acb.org [mailto:acb-hsp-bounces at acb.org] On Behalf Of
Kevin LaRose
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2012 9:50 AM
To: Discussion list for ACB human service professionals
Subject: Re: [acb-hsp] affiliate growth

IMO, a lot of this is stuff that needs to get sorted out before the
convention, if at all possible. Since a vast majority of convention business
is done on Friday, I think it’s extremely important that the affiliate has a
presence then. I have to say it does bug me when affiliates go to the
microphone on Sunday night without knowing who the delegate and/or the
alternate and/or the nominating committee rep will be. To me, it makes
affiliates look really disorganized. I think there needs to be a conference
call right before convention on which it can be determined which affiliate
members will be attending, and for how long. That way assignments could be
made ahead of time. Just a thought.

KL

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