A recent posting to the state presidents’ list gave me pause. At first I thought it was the archaic memo format. Yes, I complain, when e-mail comes out and it’s not clear who the addressees are, but still that
Date:
Subject:
To:
From:
repeated in the body of the message just seems s-o-o-o-o 1980’s…
But then I realized it was the content that really bothered me. When I tried to forward the message to others, I realized there was almost nothing in the memo that would make sense to anyone who wasn’t already immersed in the busyness of the national organization. This was a call for volunteers to give their time and talent to national committees and there was a reference to Robert’s Rules of Order about term lengths, for goodness sakes, but not a word about what these committees actually did or how they worked.
If you compare my version to their version and have suggestions for improving mine, please let me know.
But I guess my point is that I’m increasingly frustrated with a culture that’s so inward looking I fear that it won’t be able to connect to the outside world even to save itself.
PS: And a memo that came out shortly after those included a call to encourage people to attend the Phoenix convention because “all branches need to be represented.” From my point of view, pushing coming to convention to *vote* is a non-starter. Pushing attendance to get energized, learn many things that can be brought back to the branch, take advantage of personal growth opportunities, etc., etc. That is why people spend their own (and their branch’s and state’s) money to go to convention.