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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Getting the word out WAS Re: NNGA membership declines

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  • From: dwoodard@becon.org
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Getting the word out WAS Re: NNGA membership declines
  • Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 00:54:19 -0400 (EDT)

Michael, I don't know what the memberhsip of NAFEX is right now, but it
seems to have hovered around 3000 for a number of years, almost all in the
U.S. and Canada. The combined population of these countries is around 320
million. So our members are about 1 in 60,000 of the more or less
able-bodied
adults in our continental society. I think that the potential membership
is under 1 in 1000 but is much larger than the current membership.

If we just let nature take its course our membership will decline and the
cultural resource that it represents, essential to our society's future
survival, will also decline. The services NAFEX can provide to our core
elite of knowledgeable fruit explorers will decline. The constituency for
their activities and their government and professional allies, individual
and instituitonal, will also decline, for a few decades at least.
Therefore I think there is a case for building the membership. To do that
we will have to serve our potential members better and make it easier for
them to learn and to practice home fruit growing and fruit exploring in
all its facets.

If we want to grow and strengthen, and it's important that we should, we
need to be friendly to our rookies and help them develop.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontatio. Canada



Michael Nave wrote:

> With regard to number 1, amateur fruit and vegetable
> growing is not about marketing. It's about love. If
> the internet generation doesn't want to join a fruit
> and vegetable group because they don't like the
> website, it would be pointless for them to join NAFEX
> or NNGA. Trying to make a fancier website to attract
> these people would be like making a trail of bananas
> to get a gorilla to enter an opera house. The gorilla
> would not appreciate it when it got there.
>
> Number 2. People look at you like you're in the wrong
> place because 99.99% of young folks have no
> understanding of the importance or wonderment of fruit
> and vegetable growing nor any interest in it. So the
> odds are very good that when people see you they think
> you are in the wrong place. If they refer to you as
> the baby of the group, it's because you are the baby
> of the group. If that bothers you, and I cannot
> imagine why it would, just wait. Eventually you will
> not be the baby of the group. You will not be 24
> forever. Enjoy it while it lasts. It will be gone very
> soon.
>
> Number 3. If someone is interested, they'll find these
> groups. It's not the group's job to try to twist your
> arm. That doesn't work anyway. The real issue is why
> are so few people looking for these groups. The answer
> has to do with American society, not with clanky
> websites or 24 year olds who think they should be
> treated like 60 year olds. The answer has more to do
> with popular culture, a culture which treats growing
> fruits and vegetables as a nonexistent activity at
> worst and at best something that only illegal
> immigrants would be interested in.
>
>
> --- Amanda Emily <amanda@wa-geek.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> As a 24-year old who actually works in technology,
>> let me be frank and
>> offer some opinions.
>>
[snip]





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