North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Claude Sweet <hortventures@cox.net>]

Every organization has people who are deeply involved and others that are sort of interested bystanders who may lack the resources, time, and energy to actively pursue the purpose of the organization. Of course there are many who fall somewhere in between.

Age does have of lot to do with limiting active participation in an organization as people just starting their careers and families tend to have limited financial resources and may not own property to plant trees which require considerable land and many years to see ones efforts produce a crop.  Such is not the problem with someone who grows African Violets and can have a thriving hobby indoors in a downtown apartment.  The cost of land also varies widely across of country and parcel sizes in LaJolla, CA are very small compared to those of track homes in Midwest, Eastern, and Southern states.

The issue of getting experienced members to write about their experiences before they die is a common problem and on many occasions I have seen years of horticultural experience and plant material lost because the children have no interest in maintaining the plants . Upon death the property is bulldozed and the plant material carted off to the dump because the owner didn't make provisions to insure the reults of growing their plants for many years were not preserved and funds provided for their transfer and maintenance to a site previously arrange while the owner was alive.

The analysis of how to increase the membership in an organization who are actively involved and a marketing analysis to expand the circulation of a group's publication are not necessarily the same.

I propose an analysis that would have membership fees based upon the services provided. For example, X dollars to be full voting member with specific benefits such as placing orders for a seed fund or scion wood exchange.

There are two costs of providing publications - the production of the materials and the distribution of the publications to the members.  AThe basic membership would include electronic distribution via pdf files either by e-mail and/or by posting the files to a server.

The cost of printing a hard copy and mailing it would be an optional extra fee that would cover the services provided to members choosing that option.  Archiving the publications on CDs and on a web site would be extra services that could be provided for a small per use fee or purchase of the CDs.

The CRFG regularly used a printer and purchased extra copies that required expensive storage space and exsomeone to mail out issues and truck them to annual meetings for sale. Back issues were offered for the cost of the year's membership plus mailing and handling fees.  They choose to describe the publications as a membership service to avoid charging sales tax - its an IRS thing relating to the publications being a member service as opposed to offering the publications for sale on a news stand or subscription basis.

For the record I prefer to follow the KISS principle - Keep It Simple Stupid for web sites.

I am surprised that NAFEX has not encourage the development of regional and local chapters, especially where clusters of members exist around universities and colleges. Working with researchers also opens the possibilities to interest young people who are interested in pursuing careers in horticulture.

Hope this explanation helps to clarify my thoughts on why I support the electronic communication as a means of attracting more people around the world who find the WWW to be the best way to network with other individuals - language being the last remaining barrier, but translating software is becoming much better.  Thankfully so many people do speak and write very well in English as their second language.

Claude Sweet
 San Diego, CA

mangodance wrote:

Claude, I'm not sure I follow.  My statements below were meant to 
illustrate the requirements of the audience we need to reach.  To that 
end, the needless fluff that happens on a number of sites is 
unnecessary.  Many of these gadets are often vanities for code writers' 
prowess as they serve little to no real function.  Most are forced...in 
that I mean you have to suffer through them through no action on your 
own other than having landed on a site.  Access to content is not 
enhanced.  I want to be clear and note that I'm not advocating giving up 
all tools and becoming luddites.  I'm not limiting the discussion to the 
simple matter of online distribution of Pomona either.  I'm also not 
suggesting there is any difference between memberships if someone 
decides to choose one distribution form over another.  They would simply 
be choices on MAY make.

I agree this is not age-related.

I do not understand where you are getting anything about putting 
organizational goals and objectives on hold.  Please inform.  I thought 
I'd said how we were moving according to plan.  I also don't understand 
the "alarmist warnings that the changes may cause some people to not 
renew" aspect.  I'd be happy to explain what I meant.  I'm just not sure 
where that comes from just yet.  Can you give me a bit of detail?

Claude Sweet wrote:
  

All that is necessary is to list the requirement of having a minimum 
connection speed, hardware, and software  that the user should have to 
utilize the electronic membership.

Logic would assume that individuals who LACK the necessary requirements 
would not pay for the electronic membership.

There will always be people who do not want to become part of the 
computer age and others that have a comfort zone with technology that 
they will not change. This is not necessarily age related.

Putting an organizations goals and objectives on hold because of 
alarmist warnings that the changes may cause some people to not renew 
has been used as a reason to prevent increases in membership dues for as 
long as I can remember.

Claude Sweet
San Diego, CA



Jwlehman@aol.com wrote:

    

In a message dated 2/15/2008 7:18:38 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
bmn@iglou.com writes:

      

This is paramount.  Web stats and surveys show that while many folks
have broadband, the majority do not.  Add to that that most rural areas
are on dialup or have shared slow service and it is clear than bandwidth
hog websites might be pretty, but they quickly cut off most of their
intended market.  We'll be going for easily maneuvered content
primarily.  We'll make other stuff available for folks who have
broadband and those who don't mind waiting, bu there will definately be
no splash pages, few java applications, no animations, etc.
Additionally, it should work a simply as possible due to software issues
as well.  While many of us do have newer software packages (me
included), many of us do not like the resource hogs newer software
versions have become (me included) and for no real good reason.  I'm not
a person who favors bells and whistles when they don't make sense and
detract from site usability.
        

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