Poly is growing. That will come as no surprise to those of you who have attended meetings recently and found the PAB overflowing with people. At the end of last year we had 89 members on our roster. As of today, we have about 65. And it’s only January! That number is bound to increase over the next few months.
As big as we are, we’re still operating much as we did years ago when we had a stable membership of around 30. That has to change. With so many members and images to manage, we need to operate more efficiently. We need to modify our rules and procedures, and establish some new ones.
FOP Committee
To get that process started, I’ve convened a special committee of 12 long-time Poly members which I’m calling the “Future of Poly” committee or FOP for short. The committee’s task is to analyze the way Poly operates, find areas needing improvement and suggest solutions. The committee members include me, Darlene Elwin, Rick Wiley, Michele McCain, Clark Winsor, Ernesto Corte, Les Anderson, Mary Anderson, Dorothy Mildice, Jim Mildice, Bill Godwin-Austen and Dan Palermo.
We met for the first time for two hours on January 24th at the San Diego Yacht Club’s library. (Thanks to yacht club member, Ernesto Corte, for arranging that facility for us.) At this first meeting, we weren’t attempting to solve all of Poly’s issues but only to identify those the committee should be working on.
Hot Issues
To that end, each member presented a few of their hot-button issues. Some of those issues include:
- Building hosting: How do we encourage members to volunteer to host the PAB?
- How do we get new members more involved so that they don’t feel left out?
- What, if anything, should we do about new members who join but then drop out and are never seen again?
- Training members on some of the technical jobs such as the projectionist job, so that they can fill in when necessary.
- Judging: How do we get judges to follow Poly’s competition rules more closely and give more meaningful critiques?
- What’s the best way for the club to communicate with our members, via the website, our Yahoo group, Poly Speaks or some other method?
- Should we limit membership so that we don’t outgrow the PAB or should we be looking for another venue for our meetings?
There are other issues we have not yet had time to discuss. At future meetings, will talk about solutions and eventually implement changes where we can and propose bylaws modifications where necessary. A few minor changes are already in the works. For example, you will soon see our competition rules summarized on-screen prior to each competition. We’re hoping this will help to remind our judges of our competition rules.
This is just the beginning. If you have any questions or suggestions about the future of Poly, contact me by email.
