[at-l] ATC

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 01:23 PM 5/28/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>with respect to getting the memberships opinion and direction, there is no 
>excuse in not doing so with today's technology. It cannot be that 
>difficult to solicit the input via the Internet. Heck, the ATC should 
>provide the tool, resources to promote this list. I'm sure some of there 
>guys and gals are on it or "listen" to it.  Being an old technical person, 
>its easy to come up with 17,000 reasons why technically it could not be 
>done, but being the old technical person, I know it can be extremely easy 
>to find a simple effective solution.  Sure there are issues of 
>"counterfeit" responses, etc., but if I can bank on-line safely, then I 
>sure should be able to enter my preferences to something on-line securely too.

I explored getting some mail list set up on ADK's server to enhance 
communications within the various committees. The problem I ran into was 
that they had no in-house system administration. They contract it out on a 
fee for service basis so adding mail list would add to their cost. I also 
explored setting up mail lists through Yahoo with me as moderator but got 
only 2 positive responses to invitations to join the list so I gave it up.

Does ATC have someone already on staff with the skills to deal with 
installing mail list software and maintaining it? Does any one here have 
the time and expertise to volunteer to do it? Perhaps Ryan could chime in 
here (if he's not too modest) and enlighten us on the cost in time and 
money to run a list such as AT-L. We all appreciate what he does for us but 
I doubt many of us have a clue as to what it takes to do it.

>Maybe we should start requesting the ATC develop this form of member input 
>so it would be  easy for the member's opinions to be heard.   I know that 
>makes it harder for the board not to be responsive to the members and it 
>takes away what they (board) might feel is an ability to act 
>"independently" of the membership, as well in some cases when they might 
>have to go with an approach they themselves would not prefer. I know these 
>are leadership positions, but they are not dictatorial potions the board has.

When what you are doing isn't working in terms of attracting the numbers of 
members your organization needs, it is time to try something different. 
Change is sometimes necessary even if it is a bit hard to swallow. 
Apparently enough people who wrote in (they did outline the changes in ATN 
and ask for input) or showed up for the meetings thought the change was the 
best way to go. That ATC did not do what you wanted (i.e. they didn't 
listen to you over all others) is not proof that they weren't listening. 
Given the problems that ATC has, perhaps a significant portion of the 
membership hasn't been listening to ATC. When you join an organization you 
do so because you share its goals. When you feel that the organization is 
making a mistake, by all means speak out but remember that the goals do not 
go away and in abandoning the organization, you also abandon those goals.