Comment to Editorial in the December 2014 ADS Journal

I received the following from a member of our local society that is Daffnet “shy” and am posting for this fairly new member that also is also an ADS member:

“Harold’s editorial lamented the dropping of ADS memberships and offered two suggestions to bolster the numbers:
1) Give a gift membership. “They don’t have to be growing daffodils and it might get them interested in trying them,” he noted.
2) Approach members of your local societies and persuade them to buy memberships.
Dare I suggest a third suggestion: Let us know what you like and don’t like about the ADS. How can we (ADS) serve you better?
New members are generally new growers. They aren’t ready to hybridize yet. And most don’t even know where/how to acquire (let alone pay for) some of those ADS ribbon-winning cultivars. They would benefit by nuts-and-bolts articles from the daff gurus about acquisition, fertilizing, watering, mulching, etc., not to mention the various methods employed by champion exhibitors to transport their blooms safely to a show and efficiently stage them so they can show as many flowers as possible.

One of my favorite features of the ADS Journal was the September Show Report, a numbingly detailed breakdown that listed all the top winners of the previous spring show season. I loved reading it, and noting what flowers won when, in what climate zones, etc. No, it wasn’t sexy, but it sure was informative. The Show Report has since been replaced by “Glamour Shots” of selected winners.

The best thing about ADS is daffseek! I’d surrender my subscription to the Journal (as it is currently) before I’d want to lose daffseek.”

So noted one of our members above:

I’d like to add that we need more organization. For instance, at the local chapter level we are not always aware of when members join ADS unless they tell us. If the Executive director could send an email to the local people that put on the shows that a new person joined ADS it would be helpful. We need to know so that we can contact them and welcome them to ADS and to our Local Society and if they are a member of the local society, congratulate them for joining ADS. When I was with WDS they went out of their way to recognize new members and was one of the largest Daffodil Societies in ADS. I’ve taken that one step further and I have other select members also contact the new members and offer assistance/help and even offer to sit with them at the next meeting to make them feel welcome.

I have tons of information to send the new members so I don’t need ADS members to send me more information. I posted a comment recently to an ADS member and that post got widely circulated (not my intent). I was surprised by the receipt of materials to send to new members, including one document that I was the author of myself but not given credit on that document but clearly it was from my old web site Fox Run Daffodils.

If we want to increase membership we have to do more “hanging out” with new members and not as much associating with old friends only at local and national meeting. We need more articles for beginners in the Journal, and more welcoming and recognition of our newer members.

Sorry about the lengthy epistle.

Clay

9 comments for “Comment to Editorial in the December 2014 ADS Journal

  1. With trepidation I am going to chime in on this topic, as it is close to my heart.  As soon as I read the suggestion for more Journal entries aimed at less-experienced growers and exhibitors, I thought of the “Notes for the Newcomer” that my mother Peggy Macneale used to write for the Journal.  I just went to dafflibrary.org and found several of them in the Journals from the 1990s.

    I am not volunteering to follow in her footsteps – she was far more knowledgeable than I.  But I will try to submit a few more Journal articles than I have in the past…  (I, too, find the articles on hybridizing way, way beyond my knowledge, and interest, frankly.)

    I also heartily agree with the suggestion to have the Executive Director immediately notify the closest local group when someone joins the ADS.  Waiting for the next Journal’s list of new members can be quite a long wait for a newbie to get human contact from a local member. And I, too, miss the extensive list of show winners in the Journal!

    In our Minnesota group we are trying to encourage new and less experienced exhibitors by offering a hands-on workshop the Saturday prior to our show.  In the 2014 spring the weather was so screwy that it never happened, but we are going to try again this spring.  I feel very comfortable helping folks one-on-one to learn about exhibiting (Michael Berrigan and my mom were good teachers).  We have put an “exhibiting 101” column in our newsletter, and we also give a free Show and Grow to new exhibitors.  Recent Youth exhibitors were given a copy of Brent Heath’s book.  Anything to hook them in!

    Just my thoughts…

    Margaret Macneale

     

  2. Margaret,
    I knew your mother and had a tremendous respect for her, and always read her articles. At the ADS National Show in Pittsburg (many years ago) I was talking to a couple of people and I said something about (an ADS member not to be named) was a great shower. I hear this voice from behind me say, “What am I chopped liver?” Peggy scared the dickens out of me, but we talked for a while and laughed a bit and parted daffodil friends for the remainder of her life. I wonder if there is a possibility that the ADS Journal can reprint some of those articles.

    Clay

  3. Just so everyone is aware; when we get a new member they are immediately sent a “new member packet” consisting of a couple Journals, a magnet, a “Welcome letter” and a “Pocket Guide to Daffodils”.  Also the President, Membership Chair; RVP for their region and others are notified of their joining. Unfortunately I can’t always know; or rather seldom know just where they live in their state and what society might be close to them. I rely on the RVP’s to get the word out to the new members. We are lucky we have some good ones right now and an excellent Membership Chair who contacts them all.

    Phyllis

     

  4. While Phyllis is correct in that ADS central sends out a substantial welcoming package, it should be the regional VP’s duty to make sure that the nearest local group also makes physical contact.

    When I joined the ADS, in the early pleistocene, I received a personal letter from the late Helen Grier with an invitation to meet with the local group. That played a large role in hooking me into the hobby.

    Harold

  5. Clay,

    I have a novel idea for you and anyone else who might choose to use Daffnet as an Op-Ed page.  If you have a concern or complaint, firstly, take it straight to the individual whom you wish to address.  Your voicing a complaint or concern in an open forum, perhaps in an effort to round up like-minded individuals, makes you look like a troublemaker and less like someone who genuinely wants to improve something or bring about change.  That said, while I’m on here, I’d like to respond in the defense of myself and the others whom you have arguably disrespected.

    First of all, Sara Kinne (Membership Chair), our Regional VPs and Phyllis Hess (Executive Director), who are all tasked with welcoming new members, do not deserve to have their efforts insulted in a public forum.  You are quite misinformed if you think that new members receive no welcome mat.  I assumed that e-mail you recently sent out prompted a response from more informed ADS members about how newcomers are welcomed, but apparently it wasn’t enough to keep you from posting the same misinformed opinions here.

    Secondly, it is mind-boggling that you would complain about the lack of articles targeting newcomers when the next issue will include one such article written and submitted by you!  And, as a side note, Mary Lou Gripshover recently suggested that I go back and reprint some of those articles by Mrs. Macneale and others, and I think that is a good idea, particularly for those issues when nothing freshly written is available to me.

    Clay, I am well aware that you are vocal about the things that are dear to you, and I commend you for having a passion for engaging beginners.  We all need that.  But don’t we already have enough sharply divided factions in this country?  Why do you seek to cause hard feelings and create division within a hobbyist organization like the American Daffodil Society?  If you have a problem, take it up with the appropriate individual rather than seek an audience on here.  If that gets you nowhere, then explore otherwise.  Sorta reminds me of your National Geographic vs. The New York Times analogy from that recent e-mail, and Daffnet is not the Times‘ Op-Ed page.

    Greg Freeman

  6. I think that everyone has good points. There is some concern about retaining membership and how to do it but on the other hand we also need to produce a journal that has wide based appeal.  The editor can only print articles if some-one else writes them and it is up to every one to help him. A newbie corner in the journal with questions and answers might be useful, but it is not the editor’s task to write that. Someone else needs to take responsibility to gather and write that material. It is the editor’s job to edit. I have full confidence in our current editor and am impressed with his abilities. But, he is still on a learning curve. One must remember that the layout on a computer screen is not always how the hard copy turns out. It takes time to learn how to judge what the written copy will look like and each time the layout is adjusted there is a little unpredictability about the final outcome. Being editor is sometimes a thankless  task.

    No one can satisfy everyone. We all need a little more patience.

    Harold

  7. The report on show winners for the past show season, once a feature of the September issue of The Daffodil Journal, has not been lost. It has been expanded in a new format. The complete results of all 2014 shows have been compiled in an Excel spreadsheet and placed on DaffLibrary. You can download the spreadsheet and analyze the shows information to your heart’s content. Winning blooms in, and exhibitors of, ADS Awards are given for every show.

    Bob

  8. Greg,
    Let us declare peace! My intent was never to down you as I think you are doing a great job as editor. If I had to criticize I would say you have to communicate better with the people that submit articles and ideas to you, including Mary Lou. My intent was to stimulate the recruiting and retention of new ADS members. It concerns me that for the 8 years I have had a local organization and show, I have never been notified of a new member in my location. I get notification a few months later when it’s published in the ADS Journal.

    Greg, you can only submit in the journal what you are sent. You don’t write the articles. I used to write a lot of articles until my skin got just a little too thin. I know your situation as I have in a “past life” been the editor of two different Newsletters that had National Distribution.

    Greg, I don’t think you are the correct person in which to address membership retention, that’s why I did not contact you directly. However, I have contacted Harold Koopowitz, Bob Spots (Bob and I agree on a lot of issued to do with membership), and others.

    Let it be peace.

    Clay

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