|
Forty per cent of our member choruses responded to the Board's request for input into their ongoing effort to improve the quality and level of service. A somewhat disappointing return when you consider that sixty per cent of our membership did not feel that the survey was worth their time and effort; however, as survey returns go, I suppose this is not an unusual response. There also were external events that gripped everyone's attention over this period of time and would have had an influence on members' willingness to give attention to our survey efforts. The resulting useful, and in some cases surprising information was discussed at a special meeting of the AMCA Board of Directors called for Friday evening, October 26th. after an examination of the statistical information, the delegates met in groups as determined by the major areas, ie.
The large number of individuals who volunteered to work on committees was very heartening. The Board felt that the first order of business would be to assign a member in each discussion group to make contact with the volunteers to let them know that their offer was accepted and appreciated and to establish a plan of action in order to get each committee operational. You will be interested to know that seventy-eight members came forward to work on the various committees. Their names and contact information has been listed and circulated to the members of the Board. The number following the areas listed above, indicate the number of volunteers for each. In addition, 2 members volunteered to work "where they were needed" and 23 offered to act as a Chorister reporter for their chorus (some choruses had as many as 3 or 4 volunteers). At Saturday's meeting, Donald Crouch outlined a proposal for establishing an "International Music Committee". The IMC would replace the current Common Repertoire and Music Reviewer committees. The plan would form a network of District Reviewers - one per district for a total of five, as well as individual volunteer reviewers at the chorus level. As our current Music Reviewer/Common Repertoire chair, Don Crouch would head this pyramid network which should result in a much larger number of selections being discovered and reviewed for our members. There was concern by some delegates that lay members were not represented in the proposed plan and Don Crouch was asked to rework the plan and resubmit it for approval. The survey gave a great deal of attention to our major communications tool - the Chorister. With the number of chorus volunteers resulting from the survey, we can create an infastructure similar to the IMC proposal, with our Editor-in-chief, Dan Plunkett in the leadership role, one Field Editor assigned per District (that currently is in place) and twenty-three volunteer chorus reporters. It would be much more inclusive if every member chorus was to appoint a reporter and that may happen as Dan develops his network. Obviously, there will need to be a great deal of coordination required on our editor's part if we are to have both interesting news and a manageable amount each issue. One of the important learning aspects of the survey were the "comments/beefs/ suggestions" which members wrote in. There were some excellent ideas offered and many critical comments that need to be addressed. If you entered comments, then rest assured that they will be presented to the Board for full discussion. A brief listing was handed out to the members of the Board of Directors at our October meeting but due to time constraints, priority was given to the topics outlined in this column. We do thank those of you who took the time to complete the survey and assure you that all comments - both negative and positive, will receive consideration. If you volunteered your help, then you should be hearing from your committee leader as soon as one is appointed by our newly-elected President, Norman Goodling. A copy of the survey results can be viewed on our Password (Secure) Site. by clicking on Make a Comment. View Feedback | Make A Comment Email Notification of updates! This column is planned as a regular feature and will be written monthly by the Executive Secretary. Links to other columns are available here also.
|
