SOG-UK-L Archives

Archiver > SOG-UK > 2001-10 > 1002006288


From: Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake <>
Subject: Re: [SoG] Membership recruitment drive
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 08:04:48 +0100
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20011001114005.00a485c0@felix>


In message <>, Chris Broomfield
<> writes
>I have copied this email to is the correct
>destination for all communications about membership. As has been said
>numerous times this list is not for communicating with the Society staff.
>
>I will add for information that there are a number of linked activities
>connected with the Membership drive already being activity planned. I am
>sure the first suggestion will be incorporated where it can, surprisingly
>it appears that some FHS see the SoG as a competitor - parochial comes to
>mind. The second needs more human resources so may more time to organise.
>
I did not write it as a communication to staff as a careful read will
show. I have always understood that this mailing list *is* a forum for
members to discuss the Society's affairs between themselves. I wrote it
as an invitation to other members of the Society to criticise and
hopefully add to with other suggestions of their own. Thank you for
copying it to the apropriate person. In a forward-looking Society I
would have hoped that *all* members of staff would have a keen interest
in what the membership were thinking and saying, and would have been
actively encouraged to contribute to this forum. Yes, I am aware that
only around 3% of the membership read this mailing list, but I suspect
we are nevertheless representative of the broad church of the
membership. Perhaps if more members of staff contributed to this mailing
list we could improve the quality and drive that 3% up as well as
recruit many more overseas members.

I am not in the least surprised that some FHSs see the SoG as a
competitor. The SoG has done little or nothing that I am aware of to
promote the benefits of membership in parallel with FHS membership, and
surely this could be another arm of a recruitment drive? I speak as the
Chairman of one such Society (and member of others), who has never been
so approached, and who would be more than willing to see this happen.
Perhaps it is time for a new Director who has a greater genealogical
awareness and a better understanding of such things?

In the course of my business life I have been involved in selling
software to genealogists. If I had done this by hiding in a cave it
would have been far less rewarding than giving talks about it, writing
articles about it, and going out to meet the general public and showing
it. This all comes into the SFO (So Flipping Obvious) category.

So, come on fellow members, let's see your ideas in this mailing list. I
am sure I do not have a monopoly on such wisdom.
--
Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake

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