[Killietalk] Why new members leave and an idea for new members

["L. Langione" <lonlangione at suscom_net>]

Hello,

        I have been following the talk concerning the turn-over of new
members and the size of the AKA membership. As membership chairman, I really
do not think we have a serious problem with the size of the membership. We
basically have the same amount of members as the ACA. And by the way folks,
the ACA does not have or publish a roster. As for turn over, you will always
have attrition with any group. I have been doing this job for almost a year,
and here are some reasons people have given me for dropping out of the AKA.
These were from e-mails that I sent to people who did not re-join. They went
back to school, got divorced, thought they would make this their hobby but
realized they didn't have the time needed, some died, moved and sold
everything they had, joined to get killifish and were not able to find what
they wanted,  just got tired of their fish, went into saltwater instead of
freshwater, some were battling illness, went back into cichlids, decided to
down size, decided to breed dogs instead and I have to spend more time with
my family. Only one negative response and it was he joined a local affiliate
club and couldn't see spending $26.00 a year to belong to the AKA anymore. I
really think there is entirely to much emphasis on playing the blame game
and attacking certain people for something that really is not a huge
problem.
        One of the biggest reasons I have heard from people in the past year
for joining is, "I used to belong to the AKA many years ago, and now that my
kids are grown I am going to get back into killies." This is a huge trend,
people coming back. For the past several years, the freshwater hobby has
been in a slump. We are starting to see a come back in the hobby.
        One of the suggestions I made to be discussed at the convention,( I
could not attend this year), was to come up with a group of experienced
killifish keepers to mentor new members. There are a lot of "old timers" and
"experienced youngins" out there who could be on this committee. Call it the
AKA" Welcoming Committee" As I enter new members, I could forward their
e-mail address to the committee and they could e-mail the new member and
answer their questions. And don't give me this crap that that's what
killitalk is for. I'm talking about a one on one type of contact. New
members are sometimes apprehensive to ask questions because they are afraid
of looking stupid. But on a one to one basis they would not feel as
intimidated.
        I am really tired of all this finger pointing and trash talking. It
is about the fish AND the people. The fish we keep are more exclusive than
and other type of fish in the hobby. You go into any LFS or big box store
and you will find 20 species of cichlids, 20 types of livebearers, all types
of rainbow fish,  scads of tetras, lots of catfish but rarely any killifish.
It is up to us to educate people about killies.
        This is a good organization and I say we can make it better. But
this crap of arguing does not solve any problems.Let's see if the e-mail
promotes a more positive approach to this whole situation.  In closing I
nominate Erny May, Harry Specht and Curt Smith to be part of the Welcoming
Committee.


Lonny Langione - AKA Membership Chairman


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Curtis Smith" <cskillies at hotmail_com>
To: <killietalk at aka_org>
Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 8:10 PM
Subject: [Killietalk] greeting group


> I think there's a lot of merit in Lee's suggestion.   I, for one, would
> gladly volunteer to greet and steer first time attendees.   Such members
> could work in conjuntion with the registration table and meet "first-time"
> attendees when they register.   Once they are introduced and on speaking
> terms with several members, the greeters couyld return to the registration
> table to pick up another first-timer.
>
> I think there may be merit in reserving a space or two at each banquet
table
> for these members as well.
>
> By the way, I observed Dr. Specht on Friday taking the time to speak at
> length with each person that registered.  And, they did have special
> markings on their name tag.   You can't blame Christina for not
introducing
> them to others as she was a first-time attendee too and didn't know we
> rogues until later.   The Florida group had their act together as the
> pre-registered members had their bags of materials lined up, even with the
> numbered auction plate inside.   I think I did offend Christina by calling
> her the "bag lady", but it was all in fun pretty lady and no harm
intended!
>
> I especially sought out Lisa as I knew she was coming and I also knew this
> was her first time.   Hopefully I introduced her to all the right people
and
> even ate breakfast with her once.   By the way, I still owe her a cup of
> coffee!   I looked for Loraine but never saw her.
>
> Curt Smith
>
>
> Join the AKA at http://www.aka.org/aka/modules/content/index.php?id=9.
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