[From the Ontario District's newsletter, The Trillium, issue 60-03, July - September, 2006 , Waldo Redekop, editor.]

Improving our means of communication

By Chuck Alexander, Ontario District president

As your district president, I’m faced with a very repetitious phrase every where I go and that statement is “I didn’t know.”

We currently have three means to spread the word to our membership. The Harmonizer is produced by the Society bimonthly, is distributed by mail and is paid for through your annual dues to the Society. The Trillium is a district publication, mailed to all of our membership quarterly and paid for through your district dues.

Both of these means of communication are excellent tools but modern technology can allow us to get information to our membership much more quickly. I am of course referring to e-mail and our <OntarioDistrict  @  YahooGroups.com> system.

As I write this article, we have a reported 1,363 members in our district. I just received the most recent list of members who subscribe to our district Yahoo group. Its total is but 533. That means when an important message is distributed, we only reach 39 percent of our membership. Compare this figure to those reported by Far Western District which is above 85 percent. Other districts report figures far in excess of ours while others face our dilemma.

I have recently been involved in several Society conference calls on this very subject as even they realize that we are not able to contact and get information directly to the membership without it going through other individuals, which in many cases is the reason for the breakdown in communication.

As our Society headquarters prepares for their move to a new location in Nashville, they are currently installing a brand new IT system which all districts will have access to, but in the mean time, districts are left but to use their own resources.

I encourage each and every one of you to subscribe to this communication resource. All you have to do is send a note to either Waldo Redekop, V.P. of Communications at <communications  @  ontariodistrict.com> or to Rod Mills, Yahoo Group Moderator at <awe62  @  yahoo.ca> and provide them with your name, chapter affiliation and e-mail address.

The system is well-monitored. There are specific guidelines for its use. It is not abused with the distribution of junk mail.

I encourage you and your whole chapter to join this source of communication. It will make us a better district, I assure you.    k