[Osia-members] My thought: A new approach is needed.

[Brendan Scott]

On 01/29/2018 12:30 AM, GPCS - Grant Petch wrote:
[]

> circumstances.  Personally I would to have loved to have thrown my 
> hat into the ring to be an OSIA director, but due to other personal 
> issues that I'm dealing with at the current time means that I would 
> not have been able to do it on a full time basis.  However I'm more

The positions are voluntary, I don't think any of the directors has ever
been "full time".

> than willing to do some volunteering at a lower level with smaller 
> amounts of time should the need arise, and my skills and expertise 
> happen to fit the bill.

One of the reasons OSIA was established as a company was the number of
members it had (ie over 50), as well as the fact that they were not in
any one State.

If OSIA is to continue, it only makes sense to do so if there are
sufficient members. This, to me, seems to be the number one thing
to focus on.

I have recently been through such a process with another organisation
and it has been quite successful. The company should give itself the
rest of the year to grow membership and re-evaluate.  If it wants to
do so, step one would be to appoint a membership officer (or committee)
and have them contact lapsed members asking them to rejoin. Step two
would be to seek new members (- eg mining LA attendees). This can also
be an opportunity to survey them - ask them why they quit or what they
want. This is probably a bulk email, rather than individual calling (if
that's, say 200-400 contacts at 5 mins per contact that's a lot
of work, a bulk email is probably 1 hour of drafting, 4 hours of list
preparation and then follow up of returned emails).

Step three would be to organise local meet ups.* These can either be
purely social or can be business oriented - get someone to give a seminar.
And the seminar can be talking about some problem that they have solved
in their business. These are generally interesting.

* I am concerned that local meet ups might not be attractive to younger
members/potential members so their feedback should be sought.
  
At the time OSIA was set up, LA was focussed on things of interest to
individuals not to businesses. Whether or not you fold into LA is
dependent on whether LA has changed its focus. I think OSIA probably
provides a better risk structure than LA and certainly a better one
than coordinated action of individuals.

Regards,


Brendan