Possible American Iris Society Goals for Comments

The AIS Strategic Planning Committee has been examining how AIS and its members can better fulfill its mission: The Mission of The American Iris Society is to organize and disseminate knowledge of the genus iris, while fostering its preservation, enjoyment and continued development.

Now we are considering possible goals, both long term and short term. Which is where we hope you can help us! Below is a list of some of the goals/approaches being considered. Please let us know what you think of any or all of them. Maybe you have tried some of them in your Club, Region, or Section. Did they work or not? For many we have more questions than answers. Please give us your insights and thoughts.

Also, please feel free to try any of the suggestions. Modify as you see fit. Just let us know what is working for you and what is not.

You can add your comments using the Comment Box below. Let us know what you think! Thank you!

Note: If the comments are not working or you prefer sharing your comments privately, please email wrmesser@gmail.com or any of the committee members. And if you would like to contribute thoughts and feedback on a regular basis, see the request here.

1. Volunteers Needed Clearinghouse - The government and other organizations do something like this, a listing of where volunteers are needed and what skills may be needed. We have various calls for volunteers in our publications. This would collect those together to make it easy for members, and even potential members, to see how their skills can be useful. It would also serve as a point for groups seeking volunteers to easily make their needs known.

2. Mentoring and Developing Members - There are many functions that are performed at more than one level. Examples include newsletters, websites, treasurer, public relations, officers. Also there are positions such as show chairs that may be at the same level and performed in many locations. Both of these categories could use resources to help them perform and people to ask for advice. Here are two of the ways we could approach this.

3. Mentoring would be one-to-one or one-to-small-group. It could be top-down, such as having the AIS webguru mentor someone at a Region or Section level on running websites. Or there could be reverse mentoring, for example in new technology where someone younger and familiar with the latest advances could help whoever evaluate the use of that technology in AIS.

4. Developing members is a peer group approach. All of the newsletter editors at whatever level, or all of the website managers, and members with an interest in a particular area would communicate someway. We have had Yahoo Groups such as iris-editors that used to function this way. Do we have anything like this now? Do you think anyone would participate if it was available?

5. Understudies - Have each function identify one or more individuals to serve as understudies to learn a position. It might or might not be explicit that it is a career path to that position. We do this at the leadership levels already, President, 1st Vice-President, 2nd Vice-President; RVP, Assistant RVP; Affiliate President, Affiliate Vice-President. It would serve both to develop members and to provide a disaster recovery mechanism if someone is no longer able to serve.

6. Involving the Public - Making the general public or the gardening public aware of irises, AIS and other parts of AIS that may be of interest is a broad responsibility within AIS. There are some good examples of Affiliates doing this and we should learn from and publicize the lessons from these. Interestingly, Region 18 lists under their Committee Chairs: Public Relations - All Members.

7. Outreach to Other Garden/Horticulture Groups - Similar to reaching the gardening public and more likely to already be receptive. AIS is part of CAPS ( Coalition of American Plant Societies) and many of our members are also members of other plant groups.

8. Feedback from Members (or even potential members) - Like what you are doing now:) What can we do to encourage ideas and feedback? This is one example of how to encourage feedback.

9. Combining Print and Electronic Publication - We publish the Bulletin and other publications and materials both as print and electronic versions. How can we use the combination to make the publications better?

10. Increasing Comfort with Technology - Helping members understand how technology can be useful. Providing education, demonstration of possibilities, and simplifying what they require to use technology.

11. Small Scale Gardening - How can we enjoy irises in apartments or when we are no longer able to maintain our garden? This might also be a way to introduce younger gardeners to irises before they have gardens available. Topics such as “Irises As Houseplants” and “Iris Gardening in Small Spaces” are what come to mind. Do we have experience in this area we could be highlighting?

12. Making Provisions for Your Legacy - Jean Witt’s recent planning for her watercolors and other materials to come to AIS inspired this one. HIPS has a garden rescue program for historics. Is there something similar we should consider for other materials?

13. Identifying where clubs are needed - By comparing where members are with where clubs are we should be able to see opportunities for new clubs. By comparing the general population with where clubs are we should be able to see gaps where we also might find new members.

14. Helping Clubs Form - We have a number of resources for this. Have you seen or used the Forming a New Affiliate page?

15. Identifying Clubs at Risk - How do you feel your club is doing? Are there clues that will help us find those at risk? Maybe declining membership in an area or unfilled positions in a club.

16. Helping Clubs at Risk - We also need to have resources identified that would be useful to declining clubs. Also we need to publicize those that are available from AIS so clubs can use them before declining rather than after the decline has begun. Have you suggestions for helping such clubs?

What are the topics or experiments that would help AIS or any of its parts? We would really like to hear your suggestions! It can be quick and inexpensive to try something new or different with tools such as the Iris Encyclopedia and publicity with News & Notes. Help us make AIS better! And enjoy your reward!

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Comments

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Here are some suggestions that underline or augment all the things you have already listed. Please note that I do not mean to step on toes here, but because I'm rather a newbie to AIS, I may have a different perspective than those of you who have been involved for a while.

- PLEASE get over the idea that meetings need to be face-to-face. Teleconferences work very well and are free or inexpensive. You will always have difficulty getting new board members and committee members (with fresh ideas, fresh insights, etc) until you do this. Many people who would otherwise volunteer cannot afford the time or money to travel to an AIS meeting. (Do not be tempted by videoconferencing or Skype; these things do not work nearly as well as teleconferencing.) You can still have face-to-face meetings at the conferences and elsewhere, for those on the board who have lots of spare time and money, but always allow people to join by telecon.

- To increase membership, work to attract passionate gardeners who are NOT already iris nuts. Turn them into iris addicts once you've attracted them. There are tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of passionate gardeners out there just waiting to get swept up by these beautiful flowers, but they need to be nudged in that direction. One example of a way to do this: Many gardeners give up on bearded irises because of borers. I have seen very little publicity about the borer-eating nematodes, which truly do work. Make a big splash about those, not just in the AIS bulletin, but in the general gardening press. Consider partnering with the companies who grow the nematodes to publicize these critters, to the mutual benefit of those companies and AIS. If nematode sales increase enough, the price will come down - it's an economy of scale, as these things always are.

- If you put someone in charge of something, LET THAT PERSON BE IN CHARGE. The bigger the board, the slower it moves. Decisions can be held up for months while people nit-pick. Many fine ideas are nibbled to death by ducks, as it were. One of the things that's making HIPS work so well right now is that the board keeps its noses out of many decisions. A committee chair is given responsibility, and with that comes the authority to make decisions, try new things, and experiment a bit without the board getting involved. (I'm not involved in your board of directors, so I don't know what your decision-making process is; therefore, this paragraph may not be relevant. Please ignore it if it does not apply.)

- PUT A LINK TO THE AIS SHOP ON YOUR HOMEPAGE. I went looking for it the other day, and couldn't find it. After guessing wrong a number of times, I finally found it under Member Services. Member Services? Do we make people become members before they can buy from the shop? Do we WANT people to get discouraged and go elsewhere to shop?

- One of the first rules of marketing is that you must make it easy for people to spend money. As the shop is currently set up, the opposite is true. Like it or not, this is the age of Amazon and instant results in shopping. And this part is extremely serious: stop encouraging people to EMAIL their credit card info to the shop; that's identity theft waiting to happen. (Remember this rule: never put anything in an email that you wouldn't put on a postcard.) Truly, Paypal is actually easier for the shopkeeper, once it's set up, and people get faster fulfillment of their orders. Happy customers are repeat customers. The way the shop is set up now, it seems as if the AIS doesn't want to sell anything. And, as I understand it, AIS needs money.

OK, that's enough for now. I hope any of it is helpful. :0) Nancy

N. McDonald <nanmcd15@gmail.com>

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