This topic contains 6 replies, has 7 voices, and was last updated by 
MTCLMBR 5 years, 7 months ago.
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Candidates, what ideas do you have to get WGA members to be more engaged with the organization, whether it be for helping at events, participation on this website, running for the BOD, joining committees, or other ideas you may have?
Being a newbie, I have a basic idea of the tools that will be available to me. What I can do with them remains to be seen. Perhaps I’ll be able to woo members in with my words? One thing I have noticed is the lack of participation in the elections. Maybe we could work on a “behind the scenes” look at the life of a BOD, a journal perhaps, to give the members an better idea of what its like to serve on the board….
Cache me outside
The main thing that I believe will drive member engagement is communication. We need to keep informing the members of the opportunities that are available to them to participate in THEIR organization. I’ve found that there is usually someone willing to help, if they are just asked.
All opinions, comments, and useless drivel I post are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of the WGA BOD.
I’ve been pondering this question myself even before you asked. I would like to focus on two things, closely related. The first is just general awareness that the WGA exists. Perhaps this is not the case in other parts of the state, but I don’t feel like the WGA is well-known in Madison. For being a pretty large population center in the state, the opt-in member map on this site shows fewer than 10 members in the Madison area that have actually been active within the last few years. Sure there are cachers that put the WGA banner on their cache pages and a few people attend events when they are geographically close, but no one talks about the WGA with any regularity. If cachers aren’t aware we even exist, or if those that are aware don’t hear about us with any regularity, how can we expect anyone to participate? So I want to start simple and focus on making more people aware that the WGA is a thing, then we can go from there.
While I have been a member for a long time, I wouldn’t say I have been particularly involved in WGA activities over the years. As such, I made it a point to poke around the website to see what I could learn about recent activities, the current board, and what they might be working on. I came away with several observations, but they can basically be boiled down to one theme: I don’t really know what the board has been working on recently, because if that information exists, it is too hard to find.
It’s clear that this site relies heavily on the forums. Forums are extremely useful…for discussions. They are not a good way to convey useful information to the general membership or the public, because important topics can quickly get buried if you don’t know where to look. This is perfectly illustrated by a comment from awhip80 in a thread about topics for last year’s annual BOD meeting.
I appreciate that you have provided an explanation as to where to find a discussion about committees on the forum, but after skimming through 10 of the 118 pages of topics in ANNOUNCEMENTS and not finding what you referred to I gave up. If these committees are set forth in the bylaws, shouldn’t the language regarding them be easily found within the bylaws that are posted under the “INFO CENTER” tab on the web site?
I am not one to shy away from exploring a website or app to figure out all it has to offer, so if I’m struggling to find information, I would expect the casual user to be struggling more. I’ll admit that I haven’t explored every corner of the site, and I certainly know very little about the back end configuration and what goes into maintenance…but I am willing to learn and I think we can do better. One of my priorities if elected would be to improve the website to make basic information more discoverable, as well as improve transparency into what the BOD is up to during the year.
This post is already getting long, so I will save my specific ideas for another time. If anyone wants to hear those details, I’m happy to write some more. 🙂
My comments are mine alone and may not necessarily reflect an official stance of the WGA Board of Directors.
Social media has unfortunately taken over from the website. Mainly because of how members are engaged with technology. So many use smart phones or tablets instead of a computer these days.
Email announcements using a mail blast is probably the best way to communicate and using those to refer members to the website for information. Social media postings from the website is also a good way to communicate with membership.
Besides our four main events yearly, there is opportunity for hosting smaller events, or perhaps having a booth at various county fairs dedicated to showing off the WGA to the public? So much to think about, and put into action if elected into the BOD.
I firmly believe if people are aware of the WGA, they will become more active in their membership and perhaps if opportunities arise, to volunteer with things if asked of them. Granted everyone leads a busy life, but everyone is connected to the internet and could find some time if they became more engaged in the membership of the WGA. Something I am willing to work really hard on is engaging membership and trying to recruit more into our membership.
It would be great to see more members involved in the WGA. I know from the time I served previously the idea of member committee members was discussed to help keep members engaged and make events and the WGA more “member-owned” I had a member committee member assist with the Kids Klub activity at one event and it was a great experience for both of us.
I think making BOD meeting minutes more visible to members would keep members more engaged and know what activities are available for them to step up and assist with. The more the members know what is going on the more apt they would be to get involved, spread the word and attend events. Ownership is important to engagement!
I think we could also increase event attendance if we gave members the opportunity to help plan a theme, games, of a specific activity for said events. Give members more input on merchandise available, colors, sizes, designs, items besides clothing.
Disclaimer : All posts are the opinion of the poster and do not in any way reflect on the WGA Board of Directors
Always a good question and can never know a right answer to one like this. The membership and its involvement is key to the success and life of the WGA and its future. It has historically made what the WGA is what it is today and what it has done for advocacy throughout the state.
I think there can be lots of room for both improvement in gaining new members but also in improving member involvement, and I think there are various factors that impact. From the outside perspective it seems that there has been a slow down/lack of involvement of current members outside of showing up to WGA events. It seems that the past/current BOD are always having to “beg” for help and volunteers and those that do are regular helpers. Whether it is helping place caches, writing articles for newsletter/website, help with hosting events, elections, COTM, LCG, etc. This observation comes from seeing multiple posts asking for said help, decline the past couple of years of elections votes, lack of COTM nominations, etc.
Now how to improve that….. I don’t know the answer…… But I think a general one answer is Communication
- Create communication to new cachers in the state as well as existing in some form. Not sure the best way about this. Whether its through sharing at smaller events BOD or membership host. Maybe contacting various event hosts throughout the state and working with them.
- Website communication. As a common theme shared throughout the forums is either difficult to find information, information is lacking, or it just isn’t current and appealing. This solution is hard to get to with lots of effort to be done but can use some improvement.
- BOD communication. let the membership know what activities the BOD maybe working on(when able), if the membership thinks the BOD are doing nothing, why should they
- Committee communication. It seems like there use to be more involvement of committees before my times that included general membership. This can both make BOD lives easier with the added help but also allow general membership to be involved at a low commitment level and maybe some may decided to get further involved in the future as BOD.
Granted that wont solve all problems, and some will take time to evolve but that is some of my thoughts.
Climbing To New Adventures
**The views expressed here are that of myself only and do not necessarily represent that of the WGA board.**
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