Posted by Jay Bertolet on March 26, 2001 at 13:22:36:
In Reply to: FED UP!!!/Did I piss away my money? posted by griping on March 26, 2001 at 10:34:26:
Just because people don't (or can't) make an impact on changing the organization doesn't mean that they don't care about the outcome. It most certainly doesn't mean that they "want someone else to do the thinking for them" nor that they don't have very specific ideas and opinions about how things should change.
I commend your inititive and willingness to step forward and offer your efforts in support of a solution. I personally would have offered my support and attendance to your event but you're a full day's drive away from me and it's too far for me to be of any real organizational value. I think the real question isn't how many responses you received from other tubists who are interested in attending your event. The REAL question is have you gotten any response from the ITEA leadership regarding helping you organize, offering support for your event, or even convincing you that your efforts would be better spent to help out in a pre-existing event that ITEA is already planning and organizing. Admittedly, it has only been a few days since you posted your information and these things are done by volunteers who do the work in their spare time. You might want to give it more time to sink in before you start accusing people of apathy. Also, please remember that the vast majority of the ITEA membership or even non-member tuba/euphonium players of all types aren't online, let alone privy to this website address. Still, it would be interesting if such a call would come.
I encourage you to think about how you would actually go about changing ITEA for the better. What exactly would you do? More importantly, how exactly would you go about doing it? How do positive changes occur in the organization and who/what starts that process? A previous poster posed the question of whether or not the President of the organization had to be a known player. How does anyone actually get on the ballot? Perhaps the first step is to vote in the elections and only elect those you think will do what you want. Of course, you have to have a candidate that meets that criteria first...
My opinion for what it's worth...