Re: speaking out about AIS matters
iris@hort.net
  • Subject: Re: speaking out about AIS matters
  • From: R* P* <r*@embarqmail.com>
  • Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:58:03 -0400 (EDT)
You are correct, Iris chat groups are not the place to register complaints. They may voice complaints, but if one really wants to be heard, and not just heard by others, then The PR-Committee is the official ombudsman for AIS. 

I am public relations chair; If someone has dissatisfactions with AIS the buck stops here. Actually Susan Grigg and I are co-chairs of the PR committee and you can contact either or both of us. While I try to monitor Iris Talk and about 20 other Iris chat groups, it is impossible for me to read every post and it is much more effective to send an e-mail directly to me or Susan. I suspect I put in more hours of the week on Iris business than anyone else in the Iris society. But I try to answer every post and direct complaints to the proper people. It is always possible I may miss a post. If so resend it.
 
You have several complaints, and I will be directing each to the proper person. I am sorry you are discouraged with AIS. Frankly I also get terribly discouraged at times. I try to remind myself of all the good work that is done and all the things our membership and organization accomplishes. But I have to admit that sometimes the whole thing seems impossible, and then I just want to throw up my hands and crawl into my garden. It seems that if we have 4,000 members they are 4,000 different ways in which they want things done. The world seems less and less capable of finding win-win compromises. Recently a new history of Rome came out that attributes its collapse to the build-up of factions that were so polarized they could not act and the Roman Civilization fell. Even though I listen, I cannot always produce a remedy that one finds satisfactory. 


I encourage everyone to explain what they would like from the Iris Society. Then help us figure out how we can pay for those benefits or volunteer to make them work. I have poured an enormous amount of sweat equity into this society so I hope it will not fail. I have spent lots of my own money trying to make it work. Sometimes I feel the fiscal pain of being a director, when because I am spending a small fortune each year on travel and I cannot afford the latest Iris, and even worse have to be gone from my garden when I could be enjoying it. 

We are mostly volunteers that make this society work. Few of us have the professional or technical training to do our assigned jobs. We desperately need volunteers who have the skills to make us a viable plant society. I have to admit I am resistant to much of the new technology. I do not have a smart phone. But to pass a viable plant society on to another generation I must find people who do embrace the current world and who can even position us for the future. It would be a tragedy to loose what we have created just to make ourselves comfortable. Hopefully you will get some answers in the next week to each of your questions.  


----- Original Message -----
To Robert Pries:
 
Just where does one speak out about dissatisfaction with
the AIS? You can get on IRIS TALK and talk your head off. No results. You can
write letters to the President. No results and no answer. There should be a
place to complain and get an answer from someone instead of being ignored. We
are controlled by the members who attend the National meetings. That seems to
be between sixty and one hundred people.
 
Concerning the votes for the Wister
Medal and the Dykes Medal, I believe the voting should be changed to require
that an iris gets a plurality of votes in two thirds of the AIS regions to
receive either award. This would prevent large regions, California etc, from
dominating the selection of Wister and Dykes candidates because they have more
votes than any other region. 
 
Frankly, I am fed up with the AIS and the
recent changes in membership (emembership). You can't get a hard copy of the
bulletin unless you are a regular member. You can't have access to the online
check list unless you are an emember. So, if you want both a hard copy and
access to the online check list, you must have dual membership. I think that
in December when both membeships expire I shall become a NON MEMBER. I can get
along very well without the AIS. I can register seedlings even if I am not a
member. 
 
For years the AIS let foreign hybridizers register their seedlings
free. Barry Blyth registered about 1300 iris free. The word finally got out
that the AIS was doing this while whining about budget deficits so it hit the
fan. And the AIS had to start charging foreign hybridizers the same as they do
us. 
 
If every person in the world had the same brand computer system and
they all  worked the same, emembership might be made to work. Now, on my
computer, the online bulletin access is a mess. I can barely read the bulletin
because it has such small print and i you enlarge the print the picture of the
bulletin gets St. Vitas Dance. 
 
E. Baxley

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