Establishing Club Organizational Standards

[koicluboftheair]

Is there any organization within the koi community that works with koi clubs sharing with them standards for how to hold a successful meeting, show, pond tour, pursuing publicity, do community service and outreach, and demonstrating basic organizational standards for efficiently running internal club operations?

There seems to be a lot of potential for such an organization if there is not one already. Each club would appear to have to come up from scratch with their own standards and some may never accomplish the litany of requirements to optimize their potential, which in turns slows the growth of the hobby and could potentially jeopardize the hobby itself.

Can you imagine running your pond system like club members have to piece together good and bad info to run their clubs? Surely there would be a lot of dead koi in the proverbial pond (where the pond represents the club standards) if that were the case.

There is so much diversity in how clubs run, which of course is fun to examine, but again isn’t necessarily good for the hobby as a whole. Of course these are AKCA clubs I’m referring to. Large clubs do not appear to necessarily be better organized than smaller ones. And as everything appears to hinge on the interests of a few active volunteers in each club that have to take the reins and ramrod through some matters it doesn’t appear this can be easily changed.

Examples;
-How to do publicity: Is there a written standard?
-Producing a Koi Show: Is there an A to Z written standard?
-Publicity for all Club Events: Is there a written standard demonstrating how to manipulate the various media platforms (print, radio, television, Internet) to best benefit club and overall organization?

Surely there are many more examples, but those are a few.

I understand that AKCA clubs are considered "hobbyist" clubs, but it also seems this all goes on against a backdrop of bureaucratic legislation that views grass carp and other species that in some instances includes our ornamental carp a threat to broader U.S. interests. As policies adapt in Washington, D.C. and the various state capitals and World trade organizations it could be beneficial if the hobbyist clubs were better organized to maintain the hobby, but this would only seem possible with better organization.

[jnorth]

I didn't go through it all but you might start here.

http://www.akca.org/clubkit/index.htm

[koicluboftheair]

Originally Posted by jnorth

I didn't go through it all but you might start here.

http://www.akca.org/clubkit/index.htm

Although the club kit isn't very specific in terms of protocols I suppose they want it loose as Ray said "this is America." On the other hand it would seem AKCA, the parent organization leaves a lot up to chapters often with limited resources that in turn reflects on the parent organization and potentially limits the expansion of the hobby or at least membership in AKCA clubs.

[jnorth]

I've never been to one of the AKCA yearly seminar events but I would imagine they cover some of the stuff you mentioned there?

[koicluboftheair]

Originally Posted by jnorth

I've never been to one of the AKCA yearly seminar events but I would imagine they cover some of the stuff you mentioned there?

I'd also imagine, but in this case it seems we are assuming and AKCA clubs are left to make arses out of themselves and the parent org.

I'm not saying AKCA has to tell clubs that they must contact all local media prior to a show and provide docs back to the parent org afterwards like some sort of dictatorship. However, leaving everything including development of the standards often to people with no expertise seems ludicrous. We wouldn't run our business branch offices that way and expect them to work effectively. Leaving the running of clubs to the whims of strong headed individuals in various communities may result in having far more hobbyists in each member club area than would ever consider joining the club. Encouraging greater coordination could improve the overall effectiveness of the org as a whole.

Consider how many AKCA board meeting minutes note clubs that could not even be reached for a report back to the board. Why is this allowed to continue as if the problems will solve themselves? Meanwhile back in Washington D.C. bureaucrats are listening to sportfisherman saying carp are clogging their waterways and should be destroyed and more states should pass laws like in Maine where it is illegal to own koi.