Promoting WCHA

I wonder if there is a better way to communicate ongoing issues and developments more frequently than (now less frequent issues of) "Wooden Canoe"

Has this ("less frequent issues") actually been publicized to the members anywhere?

MGC, Rob has given a pretty good review of the situation, but the short answers to your questions is No, Nothing, Not possible, and (to paraphrase Eight Ball) Unclear. I could be wrong, but if so, none of it has escaped the confines of the board room.
 
Good question. As with many "voluntary associations", the dynamics are complex.
For me, it seems to evolve organically.

The direction or control applied by the Board isn't always evident. I do know they now meet at least monthly by telephone conferencing. Each Board member has a "portfolio" or area of responsibility. I think it would help to have these listed with their contact information at the front of "Wooden Canoe", the one consistent communication with members, but only if they read it. (Not all members access these Forums either, not participate in the "Fans of the WCHA" and Chapter versions on Facebook).

I wonder if there is a better way to communicate ongoing issues and developments more frequently than (now less frequent issues of) "Wooden Canoe" and the Report to the Annual General Meeting. The "President's Message" section in WC often identifies issues, but doesn't lay out the plan or indicators of success/resolution.

Chapters have a lot of autonomy. I was somewhat shocked to learn at a Chapters Meeting at Assembly, that many people who participate in the local Chapters are NOT Members of the "parent" organization. Of course, that leads to the question of what those people get at the local level that they don't get from the larger organization. There are plenty of answers, including distance and feelings of intimacy and connectedness.

Timing is an issue. Many Chapters host more frequent, purposeful gatherings (some as often as weekly). Physical distance from the site of the Annual Assembly is an oft mentioned factor, which has been somewhat remedied by the now widespread Regional
"Mini-Assemblies". Very importantly, many Chapters have booths or displays at regional, national and international canoeing events.

Much of what rolls out as WCHA activity depends on the voluntary energy and creativity of largely self-selected individuals. Their availability, capacity and motivation vary over time. When these go down, there isn't always someone else who steps up to carry the ball. Replacing and maintaining members is the key. Volunteers, to be effective, need ongoing support and encouragement. The WCHA benefits from a lot of unseen voluntary contributors.

From my perspective, I know that WCHA Staff provide more value than they are compensated for. Executive Director Annie Burke is an anchor. We will shortly have a new Editor, replacing Dan Miller -who was also the Webmaster, that role now being covered in the interim by resident IT geek, Benson Gray. Jeanne Griffin-Greene continues to oversee the WCHA Store -both online and at Annual Assembly.

I do a lot of outreach and promotion of Annual Assembly. Fortunately, communications are a lot easier with the advent to e-mail, websites and social media.
It also takes time and effort to connect with print and online media, as well as develop and maintain ongoing relationships with folks at like-minded groups, organizations, museums, etc who have similar or overlapping mandates as the WCHA. These include; The American Canoeing Association, Paddling Canada, The Adirondack Experience (formerly the ADK Museum), The Wisconsin Canoe Heritage Museum, The Canadian Canoe Museum, Wooden Boat, etc.

Rob Stevens
former Board Member, current Program Coordinator, Annual Assembly (voluntary role)

Rob,
Thank you for a very thorough synopsis. As you know, volunteer organizations can be a bit like pot luck dinners. You never know what you are getting until you are there. Sometimes you end up with a half dozen macaroni salads, an equal number of tossed salads and crockpot de jour.
The way to avoid that is planning and communication. Frankly, that is not evident here. Organizational leaderships first role must be centered there and if it isn't, well, crockpot hell.
The boards work, the leaderships role is not evident in the WCHA. As a retired "insider" you have a better view of the workings than lay members do. Bensons engagement is quite clear and very prominent but beyond that...… You mention Annie Burke. What is her engagement? Noticeably you do not mention our current president.
An organization that communicates in dribs and drabs without clearly communicated objectives, messaging centered around loss of membership and the need for money must work very hard at planning for it's future. Let's hope that is the case.
 
Annie Burke. What is her engagement?

Annie Burke has been the glue holding this organization together financially for decades. She was first listed in the August, 1996 issue of the Wooden Canoe magazine as the Treasurer when her husband Geoffrey Burke was the Vice President. Annie added the Executive Director role in 2008 when she took over the financial aspects of coordinating the annual Assembly with Rob Stevens. A profile of her was published in the October, 2008 issue of the Wooden Canoe magazine. She is the person who answers the WCHA's phone and mail. I think it is safe to say that her level of engagement is high even though she doesn't follow this forum.

Benson
 
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Thank you Benson. It is obviously quite outrageous to question her role...but not without purpose.
The WCHA board seems to be comfortably running the organization outside of the view of the membership and without engaging member participation.
Case in point, the board felt strongly enough about the need for a new website that it drove the previous webmaster away. Do we need a new website? Is it a critical need for the survival of WCHA? What does the membership at large think about that. If you look at the traffic on the site in recent years it should be obvious that without the Old Town dating service you provide that new member engagement would slow to a crawl. So is it a priority to redesign it in order to offer canoe dating information?
Why is it that we seem to be entirely comfortable that "the board" does not participate on this forum? Why isn't the forum used by the board to engage the membership? How is it possible that board members do not use the site to provide membership with a view into the roles they play and the work they are doing? This section of the forum is called WCHA General business. Where is there any regular contribution of WCHA business. Are there surveys, have there been poles conducted to solicit direction to support board decisions?
When you are running a challenged organization a critical initiative must be to solicit input and buy-in from stake holders. Does anyone know what the general membership thinks that WCHA needs to do in the next years to deal with diminishing membership?
The board meets via Skype meetings. Has anyone considered using webinars to meet with the membership? Why isn't there a quarterly webinar hosted by the president to update membership on board activities and to get membership input. These types on online meetings are an essential tool that is used to run other organizations and businesses but not employed here. Critical communication is a current shortcoming of the WCHA. It is such an easy thing to address.
 
Do we need a new website? Is it a critical need for the survival of WCHA?

The WCHA's web site is now running the current version (7.69) of Drupal 7. Drupal 7 will cease to be supported in November, 2021. Therefore, we will need a new web site before the end of next year to keep getting updates which help keep the hackers out. Things change over time so it is not unusual to refresh a web site every few years. See https://www.wcha.org/forums/index.php?threads/wcha-website-changes.16203/#post-82061 for some details about how the WCHA's web site has evolved since the first one appeared in 1996. I believe that there is general agreement between the WCHA's board, Dan Miller, myself, and others that it is time to consider another update to the web site. However, there are some very difficult questions to be resolved about how sophisticated a web site does the organization really need, what can it afford, and how to best manage it all?

I believe that a web site is critical to the survival of the WCHA. Most of our new members find out about the organization from the web site (and forums). We are fortunate that if you type "wooden canoe" into nearly all of the major search engines (Google.com, Bing.com, and others) then a wcha.org reference usually appears on the first few pages. This is how most people research things like old canoes today. I could be wrong about all of this but it doesn't seem likely.

Benson
 
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Speaking of the WC, who's idea was it to make it unreadable?

I believe that the new editor, Chris Eden, made the decisions about font sizes, page size, layout, etc. I forwarded your message to him yesterday and he responded saying that "There was a lot to fit into this issue" and that "the font size on all body copy is the same as the previous journal." Neither of us have seen the paper copy yet so we haven't been able to investigate this further.

Benson
 
Not true, I compared the last 2 issues side by side, the new is smaller and unreadable.
This revised WC is a disaster, go back to the previous size and font.
(and I'd get rid of all those glitzy categories, they are not needed, but that's just me.)

Dan
on the edge

"the font size on all body copy is the same as the previous journal." Neither of us have seen the paper copy yet so we haven't been able to investigate this further.

Benson
 
Not seeing it but speculating on the issue... It may be that because the format is smaller. That would effectively reduce the size of the font if it was laid out for the original size of the magazine. This is a common pitfall with designing for print on a computer. I'm sure it wasn't intentional.

I'm really impressed with how the organization is trying to improve participation and membership. We have a guy that spent a lot of time working on trying to make things better by trying to reduce the cost of producing the magazine while giving it a booster shot from a look and feel standpoint. I think our lives will go on and adjustments will be made. It's a shame that the new magazine is difficult to read for some but it's not the end of the world.

I for one embrace the prospect of using less paper and postage for a more substantial product. Good on Chris for trying to make things better.
 
It is if the goal is to increase membership.
We are an aging population, how many do you suppose are wearing bifocal glasses?
Those with them will not be able to read this mag.

Dan

It's a shame that the new magazine is difficult to read for some but it's not the end of the world.
 
I think you're missing the point:
It's one magazine issue. The next issue will probably have the correct sized font but maybe not the full-sized format. They probably didn't do it on purpose.
 
I assume they knew what they were doing and what we see is what was intended.
Unless a change is made, I expect the next one to look like the 1st.
 
I think you're missing the point:
It's one magazine issue. The next issue will probably have the correct sized font but maybe not the full-sized format. They probably didn't do it on purpose.
That would be pretty unusual...from my experience there are always proof galleys on a run when you have changed formatting. Every editor/printer I ever worked with provided one for approval before making the print run. Normally there is an approval hierarchy. Proofing is best done by several sets of eyes. Anyone that has ever done design, coding, editing, writing has experienced overlooking the obvious. We tend to spend so much time sweating the details that sometimes the little things are overlooked. But….maybe this follows a different script. I'm interested to see it.....
 
I'll throw this out for consideration... using a calibrated digital caliper, a random capital "M" on page 6 of issue 216, December, 2019, appears to measure 0.104" tall. A random capital "M" on page 11 of issue 217, Winter 2020, measures 0.103" tall. Likewise, a pair of random lower case "o"s in the same two issues measures 0.073 and 0.074", respectively. The difference of 0.001" represents the resolution and repeatability of the measurement technique.

That said, the difference in size of the journal overall is about 1.5" in height; the width is the same. The font in the new issue appears smaller to my eyes as well, but I believe the caliper. I know my eyes can deceive me!
 
I'm not sure what Paul measured but, here are the two pages he referenced scanned at the same time and in 1 image.
Without actually getting magnifying glass, it looks to my eye that the new is about 60-65% of the size of the old.

WC Fonts.JPG
 
I can confirm from PDF versions of these two documents contained in the archive at http://www.wcha.org/store/wooden-canoe-journal-archive-usb-flash-drive that there are differences as shown below. The paragraph from page 11 of issue 217 was set with a 10 point size of the "A Garamond Pro" font and a 1.20 point line spacing. The paragraph from page 6 of issue 216 was set with an 11 point size of the "Minion Pro" font and a 1.18 point line spacing. Chris will probably seek to address this concern in future issues.

Benson



WCJ-217.jpg




WCJ-216.jpg
 
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Andre, what are you talking about??

Based on this display, i hope you have surrendered your drivers license.

Clearwater - bi-focals are the reason this new print cannot be read. If you don't have them yet, consider yourself fortunate.
 
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