AGA priorities

[hilltopgo]

Can anyone comment on how good/bad the current chapter/club list is?

Well, a quick check reveals that, for my town, there is still a club being listed that has not actually met in at least 6 years.

It's relatively solved technically, but the people part is still gooey. The list currently draws its info from the membership database (chapters are a kind of "member" after all). Chapters that are not current on their dues do not have the AGA logo by their listing. However, they are still displayed; and as far as I can figure, they'll continue to be displayed until I go into the database interface and uncheck the "display publicly" checkbox. (I found this out when someone pointed out that the NY Go Center had closed its doors.)

So, how do I know which chapter checkboxes to uncheck? I've only been doing this since September, so I don't know that we haven't heard from some former chapter in ten years. Also, just because we haven't heard from them, doesn't mean they're not meeting.

In the long term, Justin Kramer is going to program in a function to send email periodically -- probably once or twice a year; no response to the email within, say, a month, means the chapter listing gets suppressed until they login to the Members Area and update their info. In the short term, I'm planning to do that by hand. Actually, I need to get on the stick with that.

And actually actually, I'd appreciate some help -- if you folks know which chapters have not only stopped paying dues, but also no longer meet, send me their names, either here or at database@usgo.org

Thanks bunches!

[hilltopgo]

Email clubs every six months to prompt for updates. If they don't respond within one month, send a second email and if they don't respond to that, post "cannot contact, club may be defunct" on the website. Leave it like that for a while, and then drop the listing.

There may be ways to tweak that and make it better, but it isn't a bad plan, and it isn't hard to make a decision about it. The public doesn't even have to know what the exact plan is! This is an administrative/technical decision.

As for the programming necessary to automate the process, I don't want to underestimate the unforeseen complications, but I can't imagine that this is more complicated than some of the major technical efforts that are underway.

And I really agree with Tapir that this is a big issue.

This basic plan is in the works. How long to implementation? I don't know; I'm not a programmer, and the guy who is, is pretty busy. Meanwhile, I'll start doing it manually; once the backlog is done, it should only be an hour or two a month.

Automation is better than me trying to keep a spreadsheet of contacts updated. But actually, I think I can have it be semi-automatic right now. I'll have to play with the features in the database, see what works best. What I'll do is sort by expiration date, and first email the chapters that expired more than five years ago. Next month, email the ones that expired more than three years ago. In January, maybe it'll be automated by then; but given how these things tend to go, probably not. So in January, email the ones that expired more than a year ago.

Please do send me the chapters you *know* to have gone belly-up, so I can get them done.

[hilltopgo]

Ok, that's all the time I have for this today. I've gotten through the ones that expired prior to 1996. (Except for that chapter in Japan, the Takadanobaba Go Club -- I don't have an email address for them. There's a phone number, if someone fluent in Japanese and with a better calling plan than mine wants to reach out.) Tomorrow I should be able to get up to the ones that expired in the current century.

I'm happy to report that two clubs I thought might be defunct are still meeting regularly. Three others, however, seem to have evaporated, and will be un-displayed from the chapters list if I don't hear otherwise in the next month.

[tapir]

Mind you, there was a time people ran bigger organisations manually.

Sounds like a volunteer!!

Honestly, the choice of how or if to automate would be made during the determination of the options available. I don't believe anyone suggested automation was the only solution. (e.g. msgreg: "There may be automated ways to determine club health"). But it can be a solution that provides stable and consistent results.

Automation seems to work great on the chapter creation side. Try changing your chapter information online and see the AGA list update immediately. No fantasy required.

I was visiting an automated high rack warehouse just last week. What wasn't showed to us, it was automated after all, but became obvious upon request was the amount of simple menial and qualified labour still necessary to keep it going - that is maintenance and repair work. This amount is way less than doing everything manually, but if it is disregarded (and disrespected) even the most high tech solution will not work.

[hilltopgo]

I made it into the current century. Woo-hoo! Next week, I hope to get up to 2005.

[hilltopgo]

Well, I've made a little more progress. Now usgo.org is down -- must be The Universe's way of telling me to get off the computer, and go walk the dogs.

[daniel_the_smith]

Step 1:

... I think there ought to be a position, held by one of the board members, with a job description of keeping members informed. This person would do things like write press releases for the ejournal, etc. Posting the minutes to the website is not enough; people don't read them and they're a month behind anyway.

Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!

(Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a press release to write. Be careful what you wish for and all that...)

[hilltopgo]

Well, this checking on defunct chapters business turns out to be more time-intensive than I'd expected. I tried to automate it somewhat, but it was harder to track the responses I got that way. (I'd ask for volunteers to help, but I figure that giving out people's contact info over the internet is probably not what the membership expects.) I've finally made at least one attempt to contact those that expired in 2005 or prior; almost half done with 2006. I've got a bunch of follow-up phone calling to do. In about a week, the time I can devote to this is going to plummet as I phase into full-time in my new snowboard instructing job (this winter is gonna be awesome!). I'll keep plugging away on it a few hours a week, and I should be about current by the time the snow melts.

Thanks to Tapir and LocoRon for pointing me at clubs that have vanished.