 Hi, folks. How are you? This is Reggie Henry, CIO here at ASAE in Washington, D.C. Congratulations. You are watching Six Degrees of Association with Sarah, Rob, and Andrew. Welcome to the premiere episode of Six Degrees of Association, the only online TV show that's dedicated to association success. My name is Sarah Gonzalez. I'm an employee of RedBat Conference and I will be your host for the whole session. I'd like to welcome our panel for today. We have Rob Barnes, who's probably a familiar face to you all from Aptify, and also Andrew McCullum from Fitness Australia. How are you both? Fantastic. Good to be here. Thank you, Sarah. Finally. We've finally got our own TV show. We're finally with our own T-shirt. And I'm obviously not as well known as Rob, so excited to be in your company. Okay, let's move on then. So just to give you guys a bit of context of what this show is about, each episode that we present on a fortnightly basis is going to cover feature stories as well as regular segments that talks about associations in the 21st century. So without any further ado, I'd like to get into the first segment, Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down. What's it all about? Awesome. Thanks, Sarah. So I think that just in doing some of the work that we do in the association space, you come across these great stories of associations doing things that are kind of impactful and just sort of resonate with you. So thumbs up, thumbs down. It doesn't really catch the eye. That's a great idea. Yeah, yeah. And so maybe not so good. And I guess finally we've got a TV show that we can help promote some of the work that's being done and let everybody know what sort of impacts some of these associations have. And so the first one for me that I picked up on in just in the last couple of weeks, and it's probably a little bit geographically specific here in New South Wales, is Bicycle New South Wales. So lots of work being done by them kind of in the background around lobbying about the laws, how you ride bikes on the road and stuff in New South Wales. And of course it's a big issue everywhere. But they've been doing sort of all this work which has started to surface in the media a lot now because the New South Wales government has put out this legislation. And I think some of the work that they have done has done, has done wonders for the Bicycle New South Wales brand, has also actually had an impact into the legislative agenda and the laws are there. So thumbs up Bicycle New South Wales for having this undercurrent of work happening sort of without us knowing which has now had this material impact on the law in New South Wales. But thumbs down. Here we go. Would you believe that now in New South Wales you can be fined like $107 for not having a bill on your bike. Okay, so when would you use a bill? I'm assuming you're a bicycle rider. Yeah I am a bicycle rider, not too much on Sydney roads because really it's a bit dangerous. But yeah I think it's respect to the pedestrian and traffic and things like that. You're going to use a bill, let people know, even other cyclists, hey I'm going to pass you that sort of thing. So yes there is a use. Most people take their bill off their bike the first time. They buy it, yeah absolutely. So $107 but it's only going to be fined. You only get fined once it's $71 if you walk on a level crossing when a train is coming. So in New South Wales you get $107 fine if you are riding a bike without a bell. Wow. $71 fine if you walk across a train level crossing when a train is coming. So I'm kind of thinking that the impact on the brakes derails thousands of millions of dollars in damage potentially. So this is the big challenge for bicycle in New South Wales right now is that there's been this kind of preference by the government to create this equalization. Fines on cyclists versus fines on motorists, fines in other scenarios without seemingly without any relationship to the impact of what not following the law is. And so thumbs down to the lawmakers that have kind of created this issue on the back of what was really great work by the School of New South Wales. It sort of puts a downer on it doesn't it? Andrew what's your... Do you have any more time left in this segment? Big thumbs up to me. Sorry I just need to make a note to buy a bike for my bell also. But $107 like I don't want that. Need to talk up the Heavy Vehicle Industry Association of Australia. This is originally a Queensland based organisation up in the Great South East who put on the Brisbane Truck Show every two years and that's the largest industry trade event in Australia of any sort. It takes over the whole Brisbane Convention Centre. I'd like to see the demographic of the 10Ds. Yeah I've been along a couple of times thank you. But the Heavy Vehicle Industry Association have made a move to become a national body. They're obviously Queensland based and in response to changes to a national heavy vehicle regulator they've taken a national focus established officers in Melbourne and now Perth to really benefit and service the growing membership around Australia. So thumbs up an association that's really diversifying and really growing with the needs of the industry. Thumbs down. Look I've got it. It may be an obvious one but I've got to throw a grenade at the respective Taxi Industry Councils of Australia. Oh yes. They've been royally ubered. It's a verb now. Are we ubering them now? Are we about to be ubered? Potentially. But ubering the ride sharing concept is not going away. Let's be honest. Throwing your collective toys out of the cot, putting your face down in the carpet, your feet isn't getting anywhere and it's not really representing your members. So when we talk about the pretence of safety, come on guys, let's look. Let's adapt to the technology. Let's look after the industry. So that's my big red thumbs down. Great. Definitely a lot of passion there I can see. And if anyone out there has any thoughts on any of the thumbs up or thumbs down from today's episode, feel free to hashtag at 6DA or provide us with your thoughts for maybe some future thumbs up, thumbs down. We'd love to hear from our audience. Now we're going to move on to what we like to call the lunchtime special. So this is when we have our amazing panel talk about something a little bit controversial and I think today as the premiere show, what better way to start it off with the topic should associations aspire to sack their members? Yeah, good job. Nice topic. We're trying to win some association audience fans here in our first premiere episode. You're going to raise the red flag to a ball. Episode two is looking a long way away. Well, I think this is a great concept. It's a very broad one, but we look at, you know, the concept of sacking your members is, you know, is an association or should an association be really aspiring to create a level of financial independence from their membership? Do they need to think, well, gosh, we need to go out and get more members because otherwise we won't pay our bills or should it be let's build a business here that's not going to be tied simply to how many members we have. I think this and failure should be more than just, we have this many members. I wonder how many actual association staffers, you know, membership directors or whatever it is, actually know what the constitutional requirements are for admitting a member to their association and how to get rid of them. Like, I can't remember the last time I had a conversation or even heard where someone was, oh, yeah, I know exactly how we can disqualify a member or get rid of a member, you know, unless there's a significant legal issue or whatever it is. But I mean, there's constitutional requirements around these sorts of things. It can't be easy to sack a member anyway. Probably not. But I guess it's almost beyond that and to the point, well, you know, is it a state of mind where you're a slave to your membership? So it's, okay, what do we need to do that's not going to upset the membership base or the potential membership base, but is that at the same time, is that taking the eyes off the long-term needs of the association and industry you represent? Yeah, the challenge is always going to be it's that discussion between, well, we have always done it this way. Our business model has been well, we're here to serve our members. Really? Aren't you here to serve the industry or profession? Some of which are going to be your members, but unless you're like 98% penetration into the industry or profession that actually are members with you, or there's a legislative requirement to be a member, you're only representing a part of the industry or a part of the profession anyway. And so when you're driving this business model agenda around all our revenues are on this one thing and then you've got the finance manager is going, how about the cost of sale? What's the cost of sale of actually selling a membership in our industry and profession in today's terms? And are you measuring your success inadvertently through simply membership growth? Because are the existing members, do they really care if you've got 10% more members this year? Or are they thinking, well, have you serviced me as a member or have you serviced my industry? 10% better than you did last year? I've always felt a little uncomfortable with the voice of our industry and yet every budget cycle it's driven around sort of member services and member vendors. And I get that there is a return on investment that people are expecting when you create a professional membership. I get that. But when it's driven, I don't know, you're quite right. Having more members isn't necessarily a measure of success anymore. I don't think so. I don't think so. And I think the long-term needs need to take precedent over this short-term. More members. It's 5% more members. Have we met our membership target this quarter? And I think sometimes associations tend to look at that at the expense of that longer-term view that's simply saying, well, you know what, our success as an association in 50 years is not going to be growing members now. It's what we're delivering for our association, for our industry as well. So is that going to, is that where you think the measure of success should be for an association? Then if it's not member growth, what's the solution? Great question. But I think, you know, I look at from a member's perspective, the member isn't concerned about membership growth. I don't believe, I don't think that's what they, you know, I don't join up to an association so they can get more members. I join up because I'm going to get benefits, I'm going to get representation, and I'm going to feel like I'm contributing to my industry. Membership growth doesn't matter to me. I think there's things like, it's coverage, it's leverage. I mean, you're more likely to be attracted to an association in your particular field or just study your field of endeavor if there's a whole community around it. So numbers is important. I get that. From an association perspective, I think associations could look at things like lifetime value of a member. So not just the financial input that's going to come from having someone for 10, 12, 15, 20 years, but their contributions. Are they volunteering for committees? Are they writing for you? Are they helping you develop content, you know, content marketing that's required to complete these days? Is that part of the lifetime value or the engagement score that is used by association to determine value? And if you have, I just don't know how relevant in the 21st century for an association, having more members is as an objective anymore. Yeah, I agree. I think that's a great point. And, you know, you mentioned that the cost of servicing that member, that growing membership base can detract resources from the broader strategic outcomes, broader industry development activities. Yeah, I mean, so to go back to like sacking your members, you know, I think there is a point where in business you hear a lot about businesses saying, you know, there's the smallest 1% cost us the most, you know, all these sorts of things. We should take the same view that the people who contribute the least are often the people who complain the most. And in association that becomes toxic, right? That makes it really hard to manage. And you've got the impact is very quick. And yet we struggle to understand the implications or... And I think we just, in a lot of cases, we as an association don't have the courage to go, you know what? You're actually better off not being a member of our association. Yeah, exactly. So, what have we got? Freeing your future. Freeing your future to go and join some other association or start... Feel free to start your own. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Start your own. Maybe we can put you on an app to find... Some members then, some members, because I know myself even for me and other people who I know, there's a certain status that's associated with being a member of an association. Isn't there? So, I would argue against that. I would say that it's not the membership that necessarily gives you the status, but where an association confers a credential upon you that has a broader meaning to the community. So, the trouble that associations have with the whole idea of member sort of value is if the community don't understand what being a member of that ex-association means, it actually has no value outside of the internals of the association. Okay. So, yeah, a small percentage of your member base is going to love the fact that they're part of the family. Yeah. That's awesome. But to have a genuine impact, association success, in my view, in the 21st century is about our ability to change the world, right? It's impacting the way the world works. Alar, Bicycle New South Wales. Yeah. But just riding around on a bike with something that says Bicycle New South Wales member, unless the people around me understand what that actually means from a part of, it has no value. So, it's probably things like a professional credential which add more to an individual today because you can send them out there with their CPA credential, their registered fitness professional credential. And people are starting to understand what that's where the value comes. Well, if no one else knows about it, then who cares, right? And so, the amount of money that association has to spend to get, to not only run the credentialing program so people are attracted to it and comply with it, but then promote it to the community so that the value is conferred upon them out there in the big blow. Well, that's a tough gig. I know how tough it is to get the budget to have that kind of a marketing engagement program going on. Okay, great. We'd love to hear your thoughts when it comes to sacking your members, potentially. So, feel free to provide us with some insight either by emailing us or sending us a tweet. And during next week's episode, we'll actually get to that and discuss that a little further. If that doesn't get a response on the line. I don't know what will. Okay, so there's an association for everything. I've heard that many a times here and I've also had discussions with you guys about that as well. So, another segment we're going to go to is what we call obscure associations. And this is where we're going to highlight one in particular, and it is a little bit obscure and something we may not have thought of, but the one who's also doing quite well. So, who are we going to talk about today, guys? Yeah, I'll take this. So, if there's not an association for everything, there certainly should be. So, I present to you this week the Needlework Tool Collectors Society of Australia. Formed back in 1987, the NTCSOA, as I like to call them, they're pretty active to their credits. They have meetings in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. They have a biannual conference this year. It's in Melbourne in October and we're going to get there and I'm sure you're watching the NTCSOA. They kind of have a number of members. They have a lovely, very informative website, NeedleworkToolCollectors.org and one of the sections on that site is actually links to other Needlework Tool Collecting Associations the world over. The content on there is incredible and we could fill this section alone for the next several months if we wanted to, just on those links. Just on the NTCSOA. But good on the NTCSOA. Driven by passionate people, good luck to them and very pleased to be able to feature you on this segment. Well done. Well, is there anyone that can find it of your association? It's you, Andrew. Well done. Yes, exactly. So this is a warning that we're getting to the end. As everyone knows, we only have 22 minutes for this show. So in the future, this part of the actual show will be covered by feedback from Twitter. Hopefully all amazing. Hopefully some feedback from us. Yeah. Any sort of information that you guys provide us. So like we said at the beginning, this is really about you, the association industry and talking about what matters and how we can actually help and get together for the greater good I would like to think. I think that, like, yeah, absolutely. We would like to be able to build community. Yes. So associations, if there's anything associations do well as they start to build community, we'd like to do that around the show. Yeah, agreed. So just on that, I would like to thank our panel for today. You've been great guys. First show done. Thank you. If I could high-five you, I would, but yeah. Team high-five. So thank you all for joining our closing comments. Well, thank goodness we finally got here. Your support, everyone's support to get what was a crazy idea six or seven months ago. Actually have the pilot happening. I think that's fantastic news. And really the show is just where the work sort of for us starts. As I say, we really want to build a community, a conversation around what's going on with the associations. It's an important sector. We've been passionate about it for a really long time. What a great new format to be able to talk about it. I think some of the best ideas ever come up over a few years in a bar. And I think this is no exception, but actually we've actually implemented this one so far. So we've actually taken it that extra mile, which is great. And yeah, really enjoyable. Us finishing something. That's awesome as well, yeah. Well, you did have a female support. So anyway. That's what it was. It's what we've been missing all this time. So thank you everyone for joining. We hope you enjoyed it. Please stay tuned for the next episode that we have online. Remember the hashtag 6DA. And that's a wrap. Head over to associationsuccess.org to share your feedback and comments and to look at episodes that do come up online. And remember, too much agreement kills a chat. Bye for now.