OrchidKitty wrote:
Just out of curiosity, I'd be interested in finding out why people stay
in or leave an orchid society. On one hand, the once-a-month
comaraderie is nice and some of the guest speakers are interesting, but
on the other hand, doing jobs for a society can be very time consuming,
expensive, and frustrating. Thoughts?


There is only a small group of people in any society (orchid or
otherwise) that do 95% of the work. You need maybe 10 people to do a
good job planning and executing a show, for example (and more to do
things like bring food and clerk and whatnot, but that is the easy
part). So, in a society of 20 members, half of them are doing all of
the work and half are coasting. In a society of 100 members, 10% are
doing all the work and the others coasting...

Some people are volunteers and some people are not. If you don't want
to be a volunteer, you just have to find a bigger society. Keep your
hand down when they beg for help and hope somebody else does it.

I think people stay or leave based on how convenient and interesting the
meetings are. Some people will maintain a membership to recieve a good
newsletter, some people are members for some real or perceived benefit
to them (a discount at a local nursery, good plants on the raffle
table.. who knows). Some people like the talks and learning about
orchids. The benefits have to outweigh the inconvenience of attending
meetings in remote locations, etc.

Rob
--
Rob's Rules: http://littlefrogfarm.com
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a) See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to obtain more
orchids, obtain more credit