national convention: annual or biannual?
OPA has held an annual convention every year since the formation of our national organization in 1967. For the last ten years or so, we've toyed with the idea of moving to a biennial convention so that we could redirect some of the energy and money that goes into planning convention into other services to the members. But every time we get a little deeper into making that change, it just seems overwhelming. There are SOOO many things tied to that annual convention from the annual budget processes to the election cycles of national leaders to the delivery of leadership training. There are so many dependent parts of our programming that would be impacted, it just seems overwhelming to even consider.
Have any of you make this type of huge change? What advice can you share? |
Alpha Phi Omega has been on biannual convention since 7 years after founding (and the ones prior to that weren't regularly scheduled) except for not holding them in 1942/1944 and an extra one to completely alter the structure in 1967. We have meetings at the next level of organization in the other years, and then at the next level of organization we have every year, so a schedule for my area would go National Convention December 2012, DC&MD conference March 2013, Midatlantic(DC/MD/VA/NC) Regional Convention October 2013, DC&MD conference February 2014. and then National Convention December 2014.
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Sinfonia held annual conventions until 1920, then biennial until 1964. Since then, our National Assemblies have been triennial. Afraid I couldn't tell you, though, what the challenges of moving from annual to biennial, and then biennial to triennial were, or how they were dealt with.
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KD has convention every two years, and has a leadership training event every two years. They alternate.
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I'm already sold on the benefits of a biennial convention. My question is more about the change process itself to transition from one model (annual conventions) to the other. Unfortunately, I fear all of your groups made this change so long ago that the people involved are not around anymore.
Maybe a younger group, like Gamma Sigma Sigma or Theta Nu Xi? Have any of you made this type of transition within recent memory? |
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The first thing you will have to change if you decide to transition to biannual is having some of your major things, such as strategic goals/plans, budgets, and officer terms move to two year timelines. So officer terms would go from one year to two, annual philanthropy choices and organizational goals would move to a two year timeline. Other things, such as budgets and administrative tasks, may not need to be voted on by the entire membership. Your board of directors could decide these things. Also, look at how much time during convention you are spending on certain areas: what percentage of your time is spent on leadership training? what percentage of time is spent on official business such as budgets and officer elections? This can help you decide if you can transition to biannual conventions. If you are spending a majority of your time on leadership training for members, maybe you could more easily transition to biannual conferences and leadership training in off years.
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Conventions cost A LOT of money, and I would guess you get diluted participation because they're so frequent. Alpha Xi Delta uses a very similar structure as described by KD and Phi Mu. Described a little differently, every other year is for everyone and the alternate year is just for collegians.
I would say you probably need to devote your next convention to updating the bylaws and then move forward. But there's no way the change won't suck or cause blow-back. If you're ready with how many hours at what hourly rate it costs to plan a convention plus the other costs not recouped from attendance fees, and some will come around. The others can pony up or shut up :) |
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They're doing it so that similar campuses can share ideas about what works more effectively. I think it's more an art, than a science, but it's not a bad idea. |
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Biannual - twice per year Biennial - every other year Took me about 20 years to realize that. :D |
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Thanks, AnchorAlumna. I always struggle with that distinction. I fixed the "biannual" references but unfortunately the thread title is unreachable by the editor. :(
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No prob. I didn't know the difference for a very long time!:p
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