Pages AB Spring 2012
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SPECIAL SNORIDERS ASA REPORT >> EVENTS IT HAS TO BE FUN ASA Annual AND OTHER TIPS FOR KEEPING YOUR VOLUNTEERS HAPPY General Meeting April 21, 2012 BY DARRYL COPITHORNE, President Sandman Signature Hotel & Suites, Edmonton South 10111 Ellerslie Road We frequently get caught up in our club activi- 1. It has to be fun. ties and forget what makes a club successful. A There is always politics and differing opinions Alberta Snowmobile snowmobile club is a not-for-profit organization in a club, but if everyone cannot for the most part & Powersports Show October 26, 27 & 28, 2012 that normally has no paid employees and exists get along and have fun together in the club, vol- due to the unpaid efforts of volunteers. So, what unteers will simply leave and go in search of Edmonton Expo Centre is a volunteer? other ways to have fun. www.albertasnowmobileshow.com Volunteering is generally considered an altruis- 2. It has to be rewarding. Alberta Snowmobile tic activity, intended to promote good or improve This contains two parts. The first is that there Awards of Excellence human quality of life, but people also volunteer must be some reward for the group as a whole. Banquet for their own skill development, to meet others, The club putting in a warm-up shelter that every- October 27, 2012 • 6 p.m. to make contacts for possible employment, to one can be proud of is a good example of a group Mayfield Inn, Edmonton have fun and a variety of other reasons that could reward. Secondly is personal reward for the vol- ASA Semi-Annual be considered self-serving. unteer. For me establishing good working rela- General Meeting The last paragraph has some good elements as tions with various government officials and October 28, 2012 • 9 a.m. well as some not so good elements relating to getting invited to participate in talks relating to Edmonton Northlands volunteering. our sport is a good example of personal reward. Expo Centre I like using the karma thing. So down the road (And no, I am not looking to get into politics!) you get to say, “I helped to get the new trail 3. Keep volunteering >> NEWS through to the B.C. bor- under control. der.” This is good We have all seen the karma, versus down person who gets “burnt ENTER AT the road you say, “I out.” By its nature as www.slednsnap.com used the club to get an altruistic activity, Online photo contest myself a job.” This is we get a kind of high The ASA, with Flaman bad karma. Karma— from volunteering, so Trailers and the associations not very scientific, but saying “no” becomes in Saskatchewan and Manito- it works for me. very difficult. Most ba, have launched a new on- For the most part we people who spend line photo contest. Enter to all volunteer in our time on a club board win at www.slednsnap.com. snowmobile club be- of directors get ISC 2012 ASA president Darryl Copithorne (right) and other ASA mem- The International Snowmo- cause of the love of the bers enjoyed the 2012 Jamboree in Westlock. caught up in the ac- sport and a belief that we tivity and get slowly dragged into more bile Congress is being hosted have something to offer, positions over time. You start off on a commit- by SledMass this year, in Stur- to basically pay back for the enjoyment we get tee, then can’t say no and wind up on the board, bridge, Massachusetts. You from our sport. We give freely of our time and then you wind up on another committee, then get can still register if you are in- usually incur quite a bit of out-of-pocket expens- talked into going on a provincial board, and on terested in joining snowmobil- ers from around the world in es as well. Whether it is strengths in administra- and on. It’s in our nature. Eventually we get this once-a-year gathering. tion, operating equipment, construction overwhelmed. We realize we are taking a vast With public meetings, work- experience, or just a willingness to donate our amount of time away from work, time away from shops, displays and banquets, time, someone who volunteers provides an es- our families and usually find we have no time left the ISC welcomes everyone. sential value to the club. If we did not feel good for the sport we are volunteering to benefit. I Check out www.sledmass. about donating our time we would simply not have seen too many people go through this and com/pages.php?id=44. bother. And if everyone did not bother there simply drop out, and want nothing to do with the would be no club. club or organization that became their main So to have a successful club a number of things focus. Manage your volunteer time carefully and 22 need to fall into place: Continued on page sidebar ▼ www.altasnowmobile.ab.ca >> CLUB Seeing the whole picture NEWS ASA AND LOCAL CLUBS ARE NOT SEPARATE ENTITIES ▼ PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE BY CHRIS BROOKES, Executive Director Continued from page 21 do not get sucked into too Well, that was a brief snowmobile season! We You are no doubt aware by now of many of our much. put in a lot of work as an association to get ready programs that you see in the community—the in- 4. Keep self-serving agen- for each riding season and sometimes we don’t surance program, the trail pass system, the Safe das out of the picture. get to ride as much as we would like. I can cer- Riders school program, the annual meetings, the A biggie that we have seen is tainly tell you that your volunteer board of direc- ASA scholarship, the snowmobile excellence volunteers looking at being in- tors puts in plenty of time each year, year round, awards program and, of course, the annual snow- volved as an avenue for per- to have this association geared up and ready for mobile and ATV show. These are some of our sonal advancement or as a action. bigger programs and the board has to be kept means of getting employment. We are preparing now to get ready to attend the aware of changes and progression on these on a This is very destructive to a International Snowmobile Congress (ISC) in regular basis. Much of our board meeting time is club and must be avoided. If Sturbridge, Massachusetts, in June. Many of spent discussing the programs, the challenges you have a person like this in your board members are heading there, not just and arriving at solutions. your club, get rid of them. to represent us, but also to make connections and The snowmobile show is celebrating its 25th 5. Keep it professional. learn more about the wonderful world of organ- anniversary this year and, as always, we are look- While on one hand we are ized snowmobiling. Much of my time at ISC is ing for ways to make it bigger and better. I say volunteering for fun, a board spent in administrators meetings, where we get to bigger because this show is our main fundraiser member of a club is responsi- discuss common issues and shared solutions. The every year and funds many of our programs. The ble to the members and proba- same can be said for the board, as they attend ASA membership, at the semi-annual general bly to government agencies CCSO (our national body) meetings, various meeting in 2009, decided that we did not want to who provided funding. We workshops and many social gatherings, where do provincial raffles anymore. So to make up for must manage the club as if it our sport is discussed and analyzed. This they do the difference in revenue, we decided to expand was a business. I think it is on their own time, as volunteers. No doubt we all the scope and scale of the show. To date we have very important that at least have some good social time with our colleagues been very successful in this direction and the several of a club’s board and partners, but much work is accomplished, for show has grown every year over the last few members be business people the betterment of our association. years. I refer, of course, to the Edmonton show who understand a spreadsheet. Your board meets many times as we are not producing a show in Cal- ASA members can look at our throughout the year, usually in Edmon- gary right now. The board and staff financials and realize that we ton, and members have to travel on looked at the numbers over the last few are in fact a medium-sized their time to attend. We also have sev- years and the show in Calgary was get- business, and as a board mem- eral conference calls through the year, ting smaller each year, with a similar ber I am part of a team respon- and the trail committee meets as well, rise in exhibitors and attendance at the sible for a considerable sum of outside of board time. The trail com- show in Edmonton. We decided, after money. But whether your club mittee works with the trail grant appli- five years, to discontinue the Calgary financials show one zero or cations, the signage program and show and focus on the show in Edmon- six, there is the same level of signage applications and projects like ton. These efforts have been successful responsibility on the volunteer the Trans-Canadian Snowmobile Trail and we now produce the largest show board to manage it correctly.