1. Last month, i.e., November, the editorial bemoaned the fact that the PW organization appears be sliding into a black hole... fewer and fewer members attending meetings, we need new goals, we need new members, we need more money...
Now, I must immediately note that last month's editorial was NOT a Simon editorial. Egad, this was the work of the PW underground press... for when I handed Fred Haub the originals for the November issue for xeroxing, there was no such editorial in its content. Yet when Fred returned the finished issue to me for distribution... there it was!! How could this be?? Why have the Lords of Chaos intervened in our existence??
It turned out that the unhappy thoughts of the future of PW were, indeed, those of Fred, himself.
About the only unhappy thought that I have about PW is that we're not really getting our money's worth from our rental payment to the Pilgrim Church every month. We pay $45-per- night to the church for our Friday night meetings, a total of $540 a year. The one good thing in favor of the church is its central location... we have people who come in from Bowie to the west, from Virginia to the south, from Gaithersburg, to the north, etc.
When the warm weather breaks, I shall survey the local area to see if there is a slightly less expensive site available.
As far as membership, I think we're in the temporary doldrums. Only once in the past have we gone out and beaten the drums for members... this occurred in the mid seventies, when Jim Butters was President. Jim was determined to increase our membership a thousand-fold. And so he went out and solicited and preached, and proselytized and recruited, and raised our membership total to about 70 for the year. It seemed to me that of the 70, some 65 of 'em never ever attended a meeting... they had joined up (the dues at that time were $7 per year) just to get Jim off their backs. And the next year we were down to our usual 25 again.
But since Fred has brought up the point, I will host a "Wally's Basement" type meeting at my house to discuss PW's future. More later on this.
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© Copyright 1997 Wally Simon
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