June 2007 - Chit Chat

JUNE 2007

Chitchat

Open Letter to the Membership

Sit down. Give me a few minutes. We need to talk. Our Association, like most other Associations and Civic groups, is facing the challenge of maintaining and increasing its membership.

This challenge was clearly pointed out at a recent meeting held by Councilman James Oddo in his Staten Island office and attended by many representatives of civic groups throughout his district and the Island.

Citizens are no longer attending civic meetings in sizeable numbers unless their neighborhood is under a direct threat. Show me a huge threat to the neighborhood and I will show you a well attended meeting. Otherwise, it’s a meeting of the regulars.

Why is that? Are our neighbors not interested in our neighborhood? That’s probably not true because they sure complain to us and each other whenever we meet. So what is it that makes it so difficult to attend one meeting a month? Are we that busy? Is our neighborhood that low on our list of priorities?

Or is it something else? Does the Association not fulfill your needs – the needs of its members? Are we not responsive enough? Are we too hard to reach? We are accessible by telephone, voicemail, letter and email. Do we need another method? What would that be? If you have a suggestion or recommendation, I need you to share that with me. But more on that later.

What will work for you? More frequent meetings? Meetings earlier/later in the day? More frequent newsletters? More information on our webpage? Less frequent meetings?

I need your thoughts and suggestions. Please take a few minutes out over the next few days and tell me what you think about us and this organization. (We are tough; we can take it.) Tell me how we can reach more people. Who should we be talking to that we are not currently talking to? How would we go about doing that?

Telephone me at 718-979-6011 and leave a message with your suggestions and comments. Send us a note to NDCCA, PO Box 060245, SI, NY 10306 and send us your suggestions and comments. Email us at ndcca@excite.com or newdorpcentralcivic@yahoo.com and offer your comments and suggestions.

We need to expand our membership. We need to expand our reach. And we need you to help us achieve that. Don’t be bashful. Share your insight. Our entire community will be better off because of it.

I want to gather your comments, thoughts and recommendations which I will share with you before I share with you some of the comments made at the meeting in Jim Oddo’s office.

As I’ve mentioned over the past few months… to ensure our continued vitality and to deal with the issues of the future we must bring in new members. We must reach out to our neighbors. So I ask each of you this year to resolve to invite one neighbor to join our Association. The next time you are chatting with or visiting with your neighbor, suggest they give us a call and join with us as we work to ensure that this neighborhood is second to none.

Thank you. Joe Markowski, President