Sons of the American Revolution

Texas Society

William M. Marrs' Address to the 2011 State Conference

Thank you, Jim, for your excellent leadership this past year.  I hope to do as well.

I would like to start tonight by talking about my SAR Genealogy.

You ask, what is an SAR Genealogy?

When I joined the Texas SAR in June of 1990, James Westlake was President General, David Peterson was State President, and Joe M. Hill was State Secretary.  My friend Dr. David Yeilding became State President in 1992 and I think he prevailed on me to attend a BOM in Waco.  That was probably the first time for me.  I became familiar with names like Clovis Brakebill, Del Fowler, Billy Hightower, Bill Floyd, CR Harrington, and Ross Shipman.  There are many more who greeted me and encouraged me to become involved.  I will never forget the help I received as a new State Genealogist from the Original Tom Green.  He took the time to help me become effective in my job.  The first time Clovis Brakebill called me by name, I knew I was no longer the new guy.

Jim Robertson comes to mind.  When he was active, he was the guy who sat in the bar or in the lobby and snagged innocent, unsuspecting newcomers and put them to work.  Jim could not make it tonight.  I wish him and Corinne well.

My point is simply this.  All these men and many others to the present day contributed and still contribute to my understanding and appreciation of our Society.  They do that by their friendship and by sharing their unique special talents and life experiences.  We have the same obligation to our newest members.

My year.

As most of you know, I served as State Genealogist for three years and as Corresponding and State Secretary for ten or so years with two years off in 2005 and 2006 for good behavior.

I mention this because it affects my approach to the one short year I have to make an impact on the society.  I am oriented to the mechanics of our organization.  I like to make things work efficiently.  The challenge is doing it in big old Texas and with volunteers.

Every State President is presented with a host of things they can work on and they usually end up concentrating on one or two things that seem to be most important at the time and that interest a particular president.

Things I would like to work on:

1. I would like to have some electronic meetings using some of the newly available commercial systems on the market like go to Meeting.  In this day of escalating gasoline prices, it seems to make sense.
2. It has been five or more years since we took a look at our senior officer job descriptions to make sure we have balanced the work currently being done and that we have captured functions that are changed or newly created.  Our continued innovation in the area of internet services comes to mind.  I will shortly appoint a special committee to review job functions.  The end result may be a re-shuffle of functions or even the addition of a position to handle some IT and communication functions.
3. Communicating with our members.  We decided some time ago to budget for a limited printing of the Compatriot, our news magazine, and to publish more frequently on our award winning web site.  My fellow officers know I was reluctant to stop the mailing of a print version.  However, I come to accept that most of our members did not care.  However, I believe that we as leaders need to maintain a connection and that link has to be our web site with email or even text messaging drawing attention to our news and information.
4. I hope the general review of functions I outlined above results in a new position that is dedicated to member communication.  One part of member communication is maintenance of our email system, which, by the way, is a major job.  Keeping up with our guys changing their email addresses and not telling us requires an amazing effort.  Now, this function lies with the State Secretary.  I see a new position, perhaps called Communication Secretary or Assistant State Secretary that handles communications with the membership.  He would maintain the DADA Email addresses, go after members to obtain an email address and be responsible for maintaining the print mail list for the Compatriot Magazine and other letters we want to get to the group of members who do not have email or a computer.  The review of functions may result in other duties.  Finally, a person would be in a good position to move up to the State Secretary position after serving in this way.
5. If we are able to successfully move to electronic meetings, we might consider changing our format from three meetings a year to two - a Conference in January and a physical BOM in August after the National Congress.  Our Bylaws support electronic meetings so the need for two physical BOMs may not exist except for social purposes and as expensive as they are, I believe it is time to seriously consider my proposal.
6. I think I will quit and let you digest both your meal and my words.  We have our first BOM in the morning and I look forward to getting our business done in an expeditious way and being on the road home by noon.
7. I would be remiss not to once again congratulate Compatriots David Temple, Charles Baker, and the many other members of the Dallas Chapter who have worked so hard to make this conference a great success.  Let’s give them a round of applause.