President David Temple's Address to the 124th Convention
It is a great honor to be standing before you tonight. It doesn’t seem that long ago I attended my first SAR chapter meeting in Dallas. Then Chapter President Bob Clark called on me to take the minutes when the chapter secretary failed to show. That was a surprise. I had a job and I found it really wasn’t too bad.
Membership will be a focus this year for membership enables our chapters to touch lives around the state. Our members present the medals and certificates, recognize the outstanding students, citizens, and first responders, and fill the color guards that participate in the public events, parades, and ceremonies in our communities. Our Texas Society annual report for last year reflects a lot of work was accomplished. With more members we can do more.
To keep it simple with membership remember the three R’s – Recruitment, Retention, and Reinstatement.
Recruit new members. We have to continue to recruit to grow our membership and we’ve been pretty good at it adding over 300 new members in 2018. We can do better. The National Society provided us almost 800 leads over the past 12 months. I’m not sure we know how many actually led to phone contact, research, applications, and membership. That is something we should track if we are serious about growing as a Society. You heard earlier today there is already a plan in motion. Let’s continue to document the leads from DAR members as we have received hundreds of new members through their generous assistance. I know we can submit more DAR Finder Forms than the 279 submitted this year.
Retention is a little tougher as we find from over 300 compatriots who failed to pay their dues this year. We know many members just plain forget to pay their dues, lose interest, maybe some become ill, and sadly a few will join chapter eternal each year. It’s up to us to find ways to encourage members to get involved and want to belong; to give them a reason to keep their membership. To want to be active. To show them we even have some fun in what we do.
Establishing a mentoring program in our chapters is one such step that can be helpful. It can be as simple as assigning someone in your chapter to introduce new members to SAR and how it works. He can maintain contact and encourage the member to attend your meetings, encourage him to bring his friends or family members, spouses, sons, and grandsons to your meetings. Think about when you joined. How did you feel?
Reinstatement will be important. When members fail to pay their dues they are dropped from the rolls, so we need to try to reinstate them. We have to reach out and remind them about their dues. Our Expansion, Retention, and Membership Committee will be working to share ideas for all chapters to improve their reinstatement rates and I cannot wait for the new chairman to get started. We can grow beyond our 3,200 members.
How many of you have children or grandchildren in college or on the way? Back in the 1970’s tuition, room, and board at the University of Texas could be yours for less than $3,000. Yes times were different then and increasing costs of running our colleges has caused tuition to continue to increase. Today that same tuition cost can be approaching $30,000. Private colleges can be much more. Every family could use help with this cost. Our Youth Contests provide some assistance with the scholarships we have established, both on the state and national level.
As you witnessed earlier today our youth contests generate outstanding entries every year. Through the generous donations of our compatriots and their families our Texas Society Patriot Fund has grown and enabled us to increase awards over the years so that we now honor first place winners in some contests with scholarships of $2,500. These funds can help to reduce the burden of educational expense, but we need to promote the contests. We need to publicize these contests in our chapters, to the DAR chapters we visit and to the Texas Society Children of the American Revolution. Students in public schools, private schools, and those schooled at home should all be aware of what we offer. Promote the fact past State winners have gone on to win $10,000 scholarships at National. With additional support we can increase the amounts of these scholarships.
During the first Texas Society meeting I attended President Harry Fife called for a show of hands by first time attendees. He asked us on what committee we wanted to serve. Thinking I was pretty smart I answered him with “wherever you need me”. But Harry was smarter. He pointed out it was not about where he wanted me, I needed to decide in what areas of the society I wanted most to serve. I think he got it right. Look at what we do and identify where you would like to help.
With that I encourage each of the first-time attendees to be open to service to their chapter or to the Texas Society. We would love more compatriots to be involved in order to support our communities, honor our good citizens and outstanding youth, to join our color guards, and to share our love for this country and the patriots who fought for our freedom. Be willing to serve as an assistant to one of the officers to learn the position, whether in your chapter or at state. I think you will find it rewarding.
National is working on a project to create a Patriot Research System. This will be an important resource for our society and others wanting to conduct research. A part of the project will be requesting volunteers to help with data entry. Bill Marrs will initially be the contact for this project in Texas. Volunteers are needed.
In closing I would offer challenges:
- Help someone join the SAR
- Consider making donations to the Patriot Fund as you plan your philanthropy.
- Volunteer your time
I would ask that each of our Districts hold a meeting for chapter officers and members to gather and learn more how our society operates. Add a membership drive, train for the officer positions, explore your committees. This can be done in conjunction with a local or regional genealogy meeting or library research event.
Fellow compatriots, I would like to thank you all for the honor and privilege of serving you as your president this year. I look forward to a year of hard work so that we touch more lives and I know we can have some fun along the way. Together we can accomplish great things. Thank you.