|
Keeping the Bluebills Growing
| I had a pleasant meeting this past month with the Engineering Retirees Society, a group of retired SPEEA employees. After my 25-minute presentation about Bluebills, I enjoyed considerable positive response. We may have opened the doors to welcoming some new members from the SPEEA organization. |
 |
|
The future of Bluebills depends upon a robust base of new members. The OlyPen and Heritage chapters currently have recruitment programs underway. On the Peninsula, they've held coffee hours and potlucks and report that they got 27 commitments to come to meetings from 47 calls made.
At Heritage, Margaret Stone has been ferreting out names from Boeing's lists of 17,000 retirees. Her committee (and in particular Margaret herself) has spent hours on the phone and report that they are going to be able to send out almost two dozen membership forms to prospective members as a result. We've discovered that letters of invitation don't work; phone calls seem to work better.
If you are reading this wondering whether to join us, or if you are a member who has retired Boeing friends who might like to know about the Bluebills, now is a good time to act. |
|
* * * * *
|
One of the strengths for the growth of our organization can be our website, if we continue to upgrade it. We have made a good start with Mike Yanega as our responsive Webmaster. Regular visitors are seeing major improvements. An up-to-date, comprehensive website can stimulate new members by reporting on the good works that we do and encourage current members by helping bond our far-flung organization. It can also be a major resource for current members. We are initiating several new features on this month's website include an Information Directory of Boeing contacts on our Home page, and a report on Lyle Foltz and Bob Lambert's recent tour of military sites in Europe. We intend to link articles like Lyle's for all to enjoy in our new page called Bluebill Voyagers .
Elsewhere on this site, you can:
•Hear about plans for a cruise to Hawaii, being arranged by the St. Louis Sages
• Learn about Bob Lambert's effort to arrange a McChord Air Force Base dinner/tour in October
• Discover what you missed at the last Heritage chapter meeting
• See a bar chart that shows the growth of Bluebills volunteer hours. This will be a regular feature; we collect these figures for a quarterly report to Boeing.
We stand ready to publicize Bluebills. Please, if you come away from a mission that leaves you with an unusually warm fuzzy feeling, think about sharing that experience with all of us. It's worth its weight in gold, recruitment-wise. It will also help us get recognition from Boeing executive offices. Alert your chapter chair, or email Nancy Wright (nancylwright@earthlink.net) or Mike Yanega at myanega@bowfinprintworks.com. And don't forget good pictures.
|
|
* * * * *
|
| And finally, let me ask you to critique our efforts. Tell us what you want, what interests you and how you use the information we provide or could provide. The unique age of electronic communication offers us the ability to make rapid updates and changes |
|
* * * * *
|
At our September 9 meeting we announced that Bob Lambert is head of the nominating committee for upcoming Central Leadership Council elections. Please let him know if you are interested in helping to run this organization. His e-mail is chloe928@msn.com
|
