Bed and Breakfats Cooking
Would you cook an omelet without the egg? Would you offer morning coffee without cream and sugar to your guests? You could do the above things, but it just wouldn’t work as well, would it? The same can be said for trying to run a state, provincial or local B&B association, or even PAII, without input and involvement from the membership. There is a disturbing pattern at many B&B associations, from what I observe – a critically few members do all of the work to keep the organization going, and these folks are getting burned out. This causes a bit of a “vicious cycle” to occur –association members complain they’re not getting enough out of their association and might not renew (or non-members will say the same about not joining) > association tries to involve members in regional meetings, state meetings, board meetings, ANY meeting to discuss how to improve the work and value of the association > the same few people attend everything > the same few people end up DOING everything > the association tends to lack progress they need or desire > same uninvolved association members complain or stay silent > same burned out association volunteers try again. I believe strongly in the value of local B&B associations – I’d love to see all of them succeed, be progressive and have strong membership bases.
More and more, association members view their involvement in associations simply as consumers – I will pay dues only if you can clearly show me a financial return. The problem is … associations (especially those run exclusively or mostly be volunteer members) are not like retail shops or typical corporations. If an association doesn’t have legions of staff to do all the work and stimulate necessary progress and innovation, then the responsibility falls to the membership and volunteers. Customers don’t volunteer to help keep a retail operation alive. Your own B&B guests don’t convene to determine ways to make sure you stay in business. But when associations are prescribed to change leadership every few years, there is a need for people to rotate into those leadership positions to make sure the organization stays on course.
I apologize for the negative bent of this article, but oftentimes peers tend to be overly polite with each other and may not draw attention to the fact that their friends and colleagues aren’t helping to carry the water of the organization. My hope for all B&B associations is for more members to get involved and answer the call when volunteers are needed…to support the organization through your dues even if every dollar can’t always be traced back to a reservation…to encourage other innkeepers to belong to the association. Remember – the whole point of having an association is to accomplish in a collective way what you cannot accomplish as an individual. The operative word in that sentence is “collective.” You cannot have a collective effort when only four or five are doing everything…every year.
The same formula is true for PAII, but with larger numbers. It’s possible to run a very effective state organization with 100 or 200 members (depending on the size of your market). For an organization like PAII, it takes thousands. Membership in PAII is up double digits over last year, which is fantastic. A lot of that success has to do with the fact that you can now join PAII for as low as $89. We can be a more effective advocate for the B&B industry with folks like TripAdvisor if we have 8,000 members instead of 2,000 or 3,000. Encourage your peers who are NOT members of PAII to go to www.innkeeping.org to sign up and be part of the growing movement of innkeepers coming under the PAII tent.
To carry the numbers message further, conferences for innkeepers are more effective when you have more innkeepers in attendance. The natural idea-sharing and problem-solving both in the classroom and in the hallways is greater when the numbers are greater. To that end, I invite you to come to any of these events for just a couple of days to recharge your batteries and pick up all kinds of knowledge to make you a better innkeeper.
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Posted: October 29th, 2010 under Bed and Breakfast News.