As you probably read above, Akron Railroad Club Bulletin Editor Marty Surdyk has decided to step down when his term expires in November.
He announced his “retirement” once before in the Bulletin but then started hemming and hawing about it not long after.
Marty is correct in saying that major changes could lie in store for the ARRC. I can envision a scenario whereby the club ends the year with less than a full complement of officers.
It is not difficult to imagine how that could happen. The membership of the ARRC is older and older men tend not to want to commit to being an officer of an organization.
There also is a dynamic involved in many, if not most, groups whereby most members would rather be followers than leaders.
It remains to be seen if enough ARRC members will step up and agree to fill the soon to be vacant officer positions.
It may be that the club will have to improvise and spread the officer duties among whatever core of people agree to serve as officers.
The ARRC could be run with as few as two officers. One person could preside at meetings and serve as program director. The other could serve as secretary-treasurer.
In the meantime, there remains some unfinished business left over from the April meeting pertaining to the newsletter.
That includes when to start publishing the Bulletin every other month and how to address the subscription cost issue.
It would not surprise me if these issues end up resolving themselves. If no one agrees serve as Bulletin editor there won’t be a newsletter anymore.
Of perhaps someone will take on the job, find out it is more work than he imagined and decide he doesn’t want to do it anymore.
Earlier this year, I received an email message from a man who belongs to a railfan club in Atlanta.
He had been reading on the ARRC blog about our newsletter issues and shared with me what happened in his club.
The Atlanta club’s newsletter fell by the wayside several years ago. The club also began having fewer outside activities until they dwindled to a Christmas season dinner at a member’s home.
What remains are the monthly meetings and program.
Sometimes the members exchange email messages if they have news to share.
I can see this being the future of the ARRC starting as early as next year. But I learned a long time ago that I can’t predict the future, only discern trends based on what I am seeing now.
Marty’s message also made a pertinent point in the last sentence that I’ve experienced many times since taking over as ARRC president in 2005, but most often after starting the ARRC blog and, later, the eBulletin.
He wrote that it can be demoralizing to think you are doing your best but no one cares. I know where Marty is coming from on this.
I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve wondered as I’m gathering and writing information for the blog or the eBulletin why I’m doing it.
I’m not getting paid to do it. I’m getting precious little recognition for it. It probably will do nothing to advance my professional writing career.
People write articles and edit publications for them to be read. It is not that you expect droves of people to comment about your articles or your publication, but it would be nice to be appreciated every once in a while and for the audience to engage with you.
Otherwise, you wonder if anyone is even reading your newsletter. Is it important to them?
They might say that it is, but is it really? Are they just being polite?
During the April meeting I purposely posed the question of eliminating the newsletter altogether.
That was voted down, but I wonder if that is more because the members think the club ought to have a newsletter rather than any strong affinity for it or, more importantly, wanting to be engaged with it.
If someone does agree to continue serving as editor of the Bulletin, he will need to take that on because he has a passion for writing and editing. He will need to derive a great deal of personal satisfaction from gathering and presenting information.
You must take that leap of faith that your work matters even in the face of lack of or skimpy evidence that it does.
You also must have a lot of pride in what you are doing and believe it to be essential to your own sense of worth. When you finish that article or publication you must feel that sense of pride in having done something that you can feel good about.
Having spent nearly all of my adult life involved with professional journalism, information gathering and presenting is in my DNA.
But that is not the case with most people, particularly when it comes to writing.
Most people love to present information orally. It comes as naturally to them as breathing.
But sitting down at a keyboard to write that information, well that is work and most people consider it to be hard work.
And a lot of people lack confidence in their writing skills.
In his retirement announcement, Marty said he’s been editor for 26 years, which is about twice as long as I’ve been ARRC president.
I will repeat a comment I made once before about Marty. Where would the ARRC be without him?
Marty’s value to the ARRC has transcended his official duties as Bulletin editor.
Once he retires as an office, that value is going to become to be apparent because it won’t be easily replaced if it is replaced at all.
Commentary by Craig Sanders
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