In this new column, JALT Chapters are encouraged to highlight their special activities, challenges, experiences, opinions and so on. The co-editors welcome 900-950 word stories (in English and/or Japanese) along with clear photos and graphics. This month, Ken Hartmann of JALT Hokkaido reports on his chapter's struggles and innovative solutions to create sufficient funds to support ongoing venues and attract new members.
What's Happening in Hokkaido?
Hokkaido Happenings is the name of the newsletter published by our chapter for several years now. It seems that something is always happening on this northern island, and our chapter too is endeavouring to keep up with the times. For those of you who have been fortunate enough to come north and visit Sapporo, you will know that this city of almost two million people is quite progressive. Traditions are not forgotten, but the people are always looking to take on new challenges and a true pioneer spirit still reigns in Hokkaido.
Although I was not present in the beginning, the Hokkaido Chapter was one of the earliest to form about twenty years ago. Then as now, it covers a huge area with many of its members living in distant cities, and only able to attend our Annual Hokkaido Language Conference held each spring. When I arrived on the scene about thirteen years ago, I joined a very comfortable group of about sixty teachers. A strong nucleus existed in Sapporo and the monthly meetings were well attended. Initially, we tried to attract a number of interesting speakers from Honshu and points beyond, but our limited budget was frequently stretched to the limit by all the expenses involved in bringing in these presenters by air. There are certainly advantages and disadvantages to being so far from the heart of Japan.
It seemed obvious to me that our chapter desperately needed to find ways to generate additional income in order to fund the many activities that were being suggested as well as increasing our membership (which did in fact happen over the years). The problem with this approach, needless to say, is that virtually all of the supplementary income created went straight back to the Central Office in Tokyo while our chapter grant received from JALT grew minimally. We therefore decided to place more emphasis on our Annual Language Conference and many speakers and publishers were invited to participate in this two-day event. Consisting of approximately twenty-four presentations and including a large number of educational displays, this event succeeded in attracting lots of guests, many of whom could only come and experience this annual event. Guest speaker and publishers' fees brought in other monies for further meetings and activities during the rest of the year.
Since keeping track of hundreds of teachers was becoming a major effort, we decided to set up our own JALT Hokkaido office complete with telephone line in an apartment where I teach children on weekdays. The computer that is used to maintain the Hokkaido Chapter databases for members, guests, publishers, schools, and so on is also housed here.
There is no doubt that having a permanent office has increased our visibility in the community and Japan, and above all, has made it easier to communicate. Our efforts bore more fruit when we linked up to the Internet and produced an e-mail version of our newsletter, with the result that today, more than 200 people are receiving our electronic newsletter.
Of course, not everything has been coming up roses in Hokkaido. Our distance from the mainland has been an important factor in the decision of publishers to curtail their visits to our island.
Moreover, the bubble bursting has had a significant impact on the budgets of Associate Members of JALT.
Publishers who willingly used to fly north to participate in our conference and who enjoyed making visits to our distant cities are nowadays more apt to decline our invitations. The conference has returned once more to a one-day, action-packed event, with only a few material displays.
Advertising and display fees which used to help us to support our numerous activities have all but disappeared.
In addition, we noticed membership starting to drop significantly with the overall increase of JALT fees. A dwindling membership not only meant a reduction in our chapter's income but more importantly, a decline in local participation at meetings. Former members became just ordinary guests and infrequent visitors. Our worried officers met to map out a strategy for keeping teachers involved in JALT Hokkaido. A plan was devised to create a new category: Local Guest Membership.
Thus, it was decided that a fee of only 4,000 yen would include free attendance at Hokkaido Chapter meetings, monthly newsletters as well as our new Annual Proceedings volume, which features papers presented at our venues. This idea was successful and indeed, to our relief, has become very popular. Local membership has grown to ninety. On the other hand, our national chapter membership numbers have decreased to approximately125 (from a high of around 210). Finally, the best news is that our local meetings are very well attended and there are now sufficient funds to schedule many interesting and lively events as well as to produce quality publications. The pioneer spirit lives on in Hokkaido!!