Opening up the Future
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The Subud Australia National Committee as currently
structured consists of:
Chairman
Vice Chair
Secretary
Treasurer
Bookkeeper
Committee
Councillor (Zone Representative)
Kejiwaan
Councillor (National Helper)
National
Office Manager
In these positions each volunteer serves a 2 year
term.
8 National Helper volunteers each serve a term of 4
years.
Wings
SICA
SIHA
Susila
Dharma
SES
Youth
In these positions too, each volunteer serves a 2 year
term.
Local Groups
In addition to the national structure we also have
Chairs of local groups and they too need to have (ideally) a Vice Chair,
Secretary, and Treasurer as well as SICA, SIHA, SD, SES and Youth
representatives. Volunteers serve in these positions for 2 years.
This equates to an ideal scenario of 9 members each in
the committees of Cairns, Brisbane, Wollumbin, Sydney, Wollongong, Melbourne,
North-East Melbourne, Adelaide, Adelaide South, Perth, Darwin, Central
Australia and Tasmania. (There are also the sub-groups of North Melbourne and
North Sydney.)
9 volunteers x 13 groups = 117 members on local
committees (in the ideal world).
Add to that figure, 13 members on the National
Committee plus 8 National Helpers.
So if we all had our full contingent or a complete
committee, there would be in total 138 members serving on committees.
Our membership base conservatively has 400 active
members, with an average age of 55 years (the majority range from 40 70+).
Membership is on the decline.
400 members minus 138 committee = potentially 262
members not on a committee. Then there are at least 60 local helpers! If you
subtract them, you are down to 202.
This means that to fully staff our organisation, half
the membership needs to be involved in administration one way or another.
Our funds come from donations and are currently not
enough to support Subud Australia and the commitments we have made
internationally and locally. Our finances are really propped up by local
members including current/past Chairmen, committee members, and helpers.
So these volunteers are not just doing the work, they
are also financing it from their own resources.
This type of operation above is not sustainable,
especially if we need to ask for donations from the same sources. These sources
may dry up at some time and then where would we be?
We need to re-think the way we move forward in this
organisation. I do not have the answers, but I do think I need to highlight
that Subud Australia is not running effectively and neither are the local
groups. We are too top heavy. We have
built our organisational structure as if we had 5,000 members rather than our
current membership base of 400.
We have had many workshops looking at ways to grow
Subud or make more money. We make resolutions and then do not fund those that
we ask to carry out these decisions. I have been to many a congress and heard
of resolutions to build halls or organise ways to grow Subud, but we are too
small on the ground and perhaps people are getting too busy in their everyday
lives to be able to give something back to Subud.
The end result is that the people who put in the
effort end up accomplishing little and feeling frustrated.
If we assess our situation from an asset perspective
Subud Australia is very wealthy, but that is on paper. We have a number of
properties worth an estimated 10-12 million dollars in total. However we are
not willing to sell them even in
areas where the membership is shrinking.
What do we need to do to make our organisation more
effective?
Charge
Membership Fees?
Reduce
the responsibility of the National Committee?
Give the
groups more autonomy?
Increase
the funding and business responsibilities of the National, leaving the local to focus on the needs of the members?
Start to
create properly remunerated, long-term administrative positions?
Make
local chairs/groups responsible for some of the national duties and get rid of
the national committee, as we currently know it?
Sell our
properties?
Do
something to grow our membership?
As our ex Prime Minister John Howard pointed out,
Australia has an ageing population. So does Subud Australia. If we do not do
something constructive to address this issue, Subud Australia as we know it
will cease to exist.
I think we need to engage with our local helpers and
national helpers to feel our way through to an agreement on a way forward that
is based on concrete and realistic objectives.
Lets set out a possible future vision: what Subud would
look like with far less administration, far more energy being put into value,
and 2400 new members.