ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION BUZZ
From The Desk of the President Greg Chiecko, OABA President
I
n this issue of ShowTime, we are featuring membership and benefits. We need members. We are a membership-based associa- tion, and we really need your help in increasing our membership. Several benefits are available to active members of the OABA; one of them is receiving these monthly issues of ShowTime. We also have several other benefits that are available to you from the OABA. At the Spring Board Meeting in April, both the Strategic Planning Committee and the Board placed increasing our membership as the number one priority. Specifically, and in order, to increase the clas- sifications of Carnivals, Concessions and Fairs. For whatever reason, we have seen a decline in membership over the past five years. Now that COVID is out of the way, we need to increase our membership of these important categories in order to advocate for our industry. We estimate that only about fifty percent of the carnivals in this country are members of the OABA. This is really a distress- ing number for several reasons. First, it means that only half of the industry is paying for all of the advocacy that OABA does for our entire industry. Second, half of the industry is not get- ting the weekly and monthly communication from our associa- tion that informs them of important issues that we are working on, and half of our industry is not taking advantage of all the benefits of membership from the OABA. Furthermore, there is strength in numbers, and additional voices advocating for our issues will make us stronger in many ways.
While we recognize that there are organizations that specifi- cally cater to the needs of concessionaires, we must also recog- nize that the OABA is the leading advocate in solving our foreign guest work issues. We, OABA members, have spent millions of dollars advocating for a permanent fix for our issues. Each day gets us closer to a solution. However, thousands of H-2B work- ers are used by the concessionaires, and honestly, they are not paying their fair share and are riding on our coattails. While we would love to have major contributions from this group, at the
very least, they should be members of the OABA. We have sev- eral who are members, but there are many more who are not. Our Fairs category should be one for substantial growth. Every fair or event we play has a vested interest in the success of our industry. It is imperative that they understand our is- sues, and where appropriate, advocate on our behalf. Without membership to the OABA, they do not receive the constant communications that our office puts out highlighting our cur- rent issues. The membership for a fair or event costs $100 and we challenge each of you to solicit membership from each event you play.
If every one of our current members simply recruits one
member, we will have the pathway to make substantial posi- tive change for our industry. We will be happy to provide current membership and non-member lists to anyone who contacts the office. Please help in any way you can. Regarding benefits to membership, we are constantly adding to the list. Recently we added our VOLT educating program, powered by McGowan Allied Specialty Insurance, to the list of free benefits for our members. This comprehensive, technology driving, learning platform provides vital training for your em- ployees at absolutely no cost. We have also added professional crisis communications consulting services from Margulies Communications for our members. In the unlikely event that you have an incident or public relations issue, Margulies will assist you in your messaging to the public or even act as your spokesperson. The list of all the benefits can be found on our website,
www.oaba.org. If you have a suggestion for a member benefit, please contact me or one of the board of directors and we will do our best to accommodate your request. Thank you for your time and attention. As we hit the road over the summer, I hope to see many of you and your operations. As always, if you have any suggestions to make the OABA a bet- ter association, please give me a call. Stay safe.
6 OABA ShowTime Magazine | JULY 2022
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