Get With the Program

There’s little that can be done to keep club business from getting a tad dry at times, but that does not mean that bass club meetings cannot be fun and interesting

by Jeff Samsel

The rules review, the drawing for pairs, the points update, the financial report, the committee reports, the events discussion… Bass club meetings that are all business can turn dreadfully dry, resulting in inattentive members, poor attendance or even club atrophy. Business is business, and that’s true whether it’s a club of bass fishermen, quilters or astronomy nuts.

While an efficiently run business meeting can go a long way toward keeping meetings from becoming total drags, an appealing alternative is to build every meeting around a quality program and making the business meeting portion a smaller piece of a more interesting event, which no one really minds.

The virtue of planning good programs goes way beyond making meetings bearable, though. Quality programming will attract new members and guests and promote fellowship in the club that extends beyond tournament day. Members will anticipate entertainment and education and will plan their personal schedules around meeting dates. As importantly, good program planning allows a bass club to serve an educational function, whether the learning is by the membership alone or a broader slice of the community in attendance.

Consistently good meeting programs don’t just happen, though. Putting together a quality schedule requires quite work, with jobs that range from researching potentially good program to inviting presenters and coordinating details to letting members know what they can anticipate. The entire club can (and, in fact, should) participate in the process through suggestions and sharing of contacts, but someone has to take charge as the primary program planner.

Finding Programs

Before digging too deep into the actual planning, it’s a good idea to survey your club’s desires, whether formally or simply through casual conversations. Do they want to learn from the person in the front of the room or would they rather enjoy vicarious trips to faraway fishing destinations or otherwise be entertained? Hopefully, they favor a mix because that opens more scheduling options.

Educational programs can come in many forms. The most obvious is fishing how-to, catered to the level of the anglers in your club, or where-to fishery details about a river or lake that’s on the club’s schedule. Either could come from within your own ranks if someone has specialized knowledge, or from an area guide or tournament angler. While nationally touring pros generally maintain pretty packed schedules and might be tough to lasso, many tournament anglers welcome any opportunity to speak to the fishing community and build their sponsorship value.

Looking beyond the straight fishing stuff, state fisheries biologists commonly have management stories that they would like to tell. It could be a tagging study, where tag return reports from fishermen will be important to success, a program that emphasizes the fisheries risks presented by “bait bucket stocking,” or possibly an update on a targeted management plan for a particular lake. In addition to the state agencies, private conservation organizations quite commonly have stories that they want to get out to fishermen.

Among the best ways to find these types of programs is to search on-line. Begin with your state wildlife department’s website and see what messages seem to be emphasized or stories are told for your part of the state. Also, follow links from the fisheries division pages, as these will commonly alert you to other potential programs. Then do searches with area lake names and conservation-related key words to see what organizations you find.

Finally, education might entail a more specialized topic, such as “Teaching Bass Fishing to Newcomers,” “Collecting Antique Fishing Lures” or “Fly-Fishing for Bass.” Again, consider expertise that exists within your own club and ask other club members for program ideas and source leads, providing examples to help get the thought process moving. Other potential program providers include writers or radio hosts in your area and tackle shop or resort owners and/or operators.

Crossing over to the entertainment side, think about the fish tales you’ve heard club members or other fishing friends tell and consider which of those might have broader appeal. Most anglers would love to travel to Canada to fish a fly-in lake or to Brazil to battle peacock bass. If actually making the trips themselves isn’t realistic, the next best thing might be hearing someone else’s stories and hopefully looking at some photos.

Given the high quality and small size of today’s point-and-shoot digital cameras, many anglers carry one everywhere they go and could easily put together a computerized “slide show” of images from a favorite trip. Actually, trips don’t have to be exotic. Given good photos and the ability to tell a story well, even a fine day of fishing on a local lake can become material for an enjoyable program.

Of course if you put together a solid schedule of programs that mostly provide education, you can get away with an occasional meeting program that’s purely entertaining, such as a mini concert by a local bluegrass group or a barbecue night, where everyone gets a turn telling a fishing story or sharing a fishing tip with other club members.

Setting the Schedule

The first thing to keep in mind when you’re planning a program schedule is that sooner is always better than later when you’re asking someone to volunteer time. Plan ahead and talk with would-be program presenters several months in advance, if possible. Provide a few options, when you can, so you can work at their convenience.

As you make program plans, provide presenters with as much information as possible. Let them know how the program portion fits into the overall program, the setting, the availability of audio-visual equipment, how many members you expect, and whether there’s an opportunity to invite more of the public.

Assuming you have no budget to pay a speaker (which is normally the case with bass clubs), be sure they know that up front. Hopefully, you can at least offer dinner. Many possible speakers will be willing to share with a club simply because they want to help. For others, having a captive audience of bass fishermen provides a benefit, whether they are biologists who have stories to tell or resort owners who want to promote fishing on their lake.

Once you’ve scheduled a speaker, it’s always a good idea to follow up in writing, whether by mail or by e-mail. Provide a written record of the time and place and anything they need to know, such as which door to come in, and how long they should plan to speak. Also, be sure to include your complete contact information in case anything changes with their plans or they need to get in touch with you about special needs.

On meeting days, be on the lookout for program presenters and be quick to greet them, introduce them to other club members, and to make sure they know when and where they will be presenting their program. It can be disconcerting to arrive at a meeting as a stranger and to have to slip in with the crowd and assume someone will call on you when it’s time to talk.

Finally, take time to send a thank you note soon after every program, and, if possible, share a few encouraging comments from other club members. Even if a program is done by another member, it’s important to let them know that their willingness to share is appreciated and that they benefitted the club with what they had to say.

Get With the Program.captions

MP-1 to MP-3 – Local guides and tournament anglers can be excellent resources for meeting program planning.  Billy Blakely, a long-time guide at Tennessee’s Reelfoot Lake, commonly presents programs to local clubs, either about the lake or about fishing tactics.

*MP-4 to MP-6 – State fisheries department biologists often have stories to tell about area management work and can provide interesting programs.  Photo courtesy of the Georgia Wildlife Resources Division.

-MP-5 to MP-7 – Club members who have traveled to far-away places to fish can provide other members with vicarious experiences through photos and fish tales.

*These are borrowed images, so I cannot say where they could have been published.