I hope you have been well since we last communicated. Though you haven’t heard from me in a while, we have accomplished many great things in the past several months which I want to share with you here along with what’s coming down the road.

Since we utilized our ability to do business by email for legislation and board elections prior to our Annual Meeting and officer elections afterwards, rather than conduct our traditional formal agenda, we turned our attention in Denver to a discussion of IBMA’s future. We talked about where we are and what we need to do to be more relevant to the bowling industry and to grow our membership. While the number of people in attendance was low, the ideas were flowing as we captured below:

Board Meeting

Attending were board members Stephanie Davis, Gary Forman, Kevin Hong, and Mark Miller and Operations Manager Steve Lawson.

Steve reported that entering the week, we had 44 individuals, 77 corporate (in 10 companies), and about a dozen life members – approximately 135 overall people who are part of IBMA.

Stephanie noted that each of those membership groups has different needs and see different benefits from being part of IBMA. To best determine what those benefits should be in the future, it was determined we need to survey our members. We are in the process of putting together such a survey thanks to Stephanie and her daughter Natalie who also is an IBMA member. Our goal is to send out a survey in early November with the aim to introduce any new benefits by Jan. 1.

The group also discussed and agreed on conducting multiple board meetings by Zoom or similar methods and not just relying on one annual meeting to talk. This will allow us to address issues faster.

It also was discussed to consider using Zoom/etc. to conduct quarterly educational seminars featuring speakers and other experts to talk about topics like how AI affects us, other communications trends, etc.

We also had lengthy discussions on our Facebook presence. Currently we have a Facebook group open to anyone and anything bowling related and a dormant Facebook page. It was proposed that we resurrect the page to solely promote IBMA programs and services and to change the group to members only for posting and anyone for viewing.

Other topics included additional youth scholarships, business development, special IBMA membership cards, and providing a digital membership list.

MEMBERSHIP MEETING

Kevin, Mark, Gary, and Steve were joined by Keith Hamilton, Paul Lane, Gianmarc Manzione, and Lyle Zikes. Stephanie was not able to attend due to other commitments.

It was noted that after some challenges due to the pandemic in 2020 and changing operations managers three times after the resignation of Jackie Wyckoff in 2020, we had some financial slipups that we are close to completely rectifying in 2024. Keith recommended “getting our current house in order” before expanding any benefits. This included ensuring we return to break even or better financially, and submitting an updated income statement, balance sheet, and SMART account sheet which we plan to do soon.

There also was a discussion on new membership targets including college students, college sports information directors, military centers, and international media. Plus, we talked about seeking and applying for grants.

In talking about the Chuck Pezzano Scholarship, it was noted we should remove the word “career” from our promotional materials since there are very, very few available in today’s media landscape. We want to focus on applicants aiming to do some type of work in the industry whether full-time or part-time. We also discussed if applicants should be nominated or if they should be required to submit a portfolio of their media work to eliminate someone who just bowls wanting a scholarship.

Finally, a couple of general statements that arose from the meeting in part to prove our worth to any skeptics:

1, We promote the sport, the business, the recreation, and the game of bowling to the world.

2, What’s best for bowling is to support IBMA and the bowling media which tell your stories to the world.

TRADE SHOW/GENERAL

While a printed piece on IBMA was included in the 1,200 registration packets (at only the $114 printing costs), disappointingly very few people visited our booth during the two days of the trade show despite being adjacent to the Qubica/AMF area. In fact, hardly anyone mingled in the area in general.

However, thanks to the efforts of Gary, Steve, and Mark, we were able to secure several new individual members and 3-4 additional corporate commitments. We also officially signed an agreement with Storm to renew its $1,500 sponsorship of the collegiate awards with any money remaining to be given to the Pezzano Scholarship. And we started the process that has resulted in Brunswick agreeing to sponsor our major awards beginning next year.

Finally, we discussed resurrecting the Bowler of the Month Award with the key to doing so being finding someone to oversee it.

I sincerely hope this information gives you as much optimism for our future as it does our board. We would welcome any additional thoughts you have on the topics above. We also would like more of you to volunteer to serve on committees for the 2024-2025 season.

Sincerely,
Mark Miller, President