By Tamara Scott, TRAG President
The TRAG Board has been discussing increasing the cost of our annual dues. No one is sure when the last dues increase was, so it is obviously time! We also wanted to start offering some incentives for members who volunteer their time to help TRAG run and continue to provide three awesome show opportunities for our artists as well as community artists. After much discussion at our Board meeting, we have decided on the following:
1. The new membership fee will be $40 for the year.
2. GOLD MEMBERSHIP! All Board members (elected and appointed positions) will automatically become Gold Members since they volunteer their time for the entire year. You can become a Gold Member after volunteering for TRAG activities 3 times.
Gold Member perks are:
a. No jury fee for any of our shows.
b. 25% discount on booth fees for all of our TRAG shows throughout the year.
You may be asking yourself, “what are the volunteer opportunities?” Well, here are some examples of volunteer opportunities with TRAG:
a. Help set up and clean up for our monthly meetings. Arrive 30 minutes before the meeting starts and rearrange the tables and chairs (the tables and chairs are always set up in a horseshoe fashion, so the tables need to be moved to the side and chairs need to be set up in rows). After the meeting, the tables and chairs need to be put back as they were found, and all folding chairs put back on the chair racks in the back of the room.
b. Run for and get elected to a Board position (President, VP, Secretary, or Treasurer)
c. Get appointed to a non-elected Board position (membership coordinator, volunteer coordinator, public-relations coordinator, website coordinator, art gallery coordinator(s) (once we have a gallery again), marketing, Oregon City Fesitval of the Arts chair, Holiday Show chair.
d. Volunteer to help with one of our shows:
- Be a part of the show committee
- Place signs around town before the show
- Pick up signs after the show
- Volunteer the day of the show to booth sit for artists so they can take a break, deliver water and snacks to artists, any other duties needed by the
- show committee.
- Work at a booth representing TRAG at the Oregon City Farmer’s Market, West Linn Wednesday Markets, Concerts in the Park, etc. (These are opportunities available to TRAG and could help increase our membership, but we haven’t taken advantage of them yet due to lack of volunteers to help
- with these activities).
e. Write a grant!
These are just some of the volunteer opportunities with TRAG. We need to increase member involvement in all of our activities which will, in turn, grow our amazing organization!
We will be voting on this proposed dues increase at our November meeting, so please plan on attending, or email me (president@threeriversartistguild.com) your vote before the meeting on November 7 th . If you have any questions or concerns about this proposed change, please don’t hesitate to come to the meeting to discuss your questions and/or concerns, or email me.
