Kappa Beta Serving the transgendered community since 1988

Hello to all. I hope everyone had a great Father's Day yesterday! The board has been working hard to get ready for this month's meeting! Our meeting this month was delayed by a week, as you all should have known, because of Father's Day last weekend. But this weekend's meeting promises to be special in that we will be having our first, "KB roast" of a member! Please bring enough BBQ sauce! (Ha! Ha!) If things go well, we would like to make this an annual event!

The BOD will be discussing, with all our members, the election committee, as this will be a first here at KB. The election is just around the corner, with nominations taking place in July, the election in August, and the seating of the board in September.

This month I wanted to talk about our policy on new members. The group is always looking to add new members. If we want to grow as a group, we need new members! New members are our lifeline!

All of KB's members should know the process of becoming a member, as we all have gone through that process ourselves. But for those of you that have forgotten, I will explain. First an applicant or potential new member contacts us through email, then we set up a phone interview with them, and then we arrange to meet with them somewhere convenient. After meeting with them we schedule them to attend a meeting if they meet our requirements for attendance. Then they must be voted in by the third meeting.

As you know, some of these applicants want to attend immediately and we want them to attend as soon as possible. A discussion came up the other day about doing different things and going to different places for dinner. Our members have talked about this many times. We keep hearing the same thing over and over again..."If we go to a different place for dinner the new member(s) would not be in a safe environment and they may not want to venture out with us. We could lose them or they could go elsewhere."

As much as the new applicant is important to us, we have to think about the longer-term members of our group as well. We could lose them or they could go elsewhere! The new applicant is told prior to attending their first meeting what our schedule is, what time the meeting starts and what time we go to dinner. If the applicant shows up during the meeting that's great! If they plan to arrive later, we can make plans for someone to meet with them if they let us know in advance. However, if we are at the meeting early and it's time to go to dinner, let's face it: we're hungry! In the past we have made arrangements with new applicants and the members waited around and they didn't show up. It's not fair to anyone to wait around for them and they don't show up.

I hope that the members of this group realize that our attitudes must change from the way we thought in the past, if we want to continue to grow and prosper. We must cater to current members as well because we all need to grow and not become complacent in our lives.

I look forward to seeing everyone at this month's meeting on Saturday!