Hello all, this isn’t another request for membership but a small suggestion on how to get the ‘ball rolling’ so to speak. I have no idea what plans anyone currently has but it seems to me that the association currently exists only in name. It also appears that the association has been growing in numbers steadily for the last few months. How many members are there now Alex? My idea was to start developing the association into a ‘proper’ entity that can provide some benefits to its members. What I mean by this is perhaps (just to begin) a newsletter including articles, reviews, information, photographs, stories, history, advertisements & generally snuff-related stuff filling its pages which could be written by members, for members. It could be posted here on the site for viewing or could be emailed out every couple of months or something like that. Thats just to get the ball rolling. All sorts of avenues might open up later on. Perhaps we could arrange meets and things like that…don’t want to run before we can walk though. These are merely ideas which perhaps have been suggested before. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions please post them here for discussion…PS sorry if i’m stepping on any toes Alex!
I would happily contribute but just to play devil’s advocate, what would be on it that isn’t on this site? I really think the starting point for all of this should be the establishment of an association committee so that the aims and objectives of the ISTA can be agreed and then taken forward by the voting members. All properly founded associations and clubs have a governing body or group. Without this there will not be any direction. A newsletter is a good idea but I don’t think it can happen first or on it’s own, because it should be a newsletter about what’s happening in the ISTA. Roderick flagged up some ideas in an earlier post about the ISTA conferring some kind of benefit amongst it’s members - whether discount on snuff or whatever, and this could only happen with a formal set up. Whilst the notion of committees’ etc is a turn off for most people, they do serve an important purpose for the type of group that has been proposed. The problem is that all this will have to happen in the virtual world, although that shouldn’t be insurmountable. If you are interested in getting the ball rolling I suggest canvassing the wider forum for potential committe members. Personally, I would offer the chair to either Troutstroker or Roderick; TS because of his vast knowledge, Rodercik because of his standing in the industry. I don’t think much will happen without some kind of move along these lines. The alternative will just exist along the basis we already have.