TFA Nashville - September 2007 Meeting Recap

[TGO David]

Recap of the September 18, 2007 Meeting

Standard Meeting Date & Time

Several key things were accomplished tonight, not the least of which was the decision to establish a set date and time at the Nashville chapter will meet from this point forward. That date and time is to be the 3rd Tuesday of Every Month from 6:30pm - 8:00pm at the A.P.P.S facility.

Unless an announcement is sent out superseding this for a given month, that meeting date, time and place stands. This should alleviate any future confusion over whether there is a meeting and when it is. The answer will be YES there is a meeting, and it's at 6:30pm on the 3rd Tuesday. The only exception would be if this fell on a holiday of some sort.

Communication Is Key

One of the things we've complained about here is that communication from the TFA regarding the Nashville chapter seems to have been lacking. I'm going to take John Harris up on his challenge to not just cajole from the sidelines and will be getting together with him this week to try and facilitate good communication to the greater Nashville TFA members on things pertinent to the chapter.

I don't know if this means that Nashville will be represented in TFA email alerts or what. But it does mean that -- for the interim at least -- I am going to make it my personal responsibility to keep the Nashville members informed electronically.

Electing Club Officers

It was also decided tonight that the TFA Nashville chapter will kick off 2008 by electing officers. All posts will be up for election, including that of the chapter President ... a declaration made by Perry, the incumbent President himself.

The January 2008 meeting will consist partially of taking nominations for the various offices. After nominations are taken and that part of the meeting is closed, there will be a guest speaker. Several ideas for the speaker were tossed around, one of which being a member of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations. Perhaps we could get him to tell us more about the "instant background checks" ...

The February 2008 meeting will consist of each candidate for offices being given a set amount of time to tell us all why they feel that they are the person for the position they are applying for. Immediately following, elections will be held and officers will be appointed.

The posts up for election will be:

• Chapter President or Chairman
  
• Chapter Vice President or Vice Chairman
  
• Secretary / Treasurer
  
• Sargent at Arms

If you're interested in any of these, you should get involved and definitely be there for the January and February meetings.

The Long Term Plan

Quite a few ideas for guest speakers and chapter projects were tossed around tonight. More ideas will certainly be generated as more people get involved and obviously more people will get involved as the chapter holds productive, informative meetings.

I think the general consensus tonight was that (a.) having a set date and time for meetings and (b.) electing officers to lead the chapter for 2008 were important things that will greatly shape the future of things.

October 2007 Meeting Plan

So what's up for October...

When: Tuesday, October 16th at 6:30pm

Where: Academy of Personal Protection and Security

We are hoping that John Harris, TFA's Executive Director and lawyer extraordinaire, will join us once again but this time have a topical presentation followed by a Q&A session. I have yet to speak with Mr. Harris about any of this (sorry, John) but at least one idea was to have him speak on the subject of what you should do immediately following a self-defense shooting.

I'm sure many of us would like to hear a lawyer's perspective on this... especially if that lawyer happens to be one who has been as instrumental in shaping some of our recent gun laws as Mr. Harris has.

So there you have it. The Nashville chapter is alive and moving forward. But like any newly formed (or re-formed) venture, the success of this chapter depends on people getting involved. That part is up to you.

.......

If any of you were also present tonight and have anything to add to this or corrections to make to what I've said, please post in this thread. I very easily could have mistakenly reported something inaccurately. It's been a long day.

[TGO David]

By the way... I really want to emphasize that me helping out with the communication area is absolutely an interim thing. January is the time for people to seek an appointed office and I'm not planning on nominating myself for anything. I just hate to see this fledgling effort fail before it gets off the ground and communication is one thing I can facilitate pretty easily via the Internet.

Hopefully this is a duty that can be transitioned off to an elected officer (or appointed to someone by the officers) after February.

[dunndw]

I think you did a fine job of reporting on the meeting. We (Tungsten and I) I think drove home some of the frustrations we've all posted here...lack of any type of communication being one of the biggies. I left the meeting last night actually feeling pretty good about the chapter...instead of wondering why I wasted an hour and a half of my night again.

[Guest Len]

This was good to hear. I was teaching last night and so could not make it, but I can be there on 10/16 and will be there. I also plan on attending in Jan/Feb and maybe throwing my hat in the ring for something. Probably not Chair (too busy with other stuff) but willing to help as I can.

Dunndw and I exchanged some PMs where I laid out my plans for organizing TFA/Nashville and Dunndw critiqued and added on to them. I'm uber-busy right now, so Danny, can you dig that out and add it here? I've gotta get to work...

[TGO David]

09/19/07 9:25am

I have sent Mr. Harris an email this morning explaining a little about what transpired last night and seeking access to the TFA list-serv so that Nashville chapter announcements can be sent out to the existing TFA mailing list subscribers.

Memphis and Knoxville already do this. Chattanooga does as well? I can't remember. Anyway... it seems that this is the most obvious, direct way to get news about things pertinent to the Nashville chapter to the people who are already signed up to receive TFA alerts.

If John can make this happen for us, I'll get an email put together ASAP and get it out to everyone on the list announcing the October meeting date and time.

[dunndw]

Here's what Len and I were discussing:

The way I see it, the following must be done:

1) Get access to the TFA email list.

2) Get access to/generate a directory of middle TN members of TFA (mail, email, phone)

3) Set a meeting & publicize it. (MANY free ways)

4) Have a speaker. Possibilities:

-politicians

-LEO-types (Serpas or someone from metro/nearby)

-Famous firearms advocate/shooter/maker (maybe Mr. Barrett or someone from his company?)

-new product demos (bring in Joe from Hero Gear, have Buford talk about new APPS classes, etc...)

5) Have food/ask people to bring a dish.

6) Set an agenda for each meeting and for the group as a whole. What do we want to be? Social? Advocacy? Shooting activities? All/none?

Typical meeting agenda:

6p-630: Meet & greet & eat/social half-hour

630-640 call to order, pledge, welcome, agenda

640-710 speaker

710-730 ACTION (what do we want to do next, set next meeting, set fun activity, etc.)

730 adjourn (people can stay and chat if they wish)

Possible 2007-2008 agenda for TFA

now-end 2007 --fun/social/guns/planning

early 2007-June --track TN legislative session, be political in state

June-end of year --fun/social/events

After speaking to Tungsten...looks like we're pretty much on the same page

[TGO David]

I was talking to Hornet Handler (Angelo) about this earlier today. We have a game plan for October now and November should be easy enough to accomplish and keep the momentum going as we head toward the home stretch for 2007.

If anything, November can be a strategy session / round-table where we generate some ideas for events in 2008. Good time for snacks but we still try to keep it productive even though everyone's going to start having Holidayitis.

December is probably going to be a bust as far as getting the max # of members together since so many Christmas oriented events are going on that month. What most clubs tend to do is just replace the regularly scheduled meeting with an informal get-together / dinner / social time at a local restaurant. We could even make it fun and have a Dirty Santa Gift Exchange. I wouldn't expect much "business" to get accomplished in December.

Then the chapter could really kick things into get with January & February and push forward into 2008 on full throttle.

[Guest Len]

Sounds good. Maybe several of us can meet for some dinner before the meeting on the 16th and chat.

And Danny, thanks for digging that stuff out for me. Crazy day...

I was talking to Hornet Handler (Angelo) about this earlier today. We have a game plan for October now and November should be easy enough to accomplish and keep the momentum going as we head toward the home stretch for 2007.

If anything, November can be a strategy session / round-table where we generate some ideas for events in 2008. Good time for snacks but we still try to keep it productive even though everyone's going to start having Holidayitis.

December is probably going to be a bust as far as getting the max # of members together since so many Christmas oriented events are going on that month. What most clubs tend to do is just replace the regularly scheduled meeting with an informal get-together / dinner / social time at a local restaurant. We could even make it fun and have a Dirty Santa Gift Exchange. I wouldn't expect much "business" to get accomplished in December.

Then the chapter could really kick things into get with January & February and push forward into 2008 on full throttle.

[dunndw]

no problem Len...I understand. It's almost 10pm and I'm running data recovery utilities on a client laptop.