PROBE annual report

As PROBE President, in December I sent an annual report to the Society board for their mid-winter meeting. Just a few of the points that were mentioned in it, and which some of you may be interested in, are the following. The report was four pages long, so the introduction and many points have not been repeated here.

During the annual PROBE meeting in Atlanta, two candidates were inducted into the PROBE Hall of Honor, all previous living members of the PROBE Hall of Honor were presented a lapel badge recognizing this achievement. They were advised that they were to wear it with pride at Society and district functions. Many judges were presented with certificates for judging five, 10 or 15 years.

Awards were mailed to all those who received an award and were not present to accept it, including the badges. PROBE has undertaken to promote membership in this organization, as well as better explain what it is that we do and the benefits of joining PROBE. A committee chaired by John Sugg produced and sent a flyer to all recipients of the Update. This generated a lot of new members and is still generating more interest in PROBE. Additional brochures and flyers are being considered.

Grant Carson has been instrumental in contacting many more individuals and, if they are not members of PROBE, he has had them send in their five dollars for a year's membership to our secretary/treasurer. Unfortunately, some of these have not received their copies of PROBEmoter (which is one of the main reasons for joining). It appears that it may be a problem with the computer program that stores our data in Kenosha. We are working on trying to overcome the problem and it should be rectified shortly.

This year, the PROBE president again contacted all district presidents and asked them to appoint a PROBE contact for the upcoming contests. For those district presidents who did not respond, we contacted the previous person acting as contact in those districts to see if they would be willing to act as the contact again and they all agreed. This has enabled the two vice-presidents to send information to these contacts in advance of the start of the contests. It should allow all districts to better coordinate the contests and allow all those eligible and interested to enter the contests.

I am pleased that we have finally established a Web presence for PROBE thanks to Arnold Wade, our Webmaster. The address is www.harmonize.com/probe/ and the site gives us the recognition as a viable presence on the Internet, providing useful information to Barbershoppers in general, and particularly to bulletin editors.

After discussion and initial planning at the July 1998 International Convention, PROBE's presence on the Internet became a reality in mid August. The web site is still in development, but it presently contains 55 pages under six separate categories, including "About PROBE," "AIDS for Bulletin Editors," "Bulletins Online," "Contests," "Membership" and the first issue of "PROBEmoter Online."

Thanks to our new editor of the PROBEmoter, John W. Petterson, we were able to publish an issue of our newsletter, the PROBEmoter each quarter in 1998. Our previous editor, Tom Pearce, published the first three issues and John Petterson volunteered to become the new editor and published our fourth issue. He is doing an excellent job and is attempting to make the PROBEmoter a more effective communications tool, thus increasing the effectiveness of our communications within PROBE. We see PROBEmoter continuing as a strong, ongoing support for chapter public relations officers and bulletin editors with the active interest of all those involved. We are looking ahead for PROBEmoter to be a positive influence on chapters' communications and public activities and exposure.

Under the direction of our Vice President for Bulletin Editors, Grant Carson, during 1998 PROBE ran two contests for chapter bulletin editors. The first chapter bulletin editor contest was to choose a Bulletin Editor of the Year (BETY) for each district. I am pleased that in 1998 each district was represented in the BETY.

Working with the district PROBE contacts, we assisted the districts in conducting BETY contests in all 16 districts by providing judges and coordination.

PROBE encouraged districts to provide a category of bulletin judging, for editors not confident enough for full competition, where editors may receive advice only or advice with a score, but the score is not to be published.

PROBE coordinated the updating of score sheets for bulletin contests and published new editions for all three judging categories.

We provided an opportunity for bulletin judges to judge one bulletin, compare scores and discuss differences in scoring with category specialists to provide more consistent scoring of bulletins.

The second contest for bulletin editors that PROBE administered was the annual International (Society) Bulletin Contest (IBC), run by the IBC Chairman, Dick Girvin who also is PROBE's immediate past president. It was conducted with entries provided by the top two bulletins from each of the 16 districts qualifying for entry. Thirty-one out of a possible 32 (97%) entries were received by the IBC chair for distribution to the IBC judges. It was a close battle since only 18.1 points out of a total of two thousand separated the top two editor's entries. Judging of the bulletins entered in the IBC differs from that of the BETY in that three judges of each discipline review the nine copies of each entry. District bulletin contests assign a single judge for each discipline.

A new trophy was offered for the first time this year: The Dick Girvin Most Improved Bulletin Award. This recognition had been provided as information only for the past several years, but with the resolution of the PROBE Executive Committee, the award was formally established, named after the current PROBE Immediate Past President and current IBC Chair, Dick Girvin. A suitable trophy was created and awarded to the 1998 winner of the most improved bulletin. His efforts for 1998 represented the largest point increase over the entry of the previous year the criteria for the award.

The PROBE Vice President for Marketing and Public Relations, John Sugg, again conducted a Public Relations Officer of The Year (PROTY) contest. Three entries were received. Two awards were presented at the PROBE annual meeting in Atlanta. One was for a one-time event and the other for a yearlong public relations promotion. The entries demonstrated that chapters are actively promoting barbershopping in their areas. The winners received plaques at the PROBE annual meeting.

PROBE plans on making the members within the Barbershop Harmony Society more aware of PROBE and what it can do for them. Last year an insert was included with an UPDATE. But even with the insert and the listing on annual statements from Kenosha, vast numbers of leaders are unaware of PROBE.

PROBE has some of the most experienced communicators in this Society as members. We feel that we can help increase the efficiency of communications within the Society, between chapters and districts, as well as within the general public. Many Barbershoppers are working hard at getting the information about the Society out to the general public and are doing a very good job of this. Other chapters require a little assistance in achieving effective communications.

The executive of PROBE feels that with our experienced members, there should be a course for bulletin editors in each district's COTS. The bulletin is vital to keeping the lines of communications open within the chapter and the chapter member's family. Without this vital source of internal communications, chapters often find it difficult to grow. They also may lose members because the member did not know what was happening within the chapter. PROBE is willing to work with the Society to ensure that a COTS class for editors is offered at each district's COTS class beyond the one-hour elective class that is now offered under the new system. We would like to see it become a regular class such as the public relations or secretary classes are.

Some chapter communicators, both internal communications through the bulletin editors and external communications through the membership and marketing vice-presidents, require some additional help in getting the right information out to the right people. PROBE is investigating to see if we can offer any assistance in training or advice, since we have some of the best trained members in the field of communications as members of PROBE.

PROBE anticipates an exciting year ahead and looks forward to trying to increase better communications throughout the chapters, as well as helping to make the chapters better known within their communities. We have experienced that e-mail makes it much easier to communicate within PROBE and with Society members within the districts. However, we will always consider those who do not have e-mail or web access and will continue to print information for them also.