2021 Statement of Intent - Charles Procter

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My name is Charles Procter. I am announcing my candidacy for a position on the board of DMS.

I am a retired professional engineer and diving instructor. I spent over 20 years in the international oil industry. For a large part of my adult life I have been involved in activities where both indecision and poor decision making came at a high cost.

I ran for the board two years ago, when we had over 2200 members. At that time the candidates were asked where they saw the DMS in 5 years.

The other candidates predicted a membership of 2600 and preparing to acquire a building for our next expansion. I predicted that DMS would be out of business. We now have less than 1300 members, are less than 250 members from cash flow insolvency and we aren’t at half time yet. When we reopened 300 days ago we had approximately 1290 members we now have 1281.

The expansion has been a selling point for 3 years. It has been noted that progress has been touted 1 month before each board election. It is now two years behind schedule.

I note that in a recent post it was lamented that when help was sought to move equipment and tidy up there were only two volunteers. This is a direct consequence of the de facto destruction of the sense of community.

It has been noted that the board is noticeably absent from the space. If the board of directors are unable to spend time on site, even for board meetings, how can they reasonably expect members to spend time there.

As a member of the board I plan to spend no less time than I currently do on site.

I plan to bring a more pragmatic view to the board, focused on achieving greater member satisfaction, higher retention and growth, by providing the committee chairs with greater autonomy to improve their experience and consequently that of the members.

I will bring my experience with physical project operations to restart the expansion process, correctly, with the assistance of the chairs.

I will revisit the alcohol policy and propose that alcohol be permitted as a privilege at posted events, and that the hosting entity be responsible.

I recognize that this is a service institution. The members give the institution money and expect a return from it. Therefore they are customers, they are also the commodity on offer. If the institution is to survive it is imperative that the board cause the institution to meet the expectations the members.

Endorsements: Tim Bene