Why should or shouldn’t I renew my ITEA membership?

[MiBrassFS]

Why should or shouldn’t I renew my ITEA membership?

Discuss.

[bisontuba]

Yes, renew. The cost is minimal...

[bloke]

As my sister (nearly an octogenarian) reminded me a couple of days ago, our Dad taught us that money can be spent only once.

As there are so few grocery shopping choices - these days, one of the few choices left to me is shopping different states (vs. different stores) for groceries.

Now (compared to 2020) that groceries cost double, it won't be (even with only the three of us) but a two or three months whereby we've spent $1000 on food (and no, of course we can no longer afford to eat at restaurants or buy fast food)...but - being only twenty minutes from an adjacent state and only forty minutes from an adjacent state's decent-sized town (whereby I'm 25 minutes from a decent sized town in my own state),

all I have to do is to drive an additional 70 - 100 (highway) miles (a few extra miles in a few round trips) to save $37.50 every time I spend $1000 on groceries.

Additionally - as gasoline is 25 cents per gallon cheaper in that other state's town - the adjacent state will even subsidize my additional gasoline expense to drive there in order to save that $37.50 per $1000 of groceries purchased...

...so - when I decide whether or not to renew ANY subscription to ANYTHING in particular - I think over what I'm getting out of it vs. what it costs me ,and what I could otherwise be purchasing with that same (again: one-time-spent) money.

Is $37.50 better spent on a few 10/lb. bags of chicken thigh quarters and a couple of pounds of store-brand cheese (or perhaps enough food to feed our guard dog for a few weeks), or is it better spent reading articles whereby state-paid studio music teachers (of a type of instrument whereby a hundred people apply for each open job playing that instrument) congratulate themselves on jobs well done, as well as revealing secrets - to those hundred applicants - on how to beat each other out of those rare job openings ?

bloke "not much of a joiner/subscriber, and also not much of an eager subsidizer of others' individually-chosen endeavors, just as others are not of my own"

[arpthark]

My membership lapsed but when I had it I was a big fan of reading through the archives. Some good stuff tucked back in the days of yore.

(Okay, admittedly, I mostly just liked to look at the old ads.)

[bloke]

(Okay, admittedly, I mostly just liked to look at the old ads.)

... same reason people have vast collections of old Playboy magazines..

[dp]

(Okay, admittedly, I mostly just liked to look at the old ads.)

... same reason people have vast collections of old Playboy magazines..

nothin like staring at a lineup of tempting Tennessee Tech MiraFones (photographed in an obviously-cold studio)

[MiBrassFS]

This group, being a fairly active “community,” may be able to provide them valuable input, wanted or not, on how they’re doing.

Although, maybe they’ll always have sufficient numbers of new tuba majors to stay afloat. Or not. Foresight doesn’t seem to be a concern these days.

[UncleBeer]

... state-paid studio music teachers (of a type of instrument whereby a hundred people apply for each open job playing that instrument) congratulate themselves on jobs well done, as well as revealing secrets - to those hundred applicants - on how to beat each other out of those rare job openings

Nailed it.

[russiantuba]

I lead the abstract project, along with frequently doing reviews and sharing ideas.

The new executive director, Bryan Doughty, has transformed the organization in the last year or so making it more relevant and fresher content. Trust me, it used to be quite bad—poor communication, content, mission goals, etc. I can remember other issues in the past like 3 weeks before a conference I was presenting at, I was told it was going to happen, was booking the hotel last minute and found out it was cancelled. The executive director a decade ago wrote my credit card number on a napkin and lost it when buying something, contact information for the important people was incorrectly entered on the website. One president even refused to believe long time members were leaving and letting their membership expire when I spoke with him on the concerns above. Many who left or have a sour taste in their mouth with the organization between 2010 and 2024 should reconsider.

This has all been fixed by Bryan. They are giving monthly newsletters, an active social media presence, and content that interests me now, and content that I wish was in there when I was in school.
I would consider renewing another year if on the fringe of deciding.

[arpthark]

Bryan is awesome and the nicest dude. I was just chatting with him recently. I didn’t realize he was the executive director now. I’m sure he’ll do a bang-up job.

[UncleBeer]

I would consider renewing another year if on the fringe of deciding.

That atrocious Arizona conference in '23 was the last straw. Nope.

[russiantuba]

That atrocious Arizona conference in '23 was the last straw. Nope.

That was before he took over, along with the subsequent regionals. He assured me that the conference process will be totally overhauled starting with the 2026 regionals.

[bloke]

Since T.U.B.A. was ash-canned, I thought there was already a fundamental transformation, yes?

[MiBrassFS]

In nonprofits, executive directors are typically employees that are direct reports to the president and/or the board of directors of the organization. Typically, the executive director doesn’t have independent decision making powers over policy matters, only day to day operations.

How ITEA is structured is unknown to me. I also don’t know the new executive director.

[gocsick]

I am very active in a couple professional societies in science and engineering. The best ones in my mind offer a lot of value to the broader community instead of locking all content and activities behind paywalls for members. Granted my experience with ITEA is rather limited... I attended the MWRTEC last year but that was because I was playing with a community group that got admission waved by Saltzman and Ige.. Here are my thoughts from the perspective of being involved in society leadership and conference organization...

1) Virtually no representation or visibility at the K-12 level. All the scientific societies I belong to have robust outreach activities to school teachers and young students. That includes camps, training materials, etc. There is nothing on the ITEA strategic aims about outreach (https://iteaonline.org/about-itea/) and a google search on outreach doesn't come up with any initiatives either. I mean there are a lot of tuba players out there and we all know band directors stink at teaching people to play tuba... there should be something lead by ITEA to put together resources, lesson materials, bootcamps for band directors, etc. I belong to some fairly niche professional socities (The Microanalysis Society,, International Conference on Texture of Materials...) that have very active outreach programs... why doesn't ITEA? One of the strategic goals is to " Encourage teaching and learning" but nothing is really relevant to the school aged musician or teacher of school aged musicians.

2) Conferences drive society membership. Good conferences make people want to become members. Conferences where only members can attend push people away. How great of an experience would it be for younger players to see the caliber of performances at the regional conferences. Low cost day passes for students, without a prerequisite for membership, would be a great thing for the community. ESPECIALLY FOR REGIONAL CONFERENCES!!

3) Exhibitors are really important parts of the financial success of a conference. If you limit the number of attendees you are also going to limit the number of vendors who are willing to pay. Every conference I have been a part of organizing has had low cost "Exhibit Hall Only" attendance available. I am willing to bet a lot of people who wouldn't normally go to the conference would go for vendors. Especially if it was a $20 day pass... instead of $100 conference registration + $55 ITEA membership. Also people see the vendors, meet people, and then see the program and think "Wow maybe I would like to get a day pass and attend some recitals next time"

4) As an amateur player not affiliated with a school or anything.... I really don't know what I would be getting if I joined.... ITEA has not done a good job of articulating how they are relevant to me.

[russiantuba]

2) Conferences drive society membership. Good conferences make people want to become members. Conferences where only members can attend push people away. How great of an experience would it be for younger players to see the caliber of performances at the regional conferences. Low cost day passes for students, without a prerequisite for membership, would be a great thing for the community. ESPECIALLY FOR REGIONAL CONFERENCES!!

3) Exhibitors are really important parts of the financial success of a conference. If you limit the number of attendees you are also going to limit the number of vendors who are willing to pay. Every conference I have been a part of organizing has had low cost "Exhibit Hall Only" attendance available. I am willing to bet a lot of people who wouldn't normally go to the conference would go for vendors. Especially if it was a $20 day pass... instead of $100 conference registration + $55 ITEA membership. Also people see the vendors, meet people, and then see the program and think "Wow maybe I would like to get a day pass and attend some recitals next time"

I can let you know more if you want, but after a 2 hour call last year on this, here’s how I understand how conferences work for ITEA.

When a host site is chosen, they are given $1000 from ITEA to jumpstart the conference, with some (minimal) support given from the organization. Then, they have free rein on the conference. There is no standardization within the organization. The conferences are required to have members sign up for ITEA, but the admittance cost, invites, format, is up to the individual conference host.

When a conference cancels, for example the 2013 MWRTEC in Platteville, WI, if another takes over the same name, as Illinois State did, it becomes an entirely new conference. I found this out because there were different artists and would have been a great opportunity as a first time presenting, but as the past artists were on a list from prior conferences, I got looked over.
(Yeah, there used to be a list that said invite these people to generate interest, as I was told by a host).

The international ones—I still don’t know if the host institution, the ITEA board, or a mix determines who is invited. I think after the 2023 ITEC, when I asked, no one wants to clearly say on this. I applied for an international one years before this, asked for feedback on my proposal and they gave a generic response, I asked back for specifics, and was told “just try again next time”.

As for the day pass idea, I have floated this one in the 2014 ITEC at Indiana. They were needing photographers and people to do reviews. I wanted to go, had just finished my DMA coursework and didn’t have a position or a studio going yet, and my wife worked in a portrait studio at the time, so I even suggested that we would donate our services for a waiver conference fee. No response. I have known high school directors who have suggested these events to students, but after the fees to join the organization and the conference fees, it gets quite expensive—reaching closer to the level of full week camps once you include potential lodging.

ITEC 2023 did start something that would give educators a professional development day/credit for the conference. It was during finals week and graduations for many schools, but there has been a push.

The things I didn’t quote that you nailed—content. I saw a huge issue that we have no database on scholarly materials outside of the journal, and suggested the idea. It took years (suggested in 2018-19) and right by the time Covid restrictions were easing, and I was getting way busier, we got the project started. Summer goal is to get 50 dissertation abstracts added. The K-12 side I know I ran by someone years ago, and was told the generic “it’s a volunteer organization” response.

One I brought up—when the old forum was slowly dying and getting spammed, I suggested an ITEA hosted forum to someone, can’t find the email so it must have been on a post or in person, and it was shot down. Mark and Parlaw took the opportunity and created this site. When Øystein revamped the site, he included a forum and encouraged people to post on it, connect like on LinkedIn, etc. It was a few years too late.

—————————

I guess where I am going with this is that many of the issues people are suggesting have been suggested. The organization had no action or initiative to act. It felt like a “close knit group of friends helping friends” and if you weren’t in the inner circle, your suggestions were thrown out. This is why it didn’t feel relevant to many, including myself, for over a decade.

I can confirm that Bryan and Øystein are listening. I have talked to them a ton on the issues, ideas. Some (such as the social media, monthly newsletter), conference advertisement, are all some I and others suggested.

Keep bombarding them with these ideas and implementation ideas.

[LeMark]

I enjoyed the Knoxville event, and haven't been to another since. Between covid and the incredibly short sighted choice to put a struggling organization's convention in Spain, I haven't seen a convention I was at all tempted to go to.

No reason to join ITEA if that's the best they can do. Maybe I'll join in 2027 if I like what I see, but they dont offer any value for the money at this time

[bloke]

LOSTT

League of Studio Tuba Teachers

[tofu]

I was a member for a long time starting back in HS in the mid seventies. Harvey always made it a fun organization. For a young member the articles on playing were informative and the articles on some of the greats such as Bill Bell were really interesting. Occasionally there were articles on old instruments which I also found of interest. How to fix stuff articles were always appreciated - especially since there was no internet and no youtube. I remember going to my local library and they had exactly one book that even referenced the tuba - a history book with a picture of a tuba purported to be the first one. But along the way the academics took over more and more and they seemed to squeeze out the folks like Harvey in shaping the group agenda. The journal became bloated with pages and pages of past performance recital programs. Who cares??? Weirdly there was never much in the way of listing future performances - which as a young player I would have attended those in my area. But those listings were probably not possible as the thing was always so late - sometimes the winter issue would arrive in July. Want ads were useless as the stuff had been sold months ago. The ads were interesting, but I couldn’t afford a new or used tuba much less the "Rolls Royce” of tubas.

Every so often they would talk about we have to do something for amateur players and I’d keep my membership current waiting. But nothing ever seemed to materialize. Then they started raising the membership costs - complaining about the cost of postage. And I’d think to myself - why are you publishing it in like 5 languages and sending all in one 50-60 page tomb??? How many Japanese tuba players were members? How many German members etc? I’d search the roster and find just a small percentage of foreign members and I’d think the thing cost so much to mail because 4/5 of it is in languages I don’t need and few members do. Pretty much the rest of the world has English as a second language and quite frankly use it better than a lot of Americans - they could read it in English. A total waste of money to print all those extra pages and to mail it. Again I believe done for academics for other academics.

And then the political correctness started. For me after being a member for well over 25 years the break point was changing the name from TUBA. A name easily recognized by non tuba players and the media etc. No one was asking for it. I never heard one Euphonium player ever complain about the name and even with the name change they still left the Baritone players out in the cold. It’s not like I couldn’t live with a different name it was what the change represented in the culture of the organization. Members were never polled or asked. It’s the kind of thing that all members should have been able to vote on. If a majority of members had said yes then I’d feel it was a change that needed to be done. After that the political correctness really started to ramp up and I realized I got nothing from membership and would just as well keep the cash in my pocket. If changing the name (which they had to spend needless money on to update their printed materials) was so important to be inclusive of Euph players why is it that TubaChristmas still attracts throngs of them? Why haven’t they boycotted and showed up with protests. Where are the raging Euphers closing down the streets and firebombing venues preventing players and audience members from attending? If ITEA organized TubaChristmas it would be called The DEI Winter Sounds of the Season open to all who currently identify as a euphonium or tuba player. They wouldn’t even recognize Christmas. Play the bagpipes or glockenspiel, but identify today as a tuba player —>Come on Down!

Now I will say if they were a professional organization dedicated solely to professionals/academics that would be fine and I wouldn’t have a complaint. But they always tout they are about all tuba/euph players of all levels including kids, those returning to playing and serious amateurs - I’ve yet to see much action towards that - just talk every so often.

[Robson]

LOSTT

League of Studio Tuba Teachers