And how I found it

Since joining AGDA in late 1994, I did on occasion have reason to ask the question: "What made me do it?"

When I listened to all the logical arguments about supporting a common body, and advancing design as a discipline etc., I could think that I had actually made the right decision to keep on paying my membership fees on time each year. Still, all logic aside, what I was often left asking is "What's in it for me?"

Why did I bother forking out the membership fees each year to an organisation who can't even get a magazine out to its membership on time?! Surely, as AGDA is the representative body for professionals who deal in communicating, they could find a way of getting designers to talk with one other? Provide me with a chance to advance my career a tad? Maybe they could even help me with running a design studio? These thoughts and others would prance joyfully through my brain as I sat at my ergonomic work station and waited for AGDA to bring the best of the design-world to me.

After waiting a while it occurred to me that maybe the design-world was not going to land nicely and neatly in my in-tray, no matter how much I rubbished the organisations I belong to. So I decided that I would show 'em all, got up out of my ergonomic chair and marched straight to the telephone - and ordered pizza, to help pass the time while I waited. A little while after I had cleaned the last crumbs from the pizza box I became so fed up that I actually drove myself to an AGDA seminar so that I could speak to someone about the overdue delivery of my design-world.

To my horror I found a large group of designers and other professionals, socialising and enjoying the fruits of the bar before attending a session on legal advice regarding copyright. It was disconcerting that the only person I recognised was Gary Wilson, gesturing with a sloshing glass of lemonade while chatting with a group in the corner. However, seeing as I had bothered to travel all this way from West Melbourne, I scanned the room and approached the guy who had introduced the session speaker. I let him know that I was a paid-up AGDA member and related the full scope of my observation of AGDA's shortcomings.

He took this all in calmly and then asked me if I had ever attended an AGDA function before. "Of course not!" I exploded; so he invited me to attend the next one and then went on to explain that my story was not uncommon - as with my pizza, some members expect the benefits of AGDA to land on their plate. So that's how I became an "active" AGDA member.

There are many in the AGDA community who haven't accessed the full range of things that AGDA provides, partly because there hasn't yet been a clear membership strategy produced by AGDA. This is a challenge that we are now addressing. While all the best efforts are being made at committee level, there is still a great deal of apathy out there in the 'burbs, which is the major thing undermining any attempt at creating and maintaining a community, particularly a creative community. So as a previously disappointed AGDA member, one of my goals now is to see all the members of our community get value for their membership.

There is a range of direct and indirect benefits that are being developed, and if you as an AGDA member have anything you would like to get out of the community, or if you're feeling ignored by AGDA then don't wait to be asked.

I'm asking...make yourself known.

The email, the fax, or even that new plug-in that's been developed for contacting other people: the phone, are all ways of getting listened to. With all the different AGDA experiences that are out there I'm hoping I may even get enough material to begin an "AGDA" column!

Blair Cameron has just entered his third fun-filled year as an AGDA Victoria Councillor. To contact him use these details:
Ph. 03 9329 4575
Fx. 03 9326 8411
Email blair@fishcomnet.com.au