Blog-Publisher’s Opinion Column – Should the ERA merge into the IRgA?

Several months ago, when I attended the IRgA Winter 2013 Board of Directors meeting, I suggested to the IRgA Board that it take on the project of convincing the Eastern (Regional) Reprographics Association (ERA) to merge with (merge into) the IRgA.

Certainly just my opinion, but it makes little sense to have two reprographics industry associations in operation, when it is difficult, at best, to get reprographers to engage and participate in one reprographics industry association.  And, two can live cheaper than one.

There were, at one time, several “regional” reprographics associations; Western, Mid Central, Mid-South, Southeastern and Eastern. (Sorry, but I may have missed a couple of them.)  The Southeastern and Eastern merged to form the Eastern that remains in existence today. The others folded.

Last August 1^st, when I assumed the role of Managing Director of the IRgA, the IRgA converted from “company” to “individual” membership.  On August 1^st, the IRgA had around 230 “individual” members.  On May 31^st, the day I left the IRgA Managing Director post, the IRgA had 715 individual members.   I have no idea how many members the ERA has.

The IRgA has over $500,000 in cash and investments, which is what allows the IRgA to carry on.  Memberships are free, so there’s no revenue from memberships.  There are, thankfully, 5 IRgA Sponsors, which helps somewhat, but what’s helped the IRgA this past year is a healthy investment climate for the funds the IRgA has invested in various types of investments.  I have no idea how much money the ERA has, but I suspect that “it ain’t broke”; the latter, apparently, was the case with the other regionals that folded.  Combining the financial resources of the IRgA and the ERA makes a lot of sense, at least it does to me.

If you visit the ERA web-site (eastrepro.com), there isn’t any current information on the ERA web-site, so I kind of wonder, what reason would anyone have to visit the ERA web-site? Especially, since Ed Avis, the content provider for the ERA web-site is now the Managing Director of the IRgA.

When I took over as Managing Director of the IRgA last summer, I looked at the web-site “visitor” statistics and found that, during the six prior months, there were, on average, less than 20 log-ins per month.  Due to the absence of current information, there wasn’t any reason to visit the IRgA web-site. 

However, for some *unknown reason, IRgA web-site visitor activity increased after I took over as Managing Director; see table below for the approximate (or exact) number of log-ins during the time period I was the Managing Director.  (*Well, I guess web-site visitor activity increased because membership increased; after all, the cost of membership was reduced to zero!)

Months	Year	Visitor Log-ins
Jan-Jul	2012	mo avg, prox <20
Month	Year	Visitor Log-ins
Aug	2012	prox 640
Sep	2012	prox 600
Oct	2012	prox 800
Nov	2012	prox 600
Dec	2012	prox 500
Jan	2013	1,022
Feb	2013	615
Mar	2013	609
Apr	2013	431
May	2013	411

I believe that the number of log-ins increased, substantially over what they had been, because we posted “current” content, primarily on the two blogs that we put up on the IRgA web-site (Reprographics 101 and the IRgA Member Blog) and because the IRgA and Repro 101 conducted a Winter Survey of Reprographers and because we published a series known as “Masters of the Reprographics Business.”  Now that Ed Avis has taken over as Managing Director of the IRgA and has gone to the trouble of designing a brand new, awesome-looking IRgA web-site (IRgA Today), I certainly hope that interest in visiting the IRgA web-site will increase over what it was the past year.  You have no idea how hard it is to come up with relevant content, especially when few Reprographers care to contribute content (or even ideas for content.)  But, then again, Ed is an experienced publisher, and I’m positive he can do well, if not great.

Back to the idea of the ERA and the IRgA merging together, if it is difficult to get industry participants to engage in one industry association (the IRgA), it’s even more difficult to get industry participants to engage in two different industry associations, especially when one of those associations (the ERA) isn’t coming up with relevant content.  The ERA held its annual convention and mini-trade show in April in Panama City, FL, and, although I’m sure everyone who attended had fun (and learned at least something), the fact that people from only about 15 reprographics companies attended is, to me, a dismal turnout.

If the IRgA and ERA merge, then perhaps that might be an appropriate point in time for the IRgA to create regional “reprographer clubs” (pun intended), where reprographers within each region get together once or twice a year …. To play golf (get it, clubs?) and to discuss business and how things are going.  No regional newsletters, no regional web-sites, no regional budgets, just regional get-togethers in a very informal setting.

That’s it for my “opinion” column.