It has become pretty obvious in the past few years that our chapter’s membership has decreased, as has attendance at meetings and participation in events. Our local chapter was launched in December 2013 as a “restart” of the previous Hood River chapter and at one point we had 25+ members.
In chatting with those who attended the March 14, 2022 meeting, life is changing for many of us and affecting our time/interest in OWA:
- Some of us are getting MORE involved with other agricultural organizations/groups
- Some are getting advanced degrees/planning career changes/adding “side gigs” or businesses
- Some are retiring and wanting to simplify their schedules
- Some are having kids and finding out how demanding parenting and life can be
- Some of us are shifting gears/priorities in our personal/work lives
As a result, we decided that our Columbia Gorge chapter members would like to:
- Reduce our chapter’s level of activities and programming
- Eliminate in-person meetings and simply use email
- Focus only on offering a high school scholarship, sponsor a teacher for Summer Ag Institute, and one fund-raiser such as the cobbler/ice cream event in Dufur
- Individuals may continue as paid members of state OWA
We understand and agree this means our chapter will not be meeting the state OWA requirements for receiving future chapter funding of $1000 per year.
Cindy Brown will remain as President and head up email communications. Deanna Sudan will take over as Treasurer and her home address will continue to be our chapter’s mailing address for correspondence and official OWA mail.