Aarp Chapters Struggle To Hold, Attract Members

Until just recently, the Spokane Valley had the largest chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons in this area, with hundreds of members.

But a few months ago, its president, James C. Osman, publisher of the Senior Times newspaper, died unexpectedly.

“The chapter couldn’t find anyone who wanted to take his place,” says Evelyn Meili, coordinator of AARP chapters in the 10th District of Eastern Washington.

Membership in the Spokane Valley dwindled. The chapter disbanded.

Other chapters in the district, too, are experiencing eroding membership, inability to attract volunteer leadership, and general lack of interest, reports Meili. She is responsible for building membership in a broad area stretching from Pullman to Deer Park.

But she’s just a volunteer. The AARP’s paid staffers are all located in Seattle.

“My own chapter (Spokane Falls) has 70 members,” she says, “but only about 15 or 20 show up for meetings.”

At a recent gathering of the district’s issues educational team, AARP/VOTE, coordinator Frank Yuse ticked off a laundry list of vacancies in the top ranks of state, district, and local volunteer leadership.

Reporting on the health of AARP’s state organization, Yuse concluded, “The whole thing is weak. There are too few staff, not enough support.”

“The national AARP is going through a period of reorganization and reassessment,” Yuse observed. “Although the data show there are 33 million members nationally and 625,000 in our state, these are just names in a computer somewhere for all the good they do us. The reality at the grass roots is that we are finding it extremely difficult to enlist leaders who will help us hold the bottom of the pyramid together.”

District legislative representative Maxine Davis agrees. “A good AARP volunteer leader is very, very hard to find,” she says.

Adds Meili, “We’re shooting fish in a barrel. Lots of people join the national AARP to get insurance and other things like that, and don’t even know that the chapters do things in the communities. We ask for help from higher up to get the word out, but we don’t get much.”

The general sense is that the perceived lack of support stems in large measure from an ongoing national restructuring of the AARP organization and a reordering of its priorities. A transformation is taking place with little understanding by chapter members and volunteers who help run AARP’s programs of where the changes will lead.

“If you are not receiving much useful information, I am not either,” announced Yuse at a recent meeting of his group. “This is at least partly because the people in Seattle have too few volunteers around over there, too, as well as here. In addition, what little staff they have is spread so thin that they can’t respond to our needs.”

In all, the picture painted by these and other volunteer leaders at the community level is not a rosy one. Volunteerism is down. Confusion reigns. Increasingly the granddaddy of American interest groups comes off as a doddering old codger.

Some wonder whether the AARP’s chapters have outlived their membership. Advancing old age makes it increasingly difficult or impossible for an ever-growing segment to continue active.

Younger retirees aren’t joiners. Those who do join a chapter aren’t looking to volunteer. They are looking in other directions. Exactly where, nobody can say.

ARRP’s top leaders themselves don’t seem to have a clear picture of just what actions chapters should be taking to hold and attract members.

“From my accumulated reading,” said Davis, “I gather they (national AARP leaders) are going to push for the formation of interest subgroups within the chapters.”

Mike Rendish, president of the Pullman chapter and past national legislative council member, senses a nationwide shift away from general-purpose “chapters per se.” He foresees a trend toward subgroups that exclusively pursue a single interest such as fashions, photography, computing, skiing, and just going fishing.

Next: State AARP officials are well aware of the upheaval in Spokane, and promise action.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes on retirement issues each Sunday. He can be reached with ideas for future columns at 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review