Interesting meeting!

I attended a meeting of a fledgling organization of guides that specialize in people powered activities today. They feel as though they have not been fairly represented by the existing guides organizations. I think that they are right. However they were so eager to draw lines to exclude members that they will have a hard time generating enough membership to have much political impact. As I sat there and thought that the entire universe of potential members is the 3000 or so Registered Maine Guides in the state. If you then leave out the guides that use vehicles or powerboats to provide their services the possible membership shrinks dramatically. I would venture to guess that they will generate membership of fewer than 100 working guides. Enough for a good organization to be sure (and one that could do a great job on some goals, like offering continuing education) but not much of a force on the larger scale that they aspire to achieve.

I am certain that there is a place for a guides organization that is more inclusive and broadly representative of the industry. There are a number of goals that could be achieved but we can’t get there by steadily dividing ourselves into small and smaller groups. I suppose that many industries suffer from a similar problem of no clear vision of what they all need and little willingness to pull on the rope in the same direction. How do other small businesses deal with this problem?