What would
the NRA be without members?
What would
the Republican Party or the Democratic Party be without their respective
members?
What would
the Civil Rights movement have been without its participants?
The answer
to all of these is “much less” or perhaps even “irrelevant”. They would be much
less meaningful in the grand scheme, much less worth our attention and much
less impacting of our daily lives. The Surfrider Foundation aspires to gain the
significance of these groups. We want to become “the voice for
coastal-protection issues”. We want as much weight as possible in our local
voice as we collectively fight to effect change. Frankly put, we’re irrelevant
without a strong membership pool. Without a strong and growing membership we’re
as relevant as the many organizations that don’t make your radar on a daily
basis. We’re white noise.
The
argument to save your local break deserves more than to end up as white noise.
The fight
to monitor and clean our oceans, waves and beaches is too important to end up never
happening.
The crucial
part of addressing all these elements is membership. The linchpin in making us
relevant is our membership. Membership is our blood. New members increase our
relevancy and new activists are bred from this ever-expanding group. In my
opinion, we don’t have a choice other than to grow as fast and as purposefully
as we can. It helps us locally as well as nationally, we all see the coasts
under siege... growing membership is our key response to this challenge.
To me, our
membership “girth” roughly equates to our relevance. It’s
not a direct equation, as the “activist variable” is really what sets us apart
from the pack. The Surfrider Foundation WILL become a fighting voice for
coastal protection. We WILL seize relevance in people’s minds with the power of
the top-of-mind organizations mentioned above. We will do this with your
membership and your commitment to help us build our membership.
We are
45,000 members today. The question in my mind is how fast can we reach 100,000.
We must grow because we need more ammunition to fight coastal battles all over
the nation and eventually outside the United States. Harry’s, a famed
right point break in Baja, Mexico was just bulldozed. I was
asked why that happened. The answer is very, very simple… lack of local
membership and activists. The Pupukea coast on the North Shore of Hawaii is
literally up for sale. It WILL be purchased. The question in my mind is can our
membership influence its purchase to have a strong environmental protection
element to it. On the east coast it’s hard to even get to the beach in many
places due to the insane privatization and lack of beach access. Again,
membership enables the fight for access.
Join me in
our goal of building our membership every single day. The Surfrider Foundation
is much, much larger than any of us. It’s the idea of active, coastal
protection. None of us are here to make a tiny impact. We’re here to fight for
our local breaks and make a difference in what matters most to us. We’re here
to protect the coast.
Join Surfrider
Foundation. If you are already a member, find a way to plug in. If you know
surfers and coastal enthusiasts that aren’t members, ask them to join. As we
enter the final lap of our summer membership push, let’s kick this up a notch or
two.
Put your
time, energy and money to use. Join us.
Jim Moriarty
Executive
Director
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