Society Logo

[JohnM]

I wonder is any better of worse than any of the previous ones proposed yonks ago, which could have been used for free?

[John]

Thanks Adrian, as I'm sure you'll agree, having gone through the long process of trying to select a society logo, never getting the chance to vote formally on any of them as a member and suddenly seeing one adopted that no-one had seen before was a bit of a cheeky move. Just my opinion you'll understand.
Anyone know how much it cost? Hopefully not too much considering that it was mentioned that if the membership didn't like it we could always change it next year
John.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Don't even know if it cost anything as it was a friend of a friend type thing ..( I think )

Would not of been very expensive if anything was paid anyway ...

I was thinking of recommending Saatchi & Saatchi but I think they were slightly out of our reach

[DavidH]

It was ridiculously cheap because it was done pretty much as a favour among fellow professionals.

It didn't come out of nowhere. The designer was given this thread and had a free hand to develop whichever of the ideas he liked. He riffed off the map of Ireland and locations of distilleries and came back with a few slight variations of what we ended up with.

So interested members have had plenty of opportunity to join in and develop the logo right here before it went to the designer. Going back to members after the designer did his work could only have resulted in adoption or rejection. Rejection would mean more expense and more delay.

The lack of a logo has hampered our website development, getting membership cards, issuing formal, attractive thank you letters to speakers, etc. I feel (and I reckon the committee shares this view) that this has let down members far more than a (perceived) lack of consultation with members over the logo.

[jcskinner]

There has from my perspective been perhaps too much consultation in relation to deciding on a logo.
And it has indeed set back the society in the way David describes. We have been many months wrangling with this issue to no avail and eventually a decision had to be made.
No logo is going to please everyone, and constantly kicking to touch on the matter was not helping us move forward as a society.
We have a professional logo that was done for us as a real bargain and it was inspired by all the discussions which have been held, by the committee, by members and by website forum members on this site.
I see anything but a lack of consultation here.
If next year's committee aren't happy about it, it can be changed (although my advice to them would be to think long and hard before reopening another process that could end up unfruitful after another period of many months.)
Equally, any member is free to table a motion about the logo for debate at the AGM in November.
But while it wasn't my first choice of logo, I am simply happy that this unnecessarily protracted process is now at an end and we have a good working logo.
I don't relish this issue being reopened yet again because of a perceived, and in my opinion entirely inaccurate, perception that there was insufficient consultation. We've wasted enough time on this already, surely.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

... interested members have had plenty of opportunity to join in and develop the logo right here before it went to the designer. Going back to members after the designer did his work could only have resulted in adoption or rejection. Rejection would mean more expense and more delay.

There has from my perspective been perhaps too much consultation in relation to deciding on a logo.
And it has indeed set back the society in the way David describes. We have been many months wrangling with this issue to no avail and eventually a decision had to be made.

And neither do I want to re-engage in this argument but I'd like to clarify the original issue and judging from both of the above comments it appears this possibly is where there was a misunderstanding by the committee in respect to what we promised in relation to picking the logo. Also remember all the wrangling was within the committee sphere and there was zero consultation to the membership who were waiting to be officially engaged when there was a list of ideas to play with. Further the thread was just one brainstorming area and never did the committee put together a formal list for membership to vote on so we could get a better understanding of what direction we should take.

This all stems from back in early 2009 at one of the meetings it was stated that the society were open for ideas on the logo and after a consultation period a line up of ideas would be put before the membership to help decide what logos we would short list for further exploration. However the lack of imput on-line was taken as a case of no interest but this was just a case of no on-line footfall. The majority of our members just turn up to the events and enjoy their whiskey and were simply waiting for the night when they would be shown a selection of logo ideas to vote on, however this never happened. The early process was simply to see what direction the logo should take. This was not done and the picking criteria of the logo went off on a tangent and ideas were disregarded in steps and never did anyone collate all ideas together in one judging session. Not once was the membership consulted or polled at a meeting to see if there was a consensus as to which direction it should go and that has always been the argument. I'm not trying to be negative here but I'm basically making this as a statement of what we promised to do but did not do. Therefore as time dragged on there was less time to involve a group decision which could of put the whole process back another 6 months so at that stage it was too late but I did warn ye that the membership expected something to vote on.

The lack of a logo has hampered our website development, getting membership cards, issuing formal, attractive thank you letters to speakers, etc. I feel (and I reckon the committee shares this view) that this has let down members far more than a (perceived) lack of consultation with members over the logo.

This is quite true ..I am glad it is now done and we can now progress on the peripheral stuff that the logo had prevented us doing.


However this is not a personal attack on the committee as it also needs to be remembered that the committee do a wonderful job and put a lot of their own personal time and hard work into the tasks they do, so it should not be made out that this is anything major but just something that maybe we lost sight on. And yes I agree with you JC that we just need to get on with it now but I just think the members deserved an explanation.

Anyway are forums not set up for arguments instead of the pub

[John]

I'm going to have to start wearing a tin-foil hat Adrian because you read my mind perfectly.

Guys, consultation was promised and was not delivered - anyone that argues the contrary clearly has not understood that if various examples are placed in the general membership domain and in the end a style of logo is chosen which heretofore has never been seen by anyone other than committee members, then surely the only consultation that was done was solely amongst the committee members themselves!

It DID come out of nowhere because the first that the general membership were aware of it was when it was presented to them already on poloshirts and membership cards!!!

Like I said, it's a pity because it would have given everyone a chance to bring the Society forward. More than once the committee was asked to provide a shortlist at a meeting - any meeting - and none ever materialised. To suggest therefore that the members were not engaging in the selection process is ridiculous. I will grant you, it did drag on and on yes, but who's fault was that - the members? How is that possible when the process was being driven by the committee? But I agree with you, it shouldn't have taken as long as it did.

Anyway, point made I hope. I am also always upfront in congratulating the committee for all the work that they put into the development of the society. This isn't a big deal perhaps but certainly something we should learn from. Here's to more transparency in the future.

John.