A lot of the thoughts expressed herein were derived from a talk given by Mr. Howard Upton, former executive vice president of Petroleum Equipment Institute, US and the founder of PEI.

I will attempt to abridge and consolidate the ideas of Mr. Howard Upton about how a State Association first is born, lives a short life and dies from a lack of activity and interest of its very own members.

First of all is to remember that just because a trade association has been formed and brought into existence, there is no guarantee that it is going to survive. As stated by Mr. Howard, as I call him, there are no internal dynamics present in associations, which ensure their continual viability. You cannot keep any association going unless there is a continuing commitment on the part of the members to make the association work.

This commitment must be by a willingness to give efforts themselves and a certain amount of money to meet the expenses. Officers and directors and members of a new association cannot take the attitude; “We got this baby up and running now it can operate on its own steam.” That cannot happen even with a good part time managing director or executive director. The organisation stays in jeopardy as long as there is not continued input by its members in total.

Usually an association is formed with a specific purpose in mind. In most cases across the country, that has been to influence laws and regulations that are being imposed upon its members. They want to ensure that these newly set-up agencies will not be putting regulations on them that will put them out of business. This usually cannot be done on a singular basis because bureaucrats only recognise numbers and organisations (unless you got enough money to buy them all).

So the idea of an organised association is the natural way to go.