NEIDA board votes to disband
By Staff -- Industrial Distribution, 3/1/1998
Boston, Mass.--In December, the board of the New England Industrial Distributors Assn. voted to disband and donate the remainder of its cash to the Industrial Distribution Assn.'s Scholarship Fund. In early February, however, some members were looking for a way to keep the group going -- at least in name.NEIDA president Bill Lyth of Apostle-Nelson, Inc. in W. Hartford, Conn. says that in order to dissolve the group, members must petition the courts in Massachusetts, the state in which the group is headquartered. Furthermore, Lyth stated that it takes a vote of the entire membership, not just the board, to disband.
"At this point, we want to investigate all the options," Lyth says.
Once a strong regional group with its own annual convention and formal education programs, NEIDA is essentially the victim of a changing industry. When regional associations began to merge with I.D.A. in the late 1980s, many of the regional meetings and conventions began to fall by the wayside. NEIDA continued to hold its annual meeting, however, until 1995.
With the networking connection weakened (due not only to the loss of the convention, but also to members' involvement in group's like ID One, Affiliated Distributors and iPower) the group lost a significant reason for existence. Couple that with the numerous avenues for industry education -- I.D.A., the University of Industrial Distribution and others -- and the group just couldn't come up with a "definable benefit'' to encourage continued and new membership, according to former NEIDA president Mark Fuller of REFCO in Boylston, Mass.
"Basically, what it comes down to is you can run any organization with any number of members," says Fuller. "But the number of potential members in New England has declined due to mergers, acquisitions and closings. In addition, some new [companies] that have formed, we have not been able to attract them to membership."
The group's prime function of late is an annual golf tournament, the proceeds of which go to the Jimmy Fund. Fuller says each year NEIDA donates $10,000 to the charity. Lyth adds that many members would like to continue the tournament.
Cheryl Lee, former managing director of NEIDA, is working with Lyth and others to find a way to keep the name of the organization going but with an inactive membership. Lee stated, however, that the intention was for the group to disband.
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