That's right.
Furthermore, any person
holding a Life Membership who is also associated with an institution or
commercial entity needs to be followed even more closely, assuming the SIGNA
membership rules are the same as those of AIS so that only people, and not
corporate entities, which never die, can hold Life Membership.
I had
a situation where a US nurseryman had held an individual Life died and no
one said anything. One day I ran into the name in the database. This was
someone whom I'd tried to contact a couple of years earlier in relation to
some research work I was doing, but I'd been told then by his son, who
inherited the business, that he was dead. We'd been sending the Bulletin, of
course, and I am sure everyone enjoyed it, and would have continued to enjoy
it for many years to come, until someone observed that that particular AIS
Life Member was looking nigh on immortal.
It's not necessarily
someone chiseling a cheap advantage who fails to notify AIS of a death,
professionals may receive a lot of literature, some of it freebies, and it
may not be clear to their survivors that their membership expired with their
death.
You just have to do what you have to do to get the files
straight and eliminate wasted money. Sane people grasp immediately that you
do not want to send literature to the dead, although cranks may bitch,
because that is what cranks do. Bitching, however, is a reliable indication
the member is alive, which is just what you are trying to find
out.
AMW
-----Original Message-----
From: Rodney Barton
<
rbartontx@yahoo.com>
To:
iris-species <
iris-species@yahoogroups.com>
Sent:
Fri, Sep 30, 2011 8:44 pm
Subject: Re: [iris-species] SIGNA member
passing
Hi Anner,
Good thought! I've made a start. Tom shared
AIS's list of deceased members. I struck 3 more names and got explanations
for another 3 whose mail had bounced at some time in the past. Every penny
counts these days!
Rod
From: "
ChatOWhitehall@aol.com" <
ChatOWhitehall@aol.com>
To:
iris-species@yahoogroups.comSent:
Friday, September 30, 2011 6:22 PM
Subject: Re: [iris-species] SIGNA
member passing
Sahin died in the fall of 2006.
You know, it
might be worthwhile to confirm all SIGNA Life Memberships.
When I
was handling membership for AIS I decided to confirm the status of each AIS
Life Membership, and was well I did because we were sending Bulletins to
people who had been dead for years. Families don't always let you know about
this sort of thing, especially if someone is enjoying the magazine.
There were not that many Overseas AIS Life Members, maybe ten or
fifteen, so I simply wrote each one with whom I had not recently dealt
personally a letter, saying I was sure they would agree that we should spend
AIS' money in the most constructive way possible, and to that end I was
seeking to validate the mailing list. I asked them please to let me know
they were well and receiving their mailings in a timely manner.
Now,
if I received no response to this letter, I sent another, advising that I
must hear from them or I'd be obliged to stop sending the Bulletin until I
could confirm it was going to the correct recipient. If there was still no
response, I stopped the Bulletin, and wrote a third letter telling them I'd
done so.
As it happens, everyone overseas who responded at all
responded immediately and cheerfully. In fact, the Overseas Life Members
were more cooperative than some of the USA LIfe Members, who appeared to
have thought that becoming a Life Member was sort of like buying one's way
into an elite country club, so that the very suggestion that they might
actually have up and died without telling AIS was somehow grossly
insulting---
really, I'm not kidding, too bizarre and too funny--
anyway, I touched base with the Overseas Life Members personally, and I
think there were two, perhaps three, whom I struck from the rolls-- and they
were the ones I thought looked problematical going into the survey. A lot of
money was subsequently saved on postage, I can assure you,
Never
take anyone else's word that someone else is alive.
AMW
