re: AIS: Membership Structure

Christine Feger wrote:
>My personal feeling is that the dues are very reasonable. Most 
>organizations that I am aware of charge far more. 
	Absolutely. When my wife and I first joined I recall there was some 
complaining about a recent dues increase. I felt then and now that $18/year 
is just fine. 

>If a new member waits until the following year, they miss out on a whole 
>year of bulletins. This is NOT what I would want to do...
	Agreed - it's not what I would want to do. I love the bulletins - 
especially the recent ones with the new format!! The problem here is two-fold:
First, the prospective member may not realize the value of these bulletins. 
If a person is very new - just getting into iris -  he/she may not fully 
appreciate the bulletins until after being a member for a while - after 
learing some of our jargon. (I was that way with my first computer mag 
subscription; over time they became clearer and clearer...) We can tell the 
person(s) how wonderful the bulletins are, but they may not (yet) see it that 
way. Yet, I'd like for them to join us and get to that level... 
Second, we are not selling subscriptions; we are selling them memberships. 
And many people being asked to join anything for a year rightfully expect a 
year's membership. As it is now, a person who joins at our annual sale, 
either late July or early Aug for our club - would only get to be a member 
for 5 months at a cost of 12 months. Now if we hold their checks and do not 
submit them until Oct, they will get an extended membership - more like 15 
months at a cost of 12. So, depending on the month of enrollment, you either 
get a bonus - or you get ZAPPED! 
	When our membership chairman called me recently and still didn't know 
what we are going to do with the folks that join at our rhizome sale - bonus 
or ZAP! - I started to think:
	"Why do we have to keep doing this song and dance when explaining AIS 
membership?"
	"Why can't I be presenting a more forthright membership structure to 
this person?"

>However I realize that not everyone sees it the way I do.  So what about 
>offering new members signing up after the middle of the year a half price 
>membership with only two bulletins, keeping the option of paying full price 
>and receiving four? 
	This is at least 100% better than the existing system.

>Another alternative is to cut the membership price to new members and still 
>send out all four bulletins. I feel that the bulletin is worth every penny 
>I pay for it, and furthermore, it is expensive to publish. Can we afford to 
>sell discounted memberships?                                
	The pro-rated according to the month you join system could accomodate 
sending more bulletins - if the board members so decided. A person who joins 
in September pays for 4 months ($6) but gets sent some extra recent issues. 
I'd call that "exceptional customer service", and would rather see this done 
than, years from now, having the same bulletins ending up in a dumpster.
	But this is not discounted memberships that I am suggesting. Rather, 
it's a pay-as-you-go system. It is the existing system that forces discounted 
memberships: as it was posted here in the past, it is even recommended that 
checks for people joining in the fall be held back until after Oct 1st. To 
avoid the ZAP!     

>Hooray for the AIS bulletin!
	Here! Here! And kudos to boot! Thanks so much for sharing your views! 
Jim Schroetter
Fredericksburg, VA
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