membership

[Sue <barnes-s@charter.net>]

Good Day, I'm Sue Ann Barnes, RVP for Region 7.

I've been reading AIS discuss posts for over a year now, but have never 
posted. But by "listening" in I've learned a lot. And have become aware 
of an issue that may need some attention.

Today on the Face Book group "Iris Lovers" there was a question about 
having to be an e-member to have access to the iris register. So that if 
you also want to have a hard copy of the bulletin, you are talking about 
regular and e-membership. Some voiced the opinion that they might go 
just with the e-membership.

Years ago, my husband and his mother got me a life membership, so that 
having to do an e-membership does mean I am back to having to remember 
to re-up, when I have not done so for more than twenty years.
The reasons for these needed changes are understandable in light of our 
increasingly paperless world, but they are not well explained on the 
web-site and it is hard for people to accept that you need two 
memberships to AIS to get what you want. Some members are not yet aware 
of the increase in the cost of the e-membership over the cost of just 
the register that they paid earlier. And when the register first became 
available we could pay for more than one year. We can't do that now.
Some AIS members may have to keep track of two different renewal dates 
and of course pay two fees.

I wanted the board to be aware of the rumblings from the ranks. You 
might check out the Iris Lovers comments and get a feel for what you 
might do on the web or in print to clarify the changes. Many AIS members 
are not travelers. They do not go the Regional, let alone, National 
meetings, and so may miss information on these changes.

There have also been some rumblings about the affiliation fee. Last year 
that caught many clubs off guard, and though, in many ways it is much 
easier for the RVP, there is now no incentive for a local club to have 
more than its officers AIS members and that may also eventually slow the 
flow of people who are qualified to become judges. Some clubs in our 
region had all or nearly all of their members AIS so that the club did 
not have an affiliation fee. Now there is no incentive for this.

You may want to go to the Iris Lovers group and read some of the 
comments, questions and responses. It might also be useful to provide a 
guideline on membership to the RVPs so that we could be ready to answer 
questions and be a point of distribution of information. The new 
membership flyers have very little information about e-memberships on 
them, and people who have been members for years are not likely to pick 
one up and read it. Tom's information is printed on it, but I don't know 
if he has been contacted by those confused by the changes.

Sue Ann Barnes
205 Westwood Ave
Jackson, TN 38301
731-422-5253
731-499-1396
barnes-s@charter.net
Success is: Being true to yourself.
                 Loving what you do.
                 Doing what you love.

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