Re: membership

[Robert Pries <robertpries@embarqmail.com>]

Sue Anne and others. Tom did an excellent job of explaining the e-membership. But maybe I could add some of the reasoning that went into these decisions.
It was evident for some time that our population has been changing its culture. With the numbers of people with I-phones, I pads, and all sorts of electronic gadgets the demand for a totally electronic membership became evident. I suspect most of our existing members are more like myself and prefer print.  But the society for almost a score of years had been declining in membership and it was felt we were not reaching this new cultural population. Now that we have e-membership we are growing again.

This move did not come lightly. Members of the board had been discussing this for 7 years and we attempted surveying the affiliates about their ideas. I often felt that we were stumbling along because no one on the board has any special expertise in dealing with the future. I served a partial term and a full term as a director and in five years it felt like I had accomplished very little. When I was term limited off the board I thought that it was sad that maybe I finally knew what I was doing, and then had to leave. I believe all board members try very hard but there is no training for these jobs and very sadly few people comment directly to directors about their concerns. As PR chair I should be receiving complaints regularly, but I usually only hear about them from other conversations. I appreciate your bringing this forward.

Change is hard for all of us. I hear the Question Why not have e-membership services as part of regular membership? There is no free lunch. Electronic and print each have costs. It was suggested that we raise membership dues to $40 and just have one membership type. That seemed, to a lot of us, as insane in these tough economic times. The idea that one could join and have just the services that one uses seemed more reasonable. Since long term costs of electronic services seems like it will be less, it was thought that we could offer a less expensive membership in this area. In actuality the original set-up of these services has proved very expensive, but fortunately those costs have been assumed by grants and special funds. There is still much to be added to the e-membership site. It is hoped that many members will chose to have both E-members and print membership. But it takes time and volunteers to accomplish a lot. For now, having a less expensive form of membership avail!
 able seems like an advantage. The world has been dividing into the haves and have nots. It is hoped that those more affluent might join with a e-membership just because they may not think twice about spending $15 and for those that $25 is a strain perhaps the fifteen dollars offers a good alternative.

The next question was Why only one year? This is an area that the board may need to work on. When it was originally proposed we had complications of rolling over Register users into e-membership. One idea that had been proposed was that when you filled out the PayPal you could check a box that said automatic renewal. The goal was to make simpler, the number of choices. It is difficult to get those spontaneous joinings off the internet, if they suddenly are confronted with all those choices of dual, triennial, etc. etc. When they have to make so many decisions, the impetus to just join, cools. The simpler version of the e-member for a year with automatic renewal made sense. But technical difficulties and changing costs of this option have not allowed the automatic renewal to go forward. So we have the make-shift proceed of joining with several year memberships.

Now I am late for digging Irises for the local club sale so I will try to answer more later.


----- Original Message -----
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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