Hi Sue,
Here are the correct facts of the affiliation fee change.
The affiliation fee changeover was made at the 2011 Spring convention
board
meeting. There were a couple of reasons why the change was made.
When the
affiliation fee was first started, it was supposed to be an
encouragement for
clubs to have members join AIS. Instead, over the years it ended up
being a
penalty for clubs not having at least 50% AIS membership, or at least
10 AIS
members. Mostly it hurt the small clubs in small towns who couldn't
attract
new members and clubs that whose budgets are very small and really
didn't have
the financial means to afford the $50 fee.
It also became a nightmare for the club president and the regional
RVP to
figure out the formulation on who had to pay, and who didn't pay. Yes
there
was a few clubs that even fudged the numbers so they didn't have to
pay.
The changeover of all affiliates paying a flat fee of $25 is a fair
and
equitable way. This small yearly fee goes toward several things and
doesn't
even begin to cover the cost of the benefits that the affiliates
enjoy.
Things like the insurance coverage (for all affiliate events), the
cost of the
paperwork, postage, and medals for the iris shows are some of the
benefits.
As of two years ago, the cost of each medal that is awarded was $15
each, so
each show that an affiliate has cost the AIS at least $30, just for
the medals
alone. Many of the larger affiliates have upwards of 4-5 shows each
year, so
the costs add up.
I hope that this information helps.
Susan Boyce
Affiliations Chair
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:52:47 -0400
From: robertpries@embarqmail.com
To: aisdiscuss@aisboard.org
Subject: Re: [AISdiscuss] membership
Sue; I am back from digging and will try to answer your second
question
about
the Affiliation fee.
First I want to note that directors and committee chairs do not get
their
travel or hotel paid for by AIS. Because it is somewhat of a
financial
burden,
when I was timed out on the board as a director I presumed I could
miss a
meeting now and then. I believe the motion to change the affiliates
fee was
at
a fall board meeting. Previously affiliates had to have over half of
their
members as AIS members. Many clubs simply require you join AIS to be
a
member
while others are reluctant to do this and had the problem of
ascertaining
whether they met the 50% requirement. Each year this could be a real
horror
for each RVP to verify the membership in all their regions clubs. It
could
also be a challenge for the local club presidents to report. The AIS
membership lookup tried to help with this but still many RVPs and
Local
club
presidents complained it seemed like busy work. It is often hard to
get
people
to take these positions and so it was considered that maybe we should
do
this
another way.
In case you have not noticed there has been a real effort on AISs
part to
make
membership in AIS worthwhile. We would like to think that people want
to
become members and not that they are coerced into doing so. Many
clubs
played
all sorts of games of paying for local club memberships for people
they
knew
were AIS members. I believe the board just reached the point that
they felt
why encourage this dishonesty and why make officers go through all
this
work.
A simple lower fee for everyone seemed fair. The benefits in
insurance
coverage, alone for each affiliate is much. much, more than this.
Maybe we can never win the hearts and minds of some people but the
goal is
to
create an organization that people want to be a part of and see the
value
in
doing so. B If those people who are not members could help us make a
better
organization than please step forward.
----- Original Message -----
Hi Sue,
Yes I have been following the various threads on Iris Lovers and am
aware
of
the concerns and have answered some of them individually. I'll try to
answer
those that you bring up here by adding my answers in blue.
-----Original Message-----
From: Sue
Sent: Jul 16, 2012 10:56 PM
To: aisdiscuss@aisboard.org
Subject: [AISdiscuss] membership
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.
People have every right to choose just the emembership if that's what
they
want. It gives them both Iris Register, Irises, our magazine in pdf
format
and
Basic Iris Culture in pdf format. We want people to choose what's
best for
their lifestyle.
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.
As of today AIS has 4,537 members, of those 336 are ememberships. The
vast
majority (92.6%) haven't shown any interest in having access to Iris
Register.
In the 8 months since its start I've only had 2 complaints from those
4,537
people. One was a life member who didn't think he should have to pay
for
access to Iris Register and one who thought he could only have one or
the
other (paper vs print)
B 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.
We sent an email to all Iris Register members explaining the change
and the
difference in price last August, 4 months before it was implemented.
There
was
no hue and cry from any of the 240 Iris Register members at that
time, in
fact
there wasn't even a single response pro or con.
You can take out multiple years by changing the quantity of
ememberships
you
buy and as for keeping track of when your expirations are, I send out
reminders on ememberships about 2 weeks before they are due to the
email I
have on record. The standard membership renewals are mailed to the
address
of
record 4 to 6 weeks before they are due.
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.
Sorry, I can't speak to this, It's something Judy Keisling in her
capacity
as
Judges Chair has I'm sure thought about. She would have to speak to
it.
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.
Unfortunately the flyers were printed before the implementation of
emembership
and will be updated for the next printing. As I mentioned earlier
I've had
2
people in the last 8 months who have called or emailed their
confusion to
me.
One I was able to resolve, the other not so much.
My guidance to the RVP's is that Emembership can be a stand alone
option
for
AIS membership complete with all the perks including voting B and
judgeship.
Everything except a printed Bulletin.
For those who want a real magazine with slick glossy covers that they
can
hold
in their hands and refer to later, they should choose one of the
traditional
memberships.
For those who want both, buy both
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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Tom Gormley
AIS Membership Secretary
PO Box 177
DeLeon Springs, FL 32130
386-277-2057
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