In a message dated 6/7/2005 2:36:26 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
irishud@earthlink.net writes:
I am furthering the discussion on life memberships by responding to
Brad's comments.
Jay
> 2. Eliminating US Life Memberships:
>
> Electronic voting would be viewed by the membership as a secret vote
>without allowing for input from them. While this discussion has merit, it
>should only be voted on in an open Board meeting. Personally, I'm
>not supportive
>of doing this at this time.
{This is the reason for AIS discuss. It goes out to a lot of members
and they may respond if they wish. Electronic votes have to be
confirmed at the next board meeting. This is good for items that need
immediate action.[Jay]
[Brad's response]: I have never seen any comments on AISdiscuss from anyone
not on the AIS Board and was lead to believe it was created for the purpose of
Board dicussions. John Jones, could you please let me know if AISdicuss is
open to the membership.
>
> 3. Banning multiple triennial purchases:
>
> Eliminating this option for the AIS membership would be viewed very
>negatively and probably be revenue neutral at best. In practice this
behavior
>of some members to buy multiple membership in advance of a dues increase
>usually produces extra revenue in the years of our worst budget
>shortfalls. This
>is because we don't increase dues until we are running in the red! A
practice
>of increasing dues modestly every 3 years would probably do wonders for our
>"boom & bust" budgetary cycles. Also, it would minimize the practice of
>multiple membership purchases.
[Jay] Although this is not a part of my motion I am highly in favor of it.
With our reserves we are covered at present and although the extra
income is nice it in itself it creates a boom or bust situation as
membership income will drop for a few years to compensate for lack of
future increases. Like any business AIS has no way to control many of
our costs each year. For the last couple of years we have had a bust
and I foresee that continuing. The biggest example is the cost of
insurance along with printing, postage and a slowdown in storefront
sales. We have raised some fees and membership dues and it will be
interesting to see whether that action actually increases revenue. We
can only hope that it will so that further drastic action will not be
necessary.
[Brad's response] Jay, I too share your concerns about the AIS budge
shortfalls, but we also have a MEMBERSHIP shortfall and these actions aren't going to
sell well in the Heartland without some groundwork being laid first. In
today's world I don't believe the AIS can increase membership unless we identify
the key services the members want and I don't believe blind-siding them by
eliminating membership options is one of the services they'll appreciate. The AIS
isn't like any other business since we need the goodwill of our members to get
revenues and we have limited services to sell. We must look to cost control
until additional revenues do appear. Just increasing the cost of the services
we do provide won't help us survive unless we also increase the services we
offer. (Sorry, no specifics at this time!)
>
>There is a saying that goes something like this: "Every solution creates its
>own set of problems."
>
>Therefore, it is best to give serious consideration to all Board actions,
>because actions that restrict the options of the members will likely produce
a
>set of negative problems. We should be looking at ways to INCREASE options
>because then there is a possibility of producing some positive "problems."
[Jay] Let's have some ideas.
[Brad's reponse]
With the advent of the information era and the world economy most businesses
today (and even the federal government) emphasize customer service as the only
way to survive or thrive. Non-profit organizations are no different and the
Board must stop operating in the rarified air of our own "beltway." Jeanne
has made a good start in this direction by sending out surveys and I don't
believe the Board should take any action that could be preceived to be negative
until we have more data. Businesses and organizations that don't provide more
options, services, to their customers or members are unlikely to survive. It is
a buyers market for information and loyalty.
>Brad
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