At convention there was general agreement from all
sections and cooperating societies that they would
like to be included in the AIS Paypal. They already
recieve payments via the MemSec. It seems to me adding
a surcharge for expenses simply complicates this step.
As of the moment there really is no reason for any of
the sections or societies to have to debate this if we
continue with our present policy. How we got the
payment is really irrelevant. Since every day we miss
having the PayPal option in place is another day lost
for getting new spontaneous members, I think getting
something in place is more important than debating
policy. It appears from the actual data presented by
the MemSec that we are really talking rather
infintessimal amounts while in the mean time we are
not getting those members for AIS. The suggestion for
a JOIN button came out of the discussion over a year
ago of how to stem the membership loss. It seems to me
that THAT is what we should be concentrating on and
not the few cents that will go one direction or the
other. Those questions can be debated ad-finitum
later. Lets keep it simple and get something
accomplished. We don't need discusion from every
section in order to implement what we already are
doing.
--- AIS Membership Secretary <aismemsec@earthlink.net>
wrote:
Let me make sure I have this straight, the "On Line
Join" option is designed, to facilitate an increase
in memberships (and renewals) to AIS and as a
courtesy to the Sections, facilitate their
memberships.
If this is the case then let's just KIS-keep it
simple! We are making this much more complicated
than it needs to be.
AIS has never charged extra for credit card
processing and we know that costs too. The only
"policy" I had to work from on credit card
acceptance came from Anner Whitehead's very thorough
MemSec Procedure Manual. I checked with all Board
members a couple of years ago that the wording of
this policy was still acceptable and have sent the
information (which was in a previous e-mail
titled:)
"THE AMERICAN IRIS SOCIETY CURRENT AIS MEMBERSHIP
OFFICE POLICY CONCERNING ACCEPTING DUES FOR SECTIONS
AND COOPERATING SOCIETIES MARCH, 2002b
to all the Sections for their publications and they
regularly publish that statement.
In the last 12 month period I have processed 44
Section and 2 Storefront credit card charges that
given the 2.9% + .30 would have equaled $47.53.
Other than the ASI all sections have been involved,
some more, some less. For arguments sake letbs say
the b Join Buttonb tripled credit card membership
payments to the Sections were still talking under
$150.00/yr., hardly the stuff of budget busting
proportions.
1) AIS raised dues recently to more accurately
reflect the cost of doing business which included
Bulletin and renewal mailing and processing.
2) In the business world, even Commercial Iris
Firms, no one charges extra for payments received by
CC as opposed to Check or cash.
3) If we are not charging our consumer for this
service, neither should we be charging the Sections
or Cooperating Societies. Or, if the Board thinks
it is necessary, they might consider charging the
Sections an Annual Processing fee for the CC charges
and MemSecbs time to keep records and monthly
processing to the Sections (I do not recommend this
but state it as an option.)
4) I have no real objection (at this time) to an
added amount of work for the MemSec office but we
really need to keep it simple for the consumer.
Lastly, and I donbt know this for certain but I
believe the credit card companies have a line of
boilerplate in their merchant contracts that
prohibit sellers from charging extra for credit card
purchases. Does this apply to PayPal also or are
they a third party/facilitator in all of this and
not bound by usury laws?
Tom Gormley
Tom Gormley
AIS Membership Secretary
P. O. Box 28
Cedar Hill, MO 63016-0028
636-274-6149
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