It was written:
<<Yes, but how do we pay for it with our whopping deficit budget already?? I am all for this but where do we cut budget to compensate? Something has to give somewhere or we have to take in more income.>>
We ahould not forget about a number of factors that will balance our budget this year and next. The way this was said it makes it sound like AIS has done nothing to balance the budget. I would just like to point out some of my own initiatives. We instituted the Fund raiser Blooming Bulbs. While most people buy bulbs in the fall there are a few bought in the spring. I do not know what our check will be for the spring amount but it should come soon. If we promoted this well I would expect maybe $500 and then perhaps a couple of thousand in January from fall sales. I also found a new printer for the Bulletin whos bid for Full color throughout is about $3000 an issue lower that what we are now paying. These two things alone could balance the budget for next year. Fortunately this year the donations will get us over our hump. One should not forget that we also have the raffle that Jill suggested that will bring in some money. I believe that the most disasterous thing to do would be to try to balance the budget by always cutting something. At some point you have nothing left and of course no reason for someone to be a member. Making sure you get the best value for your buck is different. There are new intiatives that I will propose that may take a relatively small investment but while bring in a return with minimal risk. We can not be so risk adverse that we do nothing. And in this particular case of the laptop we are disabling the functioning of our society the longer we wait.