Alternatives to NMS

[Michael A. Chance]

>      Also, if a family membership is being utilized, why send a 
> separate packet to *each* family member.  Since the family members 
> are all supposed to live at the same address anyway.  That would 
> reduce postage, and paper, by not duplicating the "standard" inserts.  

I think that there was a discussion about this on the Rialto a few
months back.  If I remember correctly, the upshot of the problem is
that the computer software (which is over 10 years old and written in
COBOL designed to run on a CP/M based machine, and ported to DOS by
brute force) can't distinguish between types of membership when it
spits out the "needs to renew" list, nor can it easily produce a
listing that shows the groupings of family memberships.  As a result,
Renee' and the office volunteers/part-timers just stuff all of the
same schtupf into every envelope, to save time and effort.

There was a project in '93-'94 to update the registry's software and
hardware, but it was allowed to go *seriously* over-budget (part of
the budget fiasco from last year), and was abandoned without being
completed.

Mikjal Annarbjorn
-- 
Michael A. Chance          St. Louis, Missouri, USA    "At play in the fields
Work: mc307a at sw1stc.sbc.com                             of St. Vidicon"
Play: mchance at crl.com