ES - Membership trend

[Christine Fink]

BTW, I meant to add:

I really like the idea of a discount for members at events. $20-$30 per 
event can get very expensive for a family on a tight shoe-string budget. And 
I really like the idea of member-only-drawings at moot and even possibly 
events.

OK time to get on my patriotic soap box:

I got my membership card not because I wanted to hold office or because it 
benefitted me, but because it benefits the society as a whole. Ok, yes we 
aren't directly benefitting from our membership money. But, it does affect 
us indirectly. When we pay our taxes at the end of the year, these taxes go 
to pay for the upkeep of our government. If we don't pay for the upkeep of 
our government, we don't have a government and therefore we have no country 
to be free in. The same goes for our society. If we do not pay for our 
membership, we would not have our wonderful society to play in. How do we 
benefit? We have a society in which we can meet new people from not only 
here locally, but from around the world. In our society, we meet new people 
that can teach us unusual crafts/activities and lessons in life. We can even 
meet someone that might become our soulmate and/or best friend.

Ok...better step off the old soapbox before someone gets mad at me or I get 
too emotional...

:)

Maria



----Original Message Follows----
Sorry Ceatta...You forgot one:

Sent in the money too late and:
   a) they won't accept and declined your credit card
   b) sent in a check and they are waiting for it to clear before
      issuing your new card

Both of these happened to me and it took nearly 3 months to get my card. I
found this very frustrating and almost gave up on my membership because of
this.

Maria


----Original Message Follows----
Okay, the sociologist in me is crying out to speak, so here goes:

Declining membership can be explained by a variety of reasons:

moving away from Elfsea
burnout (believe me, I know, been there done that)
changing interests
disagreement with the way things are being done
lack of money (which may be temporary or not)
disagreement with someone in the group

The argument that membership dues don't benefit anyone except the BOD has
been around for ages and has yet to be proved, but still exists as an "urban
legend" among the SCA.

What would benefit us more is to look at the membership, see who has dropped
off, and then ask why.  Where do they fit in the above listing?  Can we
contact those that are still local and ask them what happened?  If we find
that out, perhaps we have a chance of "fixing" the perceived problems before
they become obvious (if they are problems at all) and detrimental to us all.


But to bemoan the drop in membership without knowing why is like bemoaning
the lack of rain -- we can't do a thing about it.

Okay, the sociologist in me is going back to sleep.

Ceatta o'Gulcleth
(at one time, in another life, a sociology professor)
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