Switching lists because I'm about to start yelling and I don't want to yell
at my friends in front of people that I don't know.
Before I respond point-by-point, I want to update the board on membership
numbers so that you can see where I am coming from.
We currently have 683 members.
When I generated the mailing list in November 2005, we had 727 members. 113
people who expired with that issue have so far declined to renew. We have had
41 new members since November 2005. I don't think these numbers are
particularly unusual.
However, membership has been slowly declining since November 2004, when we
had 850 members. I attribute this to a lack of an AGA convention in 2005. So
having a convention (or not) affects our membership in a big way.
We could argue whether membership was artificially inflated by the fact that
folks are *required* to join if they want to attend the talks, but I don't
believe that the majority of people who register for the convention are
joining only because they must.
Now.
S. Hieber wrote:
I believe that, in general, membership is helped by AGA having links and
references and, importantly, recommendations, in *lots of diff places* --
on lots of diff web sites. But I think we already have that without buying
space. No one link brings marked membership, but many links in many places
helps lend credibility and probably helps swing some folks over the fence
into membership.
You're right. I'll buy that. But we have a little money to burn <sarcasm> and
while I'm certainly not advocating that we spend willy nilly, we *could*
afford to spend a little dough on advertising and *see* whether it works.
Or print The Basics even though it's expensive.
Or sponsor an experiment.
Or pay the Treasurer a salary. Or the Promotions guy.
Or hire a lawyer.
Or buy insurance.
Or software.
whatever.
If we could point to marked increases from specific types of exposure, or
special reasons why one exposure might be especially beneficial, then I'd
say that it's worth the gamble to to buy or swap space for more of that
kind of exposure and see what happens. However, I don't see anything like
that on the horizon.
I understand the logic. And Scott, this is directed at the entire Board and
not just you. But Pardon Me, how will we ever find out if we don't TRY? Or
hire a professional? Or do something besides whine about membership and how
much work we're all doing?
It's *embarrassing* to me to have so much money in the bank and not be doing
anything with it. I believe that we are letting the organization and the
members down. Even if we try something and fail, the board is not doing its
job if we sit on a wad of the *member's* cash like a grouchy old hen on a
nest.
If the rest of you don't agree, fine. I'll sit down and shut up after this.
Not being as creative, I'll raise again an old idea: Big TAG. Since TAG
is our biggest reason for folks to join, a Big TAG still might be our best
chance to increase membership. If we did increase membership with Big TAG,
we probably wouldn't have a net increase in revenues; we might even have a
net loss for a period of time but I think, given a year or so we could
reach more folks *and* remain solvent, and that fits within our mission.
Maybe we could hook it's premiere into the promo for 2006 convention
somehow.
Scott, you are right. This is still a good idea. But with membership numbers
down, and falling, I don't feel comfortable with committing to a big TAG in
perpetuity. You mentioned before that perhaps a single, special issue Big Tag
could be a compromise. I think that would be a good way to give back to the
members some of their hard-earned money.
Cheryl
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