Hi Cheryl,
I hear you. I understand what you're saying. I wish I had some better
ideas. I'm all for spending AGA money on projects like printing the
Beginner guide, bigger TAGs, "community" service, etc. Those things, I
think, will bump up the AGA reputation. I was down on the gregwatson.com
idea because I just don't think it will help significantly -- like Scott
says, he's a micro-company, and selling to the same people who are already
subscribed or have decided not to. What about a 1/4 page ad in one of the
big magazines like TFH (assuming AFM is already covered with Scott's
column?)?
I wish I had more to contribute.
- Erik
On Tue, 10 Jan 2006, Cheryl Rogers wrote:
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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Erik Olson
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