<VV> Corsa Membership

[corvairs]

Kids - may as well make some enemies.......The fact that Corsa lost 300 
members last year, I would bet, has almost nothing to do with the 
Communique. Now....the "quality of the Communique" may be the rationale 
given when you ask, but it's much more complex than that. And it's also 
more simple than that. How many of those people will say that their 
reasons are (in no particular order) that they've lost intrest? Or that 
they can't afford it?  Or it was fun to join when thier membership was 
subsidized (coupon)?  Or that, when they got active they discovered that 
the average age in thier local club was over 50?  Or maybe they thought 
that the club had magic beans or or or or or

FIRST - MOST people do not join clubs, no matter how great they are. The 
fact that 75% of our mailing list doesn't belong to CORSA doesn't 
surprise me a bit. I would expect CORSA membership to actually be less 
than 10% - that would be about 2200-2400 members.
SECOND - When you make a heroic effort to attract new members (like the 
recent discount coupon) you have to expect that when it comes time 
around to renew - AT FULL PRICE - you're going to lose a high percentage 
of those people.
THIRD - If you expect to "get YOUR money's worth" in direct  proportion 
to what you pay  most people are going to decide that "it's not worth 
it". A club isn't like paying 38$ for a blower bearing that you expect 
to be quality and you expect to be new - tit for tat. When you join a 
club you should expect many or most of the benefits to be 
"intangiable."  Insuracne for club events, sponsorship of conventions 
and a general support network  for the hobby - It takes at least 
partially altruistic members to join and stay joined.
Membership in most organizations requires people who are at least 
partially altruistic, interested in helping thier fellow car owners, who 
enjoy socializing, and who beleive that what they do might help make 
things a little better all the way around - that ain't everybody - sorry.

Now - there is a lot we can do get members (and a lot of it we're still 
not doing) but to wring our hands and slam the Communique (an unusually 
good club publication considering the size of our membership) they 
you'll just end up sour and unhappy.

Lon