<VV> Transmissions, e-Communique and other thoughts.

[Mark Corbin]

See text:


> [Original Message]
> From: james rice <ricebugg at mtco.com>
> Subject: <VV> Transmissions, e-Communique and other thoughts.
>
> Given the recent survey, the e-Communique could easily be viewed as the
> beginning of the end for the p-Communique.

I certainly hope not. There's something about a paper copy that will NEVER
be replaced by an electronic form. It's why we still have bookstores around.

> Now, the real issue.  CORSA membership currently cost about $0.11 a day.
Or
> $3 a month.  I personally do not know anybody in the car hobby who cannot
> afford the cost of CORSA membership.  If you are indeed out there, I'm
very
> sorry for your financial condition.  I suspect you are not really in the
car
> hobby, but "merely" driving a old car.

I suspect that to be true, but only part of the truth. There is a segment
of human society that resists joining things, resists any cost increases
(even to relatively cheap items), and resists things just to resist them.
They are simply being contrarary for the sake of being contrarary.

> We've seen on VV the comments, and sometime insults and accusations, about
> Chapter members not being required to be CORSA members.  According to Tim
> Mahler's column in the current (May) issue, about half of the chapter
> members are not CORSA members.  The question is, what happens if CORSA
tells
> the Chapters that all their members must be CORSA members.  Will CORSA
> membership go up, go down, or stay about the same? 

The difficult problem is that the idea wasn't grandfathered into our mental
thinking. At the time, there were several clubs that existed before CORSA,
so they didn't feel like they had to make CORSA membership mandatory. The
rest is history, as they say.

I belong to one national club that does just that. To join them, you HAVE
to first join the national. On the national membership app, there is a list
of all their local chapters, and you join any, all, or none of them, at
your discretion. Then you pay the total of national and local dues to the
national, which forwards each local's dues to the appropriate places. Thus
it is impossible for someone to belong to a local chapter and not the
national, though they can certainly be a member of the national without
being locally affiliated. 

This, as I see it, would be the only way CORSA could force the issue.
Unfortunately, we're too far downstream to institute such a radical shift
in procedures.

>  What happens if CORSA
> raises the cost of CORSA membership, to say $0.15 a day, or to $1.00 a
week
> (which ever is less and/or a round number)?  I think historically
membership
> goes down with dues increase.  Somebody needs to not just ask the
question,
> but to figure out "Why is that?"  See above comments about car hobby vs
> driving an old car.

The number of those who would drop membership vs a certain level of dues
increase is probably statistically predictable. It's just that I (nor
probably anyone on the board) have such info. Dues increases ALWAYS produce
member drops, but those deciding on how much have always had to guess where
the point of diminishing returns happens to be.

A couple of years ago, I became Master of my local Council, and the first
order of business was the dues. We were paying $15 annual dues, but almost
$19 rent to the Temple Company. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see
where that was headed. So we raised the dues to $25, and had 10% of the
members dimit immediately. But we also made the dues increase $2/year for
the next 5 years, and have had hardly any more than normal drop out. 

So maybe this is the answer for CORSA. Shock those who would drop out
anyway with a respectable dues increase, then ease the rest into a yearly
"nickel-and-dime" style increase, until dues are at a sustainable level.

> Does it matter what CORSA does?  Are we in a damned if we do and damned if
> we don't situation?  If CORSA's cash flow is as negative as it is implied
to
> be, does it matter what the BoD does?  How many ways can an organization
> crash and burn?
>
> Seems to me CORSA, at best, needs to figure out how to raise the
membership
> numbers.  
>
> In our previous discussion, weren't there non-CORSA members VV users who
> said publicly something like "You cannot make me join CORSA."  Probably
> true.  But the next question is, "Can we make you wish you had?"  Maybe
> true?  Not True?  Does it matter with these people?  Do we need, much less
> want, these people?
>
> Two questions:  What can our leadership do to get income above
> expenses?  And to what degree do we support their decision(s) even if as
> tight wades we must pay more for the goods and services we receive.
> Interesting expression "tight wads".  If you think about the image: a wad
of
> money in hand, but not willing to pear off a few pieces of currency
without
> yelling and screaming.
>
> I do not envy anyone on the CORSA/CPF BoD's right now.  Ugly times and
> difficult decisions.
>
> Historically Yours,
> 			James Rice
>

I think you will always have those "tightwads" who resist ANY cost increase
for ANYthing. But I am unconcerned for them, as they usually cut off their
own noses to spite their faces. If their love of the hobby really holds any
sand, they'll eventually come groveling back, or won't leave in the first
place. The best thing I think the CORSA board can do is to bite the bullet
and plan on putting the dues at that sustainable level I mentioned above.
Maybe doing it in the manner my Council did might soften the blow.

But the real key is to attract new members. And EVERYone has been searching
for THAT magic bullet. All we can do is the best we can do......

-Mar