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When the dues were raised to $65 for 1997 in Nov. of 1996 - we spent
lots of time on ridecamp discussing why it was so much of an increase
and whether it was justified.
Initially I was not convinced myself and so spent sometime talking
by e-mail with some of the board of directors and others in the
AERC organization.
After a lot more information that never got shared on the internet -
I came to the conclusion that the raise - while painful - was the
right thing to do. The AERC was heading for serious financial
trouble then and needed to do something.
They were involved in a major attempt to change the software that
the office ran on and needed to do it to handle the growing amount
of data, requests, etc. Other things besides the software included
liability insurance, running the office, producing the endurance
news, changes in the accounting rules for non-profits, having a reserve,
legal issues, and lots of things that occur in running a organization
the size of the AERC.
Software - and custom software especially - is expensive to develop
and support. The software that the AERC runs on is not the
simple stuff you use to run a home business. As I understand it -
it does the financial stuff, keeps all the records on us and our
horses, drives all the statistics put in the EN, produces all the reports and lots more. The office computer equipment was inadequate
to support what the AERC needed to run more efficiently.
My experience with the office is that they have experienced
professionals, regular staff members, and people that have
volunteered their time. I believe they have generally done
an excellent job in serving the membership.
Bottom line for me last year was that they could have put out
more info on why they raised the dues so much. This might have helped.
But it was done and I hoped it was over with for sometime.
We can discuss improvements like prorating the dues - I think that's
a worthwhile thing to do. My suggestion is to have full year or
half year. This simplifies the situation so that people don't
need a calculator to do it. This is a worthwhile thing to do on
ridecamp.
But I don't think it's reasonable to second guess things like
the cost of the magazine, the cost of the software, comparisons
to small businesses on ridecamp.
The cost of a lifetime fee for my horse of $10 is a pretty small
part of what I spend each year to enjoy the sport.
Lets focus on the things that make this an enjoyable thing for
all of us to do on ridecamp.
Mike
mmaul@micro.ti.com
Houston, TX
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