Other Sport Horse Organization Membership Fee Structures

["Thomas, Barb" <thomas@amgen.com>]

I'm another member of the team of people who would like AERC to review the
membership structure and how the fees are used.  I also took a look at how
other sport horse organizations fees were set up.  Since endurance is a
growing sport that competes both nationally and internationally as these
other groups do, I feel that it's fair to take a look at sports of the same
caliber as we are.  I looked at U.S. Combined Training Association, U.S.
Dressage Federation and AHSA annual membership fees.  Here's what I found:

USCTA
Full member $75 
Family member - $50 each person*
Junior member - $50  
Canada, add $22; Mexico, add $95; others, add $80 to the above fees.
*Family member:  Up to 4 persons with the same address but must also include
at least one full or life member to qualify. (I think life fee was $1000.)
USCTA was the only group that had foreign rates posted.

USDF
one year participating member - $40
junior - $25
horse for life - $50
change of horse's ownership or name - $10

AHSA
Senior member - $40
PLUS:  for senior members, $45 to participate in all disciplines or fees
from $10 to $35 for individual disciplines.
Junior member - $35 (can participate in all disciplines)


As you can see, only one of these groups offers a family rate, all offer
junior rates.  I didn't see any restrictions on the junior rates and they
didn't have to be part of a family membership to get the discount.  Of the
one group who offered a family rate, there had to be at least one full rate
included, a single address, and the difference between the full and family
rate was $25 each compared to AERC's difference of $65!  I know that keeping
the price reasonable for our Canadian neighbors is important, too and maybe
the way USCTA did it should be considered.

Here's some legwork done for comparison purposes and maybe some
restructuring ideas, too.

Barb Thomas