A bit more institutional memory is in order. Life Membership at some reduced rate for older members has long been politically popular, but the professionals whom ARRL has retained examine Life Memberships funds over the past many years to have repeatedly discussed the potential negatives of the program. ARRL has long relied upon sales of publications, fees, investment income and additional member contributions to fill the significant gap between income from membership dues, including Life Membership income and operating expenses. Having been a Director for ten years I understand the desire to please those members who would like some lesser form of “Life” Membership. Former VD Woll’s evaluation should be considered, but only in conjunction with that of professionals in evaluating such plans. It is worth remembering ARRL has had to rely upon additional contributions from members, investment income, publication sales and fees to supplement the annual shortfall between member dues and expenses. A. Whether contributions will continue at prior levels is uncertain. Contributions have become a “political football”. Members dissatisfied with one Board decision or another have been encouraging members to withhold contributions. This year it is the Winlink and anti-Winlink advocates, last year it was some vocal members of My ARRL Voice. Asking members not to contribute has become a new political tool that has and likely will negatively affect contributions in the future. B. The 10 plus year Bullish stock market has provided investment income to supplement the dues shortfall. If market slows or turns around, as has always happened in the past, we may not be able to rely on that income. C. Maintaining income from publication sales and fees is becoming more and more challenging. Whether we can expect this income to rise is uncertain. D. Given the current climate and market determining what income we can expect from invested Life Membership funds is equally challenging. The temptation is to use funds from prior contributions to meet operating expenses. That is like eating your young. I suspect most contributors were under the impression their contributions were to be applied to a specific purpose such Spectrum Defense or for new projects, not to meet an operating expense shortfall resulting from member dues insufficient to meet current needs. If current annual dues of $49 are not sufficient to meet current operating expenses, our fiduciary responsibility as members of the ARRL Board requires caution in pricing Life Memberships, either regular or for senior members, to make sure we are not cannibalizing our endowment to provide a popular but underpriced Life Membership. 73, Jay, K0QB Sent from my iPad
On Sep 16, 2019, at 11:48 AM, "rjairam@gmail.com" <rjairam@gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with that. In fact this report should currently be in front of the executive committee for reconsideration.
73 Ria, N2RJ
On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 12:43 PM Bob Famiglio, K3RF <RBFamiglio@verizon.net> wrote: Maintaining institutional memory is always a challenge in these situations. I believe the topic of special life memberships was studied by ex-vice-director Marty Woll, an expert in the field, who worked up a proposal to create a Life Membership with an actuarially based premium for older members with age brackets determining the dues multiple to be paid. It was viewed with favor by the board I understand, but not the CFO and then president for unknown reasons. It was back in 2013 or something like that. The bottom line was favorable to the League on both income and member retention. It may be time to review that information again if you are not aware of it Howard.
Bob Famiglio, K3RF
Vice Director - ARRL Atlantic Division
610-359-7300
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www.QRZ.com/db/K3RF
From: arrl-odv On Behalf Of Michel, Howard, WB2ITX (CEO) Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2019 3:39 PM To: Jairam, Ria, N2RJ, (Dir, HD) <rjairam@gmail.com>; k5ur@aol.com Cc: arrl-odv <arrl-odv@arrl.org> Subject: [arrl-odv:28764] Re: Membership Stats
Hi Ria, Rick,
Thanks for your thoughts. We would all like to find ways of reducing the cost of membership, but unfortunately this is not the time.
Staff has looked at several options. Ria is right, advertisers don't value digital media. If we reduce the number of print copies of QST, it will negatively impact adverting revenue. And a digital-only magazine might not let us reduce the dues by very much. Currently, dues do not cover the cost of member benefits provided. Member benefits are subsidized by books sales, awards, etc.
The facts are that we need to grow new and existing sources of revenue first. Part of that growth-plan is to provide more value in membership. As I mentioned in the Board meeting, we will roll out On the Air (OTA) magazine in January. This will be available as a member benefit, not as a paid subscription like QEX or NCJ. Every member will be able to get both QST and OTA in digital form as part of their membership dues. Members will have the option of receiving either QST or OTA in paper form. OTA, plus lifelong learning, new marketing capabilities with the Personify AMS, and other very-early initiatives we are pursuing that should help bring in more revenue. We will be heavily "selling" these benefits as part of an aggressive membership campaign.
Why is more revenue critical? In addition to dues not currently covering member benefits, as I stated in my reports to the Board, income from operations does not cover the cost of operations. We balance the budget with donations and investment return. This is not a healthy situation. This problem has grown over many years, and will take years to reverse. Some have suggested that we use a portion of our reserves to provide more member benefits. While I am not opposed to spending reserves as an investment to grow ARRL (and I will be using this philosophy when I present the 2020-2021 Plan to the Board), spending reserves to balance operations is a very bad idea. For every $1 million we take out of reserves (equivalent to a $6.00 member benefit or dues reduction) , we will have (on average) $50,000 less to spend to balance operations. This is the equivalent of one head count.
And speaking of reserves, yes we are looking at a reduced rate for life members. But I need to remind the Board, as our auditor reported, the single biggest liability ARRL has on our books is the reserves we need to maintain to provide services to life members. If I remember correctly, it is 20%-25% of our reserves. That is money we can not spend, and increasing the number of life members will only increase the amount we need to maintain. That is money we cannot use to invest in ARRL.
Instead of the Board entertaining ideas of reducing dues, the Board should debate the value of an annual dues increase. Since the Board made the last dues increase, the cost of living has reduced the cost of dues by almost 10%. This is also a 10% reduction in income vs expenses that we have to work with.
73, Howard, WB2ITX
On 9/14/2019 7:18 AM, rjairam@gmail.com wrote:
I see Hudson Division is the worst performing at -3.1%. Ouch! I do suspect that’s because of out-migration. We’ve been steadily losing population here, particularly among retirees. Our hamfests here have also been getting smaller and smaller as hams either move to warmer, more tax friendly locales or die off.
As far as dues go I am consistently told by members and ex members (as recently as last night at a club meeting) that they want some sort of tiered membership with an option for a digital magazine instead of print. While I do get that we have to balance this with advertisers, it may be a good time to look at this idea.
73
Ria, N2RJ
On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 1:46 AM Roderick, Rick, K5UR via arrl-odv <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> wrote:
Hi all:
Here’s something to think about as you kick back for the weekend.
Listed below are the membership stats for August. Only 3 Divisions had a positive number compared to one year ago, and the overall total was -0.9%. Statistically, the percentages may be small in many instances, but they’re still negative. Congratulations to the Northwestern, Roanoke, and Rocky Mountain Divisions for having positive numbers!
Our numbers have been suffering since the dues increase in 2016 and the recovery has been similar to the dues increase 15 years before it, but that should be no excuse. We need to turn this around. Please, give this effort priority and let’s make these numbers positive in every Division.
You may recall that A&F is studying the feasibility of having a layered or tiered-style Life Membership. Also, I’ve asked A&F to consider having a general membership drive in conjunction with any changes we make to the Life Membership. Seems like that would be an opportune time to launch an aggressive membership campaign. If you have any ideas that might work for such a campaign, please let A&F know.
73,
Rick – K5UR
.............................
August 2019 vs 2018
Atlantic -0.7%
Central -0.6
Dakota -0.8
Delta -0.9
Foreign -5.0
Great Lakes -0.9
Hudson -3.1
Midwest -1.5
New England -1.7
Northwestern 0.5 *
Pacific -1.1
Roanoke 0.2 *
Rocky Mountain 0.4 *
Southeastern -0.2
Southwestern -0.2
West Gulf -0.4
Total -0.9%
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-- Howard E. Michel, WB2ITX Chief Executive Officer ARRL, The National Association for Amateur Radio® 225 Main Street, Newington, CT 06111-1494 USA Telephone: +1 860-594-0404 email: hmichel@arrl.org
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