Association Membership
I have been following this with deep concern, not only about how incorrect it is for your association having this cat-fight here "in public" but this recent statement: "Watching the membership diminish year by year is the direct result of the actions of the leadership of the association."Direct result? Hardly. You'll find that membership is not in any way proportional to the activities of the officers of any given organization. Groups tend to expand and contract based on many factors beyond the efforts of even the best of leadership, and sometimes even the worst.Many associations are faced with the free Internet message boards compared to "paying" membership, who essentially receive a quarterly magazine for their dues. That magazine represents over 75% of the costs for most Catalina Associations.The largest "issue" many associations now have is the increasing cost of Mainsheet magazine, which some consider to have become somewhat dated because of the "rise" of the immediacy of the Internet. One of the most important features of the magazine was its technical data and ability to distribute information to paying membership. Answers that used to take months now takes hours because of Internet message boards and e-lists. The rising cost, due to Mainsheet's singular decision to raise rates because of color copy, is not the fault of the leadership of any individual Association. Membership may also find the magazine irrelevant due to the Internet and choose not to pay membership fees for a magazine when they can obtain the same or better answers on the Internet.Your association is not alone in attempting to address this issue. Maintaining and increasing membership is usually the goal of most Associations. Investing time and effort is something the officers choose to do, and an elected set of officers in our experience do not represent power hungry ogres, but rather the mere handful of people in any large group who personally commit their own time and effort as essentially volunteers, well beyond the sniping of disappointed individuals. Either join 'em and contribute, or cool it.That said, why not take your fight over to your own web blog or even the C25 website, since there were 53 hits on this very subject there earlier this afternoon. This belongs elsewhere.