Rellihan
Touring the Galaxy
I think Bob is referring to a mailing, as opposed to the electronic version. I'm a bit skeptical that BAC will ever find that affordable, since people can print the electronic one if they wish.
In some groups, especially retiree groups, a large percentage of the membership is still not computer literate. Hardcopy mailing is the only way to reach them. In our case, virtually all members must have some computer skills; or at least access to them, or they could not enroll.
We do have some number of members who appear to be relatively inactive on the website. And I am sure that we are missing some prospective members who avoid computers like the plague; I know one personally. The problem is the cost to attract and communicate with snail-mail-only members. It could easily exceed their annual dues cost. Not only would there be mailing costs for all communications, and the high cost of printing such a nice Newsletter; there would also be the cost of contracting someone to produce the printed communications; notices, responses to questions, copies of website articles, fly-in notices and rescheduling, etc. I don't see how some of that could be timely enough on paper, to deal with changes in weather and circumstances. That means that some level of comm would have to be done via phone, with all of its limitations (phone tag, uncertain messaging, etc.). I can't see any possible way to produce the website content on paper, for a non-electronic member. It would be unreasonable to expect any member to do all the required printing personally, to support even one non-electronic member.
I sort of doubt that any prospective non-electronic member would be willing to pay an extra $100 dues per year to cover printing and mailing costs. Outfits like ABS do a hardcopy newsletter (due to a large number of non-electronic members). They have to. They handle it two ways. They accept advertising; half their mailing is covered with ads. BAC has tried to avoid that, in part to keep the Newsletter 'clean' and compact. We also don't know how successful we could be attracting paid advertising, when we have 480 paid members versus the 10,000 or so in ABS. They can spread their overhead over far more members; they are bringing in more than $350,000 annually just in dues.
Half of the EAA's Sport Aviation is now advertising content, despite EAA's 170,000+ membership. It adds tremendously to the layout time while setting up each page; it causes articles to get broken up, sometimes from back to front; and it causes some article segments to get missed altogether. The magazine is easily twice the size it would be if it was ad-free. Look at some really useful ad-free publications, such as Aviation Consumer or Light Plane Maintenance. They are much more pleasant to read, and take far less space when saved for reference.
I'm sure that a Membership Committee can brainstorm all the issues associated with attracting a larger membership, and the aspects surrounding hardcopy communications if we enable non-electronic members. There are many aspects, and certainly more than I have outlined here.
In some groups, especially retiree groups, a large percentage of the membership is still not computer literate. Hardcopy mailing is the only way to reach them. In our case, virtually all members must have some computer skills; or at least access to them, or they could not enroll.
We do have some number of members who appear to be relatively inactive on the website. And I am sure that we are missing some prospective members who avoid computers like the plague; I know one personally. The problem is the cost to attract and communicate with snail-mail-only members. It could easily exceed their annual dues cost. Not only would there be mailing costs for all communications, and the high cost of printing such a nice Newsletter; there would also be the cost of contracting someone to produce the printed communications; notices, responses to questions, copies of website articles, fly-in notices and rescheduling, etc. I don't see how some of that could be timely enough on paper, to deal with changes in weather and circumstances. That means that some level of comm would have to be done via phone, with all of its limitations (phone tag, uncertain messaging, etc.). I can't see any possible way to produce the website content on paper, for a non-electronic member. It would be unreasonable to expect any member to do all the required printing personally, to support even one non-electronic member.
I sort of doubt that any prospective non-electronic member would be willing to pay an extra $100 dues per year to cover printing and mailing costs. Outfits like ABS do a hardcopy newsletter (due to a large number of non-electronic members). They have to. They handle it two ways. They accept advertising; half their mailing is covered with ads. BAC has tried to avoid that, in part to keep the Newsletter 'clean' and compact. We also don't know how successful we could be attracting paid advertising, when we have 480 paid members versus the 10,000 or so in ABS. They can spread their overhead over far more members; they are bringing in more than $350,000 annually just in dues.
Half of the EAA's Sport Aviation is now advertising content, despite EAA's 170,000+ membership. It adds tremendously to the layout time while setting up each page; it causes articles to get broken up, sometimes from back to front; and it causes some article segments to get missed altogether. The magazine is easily twice the size it would be if it was ad-free. Look at some really useful ad-free publications, such as Aviation Consumer or Light Plane Maintenance. They are much more pleasant to read, and take far less space when saved for reference.
I'm sure that a Membership Committee can brainstorm all the issues associated with attracting a larger membership, and the aspects surrounding hardcopy communications if we enable non-electronic members. There are many aspects, and certainly more than I have outlined here.
