I'd like to suggest that the due date for ABS membership dues be moved to a less financially stressed time of the year.
Rather than everyone's dues being due at the same time, I would suggest that an individual's original enrollment anniversary could be used for their dues due date. With all of the whiz-bang computer capabilities of today I'm sure it's doable. I, for one, have the money on my anniversary date as opposed to year end.
Another suggestion would be around the first quarter. A lot of folks have a tax return at that time of year.
If the year-end date needs to remain as it currently is then perhaps the ABS could look at the possibility of
an automatic semi-annual or quarterly deduction from a member's checking account or credit/debit card thus helping to reduce the financial sting at Christmas time.
Rick:
The ABS membership year has been from January 1st through December 31st since the incorporation of the American Bladesmith Society. The ABS Membership Application was developed to meet this requirement. Yes, computer systems can be modified but the changes that you are requesting would be significant and extremely costly to our membership. It is not necessary to wait until your membership is about to expire to renew each year. As has been previously written in articles in the ABS Journal, Monthly ABS Email Newsletters, and ABS Forum, a member can renew at any time prior to the expiration of their membership. If it is financially more convenient to renew in July, please do so. The system which was developed by computer professionals automatically adds a year in that case to your current membership. We have many members that do this quite successfully each year.
As far as your idea for automatically deducting payments from member's checking accounts or from their credit cards, we do not retain this type of information for our members and for security and never will. Your idea could be a serious security issue for our organization and once again would require a significant amount of money to have these changes programmed.
Dan Cassidy
Journeyman Smith
Send an email to Dan
