<CORSA Chapters> Membership question -- 100% vs Not

[Barney Eaton]

The membership slide is not unique to CORSA.    I am on the board of the 
Buick Club of America and we have seen similar declines.
We can speculate that the problem is the economy or members growing older 
(which we have a serious problem.... we support Buicks going back to 1908)
CORSA is actually in a better place than the BCA.... Corvairs were made for 
10 years and CORSA  has 4600 members.  Buicks have been made for 101 and
we only have 8500 members..... compared to CORSA we should have 85,000.

We came very close to greatly reducing the monthly publication content and 
size but the members told us that they did not went the Bugle touched, 
meaning the
only choice was to raise dues.     We had already reduced cost in many 
areas,  cutting board meeting to one a year,  and eliminating other "frills"

The BCA has the same membership policy as CORSA,   if you belong to a local 
club/chapter,  then you must belong to the BCA.   There are insurance 
implications
with non-BCA members being active in local activities where the BCA covers 
the insurance.       We send out annual questioneers to the Chapers and only 
get back
about 5%........they don't want to tell us their total membership because 
they thing we are checking on them.    We have little "proof" but we know 
some Chapters are
worse than others in allowing non-BCA members to be part of their Chapter. 
So far the insurance thing has not blown up in our face but there is always 
that chance.

Barney  Eaton
Lone Star Corvair Club

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harry Jensen, Executive Secretary" <corsa at corvair.org>
To: "Gary Swiatowy" <gswiatowy at rochester.rr.com>
Cc: "Virtual Vairs" <virtualvairs at corvair.org>; "Chapters CORSA" 
<chapters at corvair.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2009 9:23 AM
Subject: Re: <CORSA Chapters> Membership question -- 100% vs Not


> Hi--
>
> On 12/17/2009 3:59 AM, Gary Swiatowy wrote:
>> While all this hand wringing and arguements are going on.
>> Why has no-one asked the big question?
>> Where is the money going?
>> Why are we going broke?
> The problem is not necessarily with expenses. Expenses from 2004 until
> the present are between $210K and $220K. Our projections for 2010
> through 2013 show expenses under $220K. Most expenses are not linear,
> especially in the printing industry.
>
> The REAL problem is on the revenue side: We have fewer and fewer members
> to share those expenses. In 2004 CORSA had 5300 members. This year 4600.
> That a loss of 700 members. The same expenses which were shared by 5300
> members in 2004 are shared by 4600 members today.
>
>
> On 12/17/2009 7:07 AM, sarahvair at juno.com wrote:
>> most of the money CORSA spends is for the salary of Mike&  Harry.
> CORSA does not pay a salary to Mike and Harry. CORSA pays fees based
> upon a contract which is reviewed regularly by the Board, and was done
> so this year. If the truth be told, our company DECREASED those fees for
> 2010. If Mike and Harry did not provide the service, CORSA would still
> have to pay another company for those services, unless a group of
> volunteers does the work.
>
> --H
>
>
> -- 
> |--------------------------------------------------------------
> | Harry Jensen  mailto:corsa at corvair.org
> | CORSA Executive Secretary
> |
> | Corvair Society of America (CORSA)
> | P.O. Box 607, Lemont, IL 60439, 630.257.6530  fax 630.257.5540
> | http://www.corvair.org
> |--------------------------------------------------------------
>
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