<VV> Long: CORSA changes, e-Communique and (mostly other) thoughts.

[Barry Johnson]

James Rice said:

> I do not envy anyone on the CORSA/CPF BoD's right now.  
> Ugly times and difficult decisions.

As others have probably noted, this malaise is not restricted only to CORSA.  I've been actively (national or regional levels) involved in three other hobbies, and each one is facing the same problem.  I have good friends involved in several other organizations -- and each organization is feeling the same pain.

The recurring theme:  groups that ballooned in size during the seventies and eighties are struggling with significant decreases in membership and cash flow during the nineties and 'ought's'.  The influx of new (mostly younger) members is far below the rate required to replace the long-term (mostly older) members that will leave in the foreseeable future.

I dislike generalities, but I think this much is true:  folks generally of my age (I'm 50) or younger are being pulled many, many ways.  They appear to have more options for their time, and parse that time in finer slices by being less involved with more groups; often preferring to pay a little more money in exchange for having less responsibility.  (That's not implying at all that they aren't responsible, but rather that they feel they already have all the responsibility they can handle at the moment).  They appear to be working longer hours, have a longer commute, and have more family time pressures with their kids.

In one particularly infamous spring, my wife and I had three kids in each of Scouting, baseball, tai-kwon-do, gymnastics (truth be told, only two were in gymnastics).  We both work full time -- counting our commute times, I was putting in about 70 hours a week, and she was putting in about 55.  We were leaders in Scouting, volunteered to help with baseball and church, and coached one of the kid's soccer team in the fall.  Did I have time for my Corvair, resting in the garage?  Not!  Was our situation all that unusual?  Not really.  Would I have considered CORSA membership?  Not on your life -- then.

It's only now, as the kids have moved on, that I have some spare time.

Finally, one notes that this particular hobby is inevitably destined to shrink.  How many new Corvairs are being minted, versus how many are being scrapped?  The absolute count of Corvair owners is guaranteed to decrease over time.  Unless we can convince non-Corvair owners to join CORSA, we have a declining market.

We can work to increase our share of that market (increase the percentage of CORSA members out of the total number of Corvair owners), but the market itself is shrinking.  As operating costs increase and the market decreases, there are only two long-term options available for survival:  increase prices or cut services.  Short-term options may be open (increasing market share by convincing non-members that they're better off if they pay an annual membership fee), but long term those are the only choices.

There are two other long-term options:  one is to evolve into something different (to be able to reach a wider market), and the other is to gracefully die.  Groups like AACE can grow (relatively) by aggregation, absorbing membership from groups like CORSA as they lose sustainability.

I'm not suggesting that 'evolve or die' are the choices facing the BoD now; it may not be too late to put those choices off through short-term actions.

But I am convinced that a group will *not* be able to increase their share of a shrinking market by becoming more hard-nosed and inflexible.  If the choice is "pay full price or you can't have anything", folks of my generation will often walk away -- they have plenty of other things to do.  Our goal ought to be "get what money and time we can out of these folks", which means more flexible policies.

Delivering the Communiqué two ways (electronically and on paper) is a good example of a "more flexible policy".  The Internet version meets the needs of some people at essentially no additional cost to the organization, while the paper version remains unchanged for the rest.

For another example, consider the National Convention.  My understanding is that the convention is open only to CORSA members -- if a non-member attempted to register, they'd be turned away.  Why not let 'em in -- but charge them more?  Let them pay $50 for non-member registration instead of $30.  You could think of the surcharge as a six-month CORSA membership without incurring the major costs of true membership (like mailing the Communiqué).

A third example for establishing a revenue stream from non-members: if full CORSA membership isn't worth $38 to some people, would a standalone subscription to the Communiqué be worth $24?  $28?  $30?  To some, it might, and as long as that stand-alone subscription is more than the marginal cost of printing one more copy, then we're ahead.  Strictly speaking, a standalone subscription ought to "pay for itself" and a bit more, so that if everyone switched from CORSA membership to just Communiqué subscriptions, the magazine could survive on its own.  The other benefits provided by CORSA ought to represent the value of the difference between the magazine subscription price and full membership.  

I have no idea if these types of topics are discussed at the BoD meetings -- I suspect (and certainly hope) that they are.

But this man's opinion is that there is no easy short-term fix, that the demographics of our society and the US economic model are changing, and that those changes will inevitably force CORSA to change somewhat as well.

baj
----------------
Barry Johnson
Lake in the Hills, IL
Member CORSA, CCE
'64 Monza Convertible for sale
'65 Monza 140PG
 
 
Notice: This transmission is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain information that is confidential and/or privileged.  If you are not the intended recipient, please delete this transmission and any attachments and notify the sender by return email immediately.  Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited.