1/2 dues for CD's
 

A couple of years ago, the Executive Committee debated the question of free dues for Contest Directors in the light of reducing AMA expenses. The possibilities were to continue the program, or to terminate the program. The EC decided on a compromise, 1/2 dues for CD's. My feelings about thus decision are perhaps not rational. I would have been happy with either leaving the program in place or terminating it. But I feel insulted by the decision to give half dues off for directing a contest. I would like to know how much money this decision has saved the AMA and how much extra paperwork it has created for headquarters. I'd also like to see the matter reconsidered now that it has had a trial.

Jim Thomerson AMA 77317 CD

RE: 1/2 dues for CD's
 

I too would like to echo Jims feelings and rational in this matter. Also would like to know if there were real world savings (there certainly have been some real world losses in our little part of the world directly attributed to this action) or if we were just an easy target.

John

RE: 1/2 dues for CD's
 

Hi Jim, John,
I think it’s important to point out that the earned membership program applies to more than just CD’s. Members that are part of the program include the AMA President, the AMA EVP, all the AMA VP’s, all District Associate VP’s, District Contest Coordinators, District Frequency Coordinators, all District Contest Board Members, and a handful of others. All of these people hand their earned credit reduced to ½ of their membership.

This is rough because there are still several hundred sanctioned events for this year that haven’t occurred yet, or that the CD hasn’t returned the report to HQ, but it looks as though we will issue a little less than 1,500 earned memberships in 2004. This number seems low in comparison to the roughly 2,500 events we sanction each year but it’s the result of cases where one person CD’s several events during the year, the CD is a Life Member, the individual receives his earned membership by more than one way (i.e. the CD of an event is also an AMA AVP, etc), or the CD never returns the required paperwork to AMA. So, 1500 X $29= $43,500. That number is most likely reduced further by he fact that some CD’s are senior members who take advantage of the senior discount. So, I think it’s safe to say the reduction in cost for the program is in the neighborhood of $40,000. It does look as if the number of events we will sanction for 2004 will be a couple hundred or so less than when this policy was first put into place. So the first year cost reduction was a few thousand more. I don’t believe the policy change created any extra effort on the part of HQ because it simply required a modification to the software that determines who earned a credit and who didn’t.

I guess I’m a little surprised that you felt insulted by the decision, although I believe you are. At the time I felt that dismantling the program completely would create more hard feelings than what we ultimately did. I was also looking at this from the standpoint that I have several good AVP’s who spend a lot of their own money in doing their job (volunteering) for our district. While I know it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what they spend, I didn’t want to take away that recognition completely.

Several of us, without much success, at the time discussed alternative programs to take the place of what we had. If you remember back then, we were also trying to weed out giving an earned membership to those that sanctioned questionable events (i.e. sanctioning two events on two consecutive days, same club, same events, same contestants, different CD; sanctioned class B events that started at 10AM and ended before noon; or a club with nine total members who held 8 sanctioned events each year, each with a different CD, etc.). I suppose, now after a couple of years, it would be interesting to take a look back to see what the impact of this policy change really was. If it didn’t have the net effect we were looking for, maybe we should look in a different direction.
Dave