If you go through the financials you will see they did in fact downsize in spending. They even brought on a financial person to assist with that, in addition to re positioning assets for better returns. The loss of 1.5 million in revenue 7 years ago wasn't that significant, at least it doesn't appear to have been when looking at all the other numbers. Membership has grown considerably since then, and somewhere in some thread I think I posted the last 5 years of membership, with at least 3 if not 4 years of substantive growth. The numbers are all there in the financials. I think there were many considerations for raising the dues, chief among them that it had been 13 years since it had been done before. Not many thinkgs I can think of that stay flat in pricing over 13 years. Gas sure is dropping in price around here though...almost getting to $2.00 a gallon. Oh happy days!