ORIGINAL: Dave Mathewson

Hi Lee,
I guess my thoughts on the dues are that, right now, they need to be where they are. I can tell you that every member of the EC was uncomfortable with the last dues increase. It was a tough decision for all of us. In explaining to the members in my district why I voted in favor of the increase I broke it down. Approximately half or $5 of the increase went to simply cover the increased costs of doing business since the last dues increase in 1996. That worked out to about .85 cents per year or a 1.5% per year increase. In that same period some of our largest expenses skyrocketed. Postage, for example went up 34%. Worker's Comp rates rose 50%, etc. Another $2.25 or $2.50 went to cover the increase in the cost of our member/clubs liability insurance policy that rose 50+% after 9/11. The remaining $2.50 or so was meant to carry us into the future. Frankly most of that was eaten up in the additional cost of our liability policy from 2002 to now. The same coverage that cost us less than $250,000 in 2001 costs us nearly a million today. But, I can tell you we are in a good financial position and I feel much better about voting in favor of the increase today than I did back then. Those on the Council that argued in favor of the increase were right.

On the topic of self-insuring, if you're talking about the SIR we generally look at that during quote time and decide if varying the SIR is advantageous to us compared to the change in premium. If you're talking about a total self-insurance that's something different and I can speak to that if you'd like.

I think the number one area I would like to see us more involved in is the marketing and promotion of model aviation. I think a successful campaign in this area will accomplish several things including giving us a better ability to acquire flying sites, putting us a stronger position when dealing with everyone from local political officials to government agencies, and grow our membership. We can look at any method of creating non-dues revenue that you'd like, but it seems to me the way to keep dues in check is by increasing our income by increasing our membership.
Dave Mathewson