AGM and Finances

[Old Poliker]

Hi

Got the mag this morning and I agree that it is much improved and is early. Congratulations

Not having attended the AGM, Cumbria is a long way away and I don't generally bother, I saw the summary accounts and the projected overspend for the year to Jan 2010. I know I should have looked at before the meeting and sent in comments but I didn't so here goes.

1 The huge proportion of the expnditure on the publication. Could a two tier membership be adopted where those with internet access could opt for a paperless mag. This could be offerred at say £10 discount. I know that cost of printing is not linear to the number of copies but postage and administration is.

2 I know that this has been suggested on the forum but do we need all the info from the area co-ordinators? Afterall many will be less interested in the comimgs and goings of the more distant region activities. I know I only read less than 20% of the content although it may be higher this month.

3Is the printing put out to tender?

4Another club I was amember of with a much smaller membership issued a b&w newsleter bi-monthly and a very professional glossy Bulletin three times a year.

5 What a huge bank balance. Over £200,000 which is nearly 2 years worth of income!! This appears excessive and any suggestion to raise subs is out of order.

Hope I haven't bored you with my rant and I commend the work that the many committed volunteers do in running the club and activitities

Paul

[SwissSteve]

imported post

He He He

Totally agree with your observations. This topic always appears when we see the cost of the magazine appears in thr accounts. If I remember there was a rant about this a month or so ago.

A checkbox on the online registration would enalbe one to simply opt out of the magazine. I dont even mind if the extra money went into the clubs tooling fund or example.

If I remember rightly I think I was told things like the current IT is not setup to handle such transactions ora lot of the club membership are not able touse an electronic version of the mag. I also heard that the major cost in printing is the setup costs and not so much the printing run. I am sureyour suggestions wouldhave considerable savings.

We have been honoured lately to have the opportunity to summarise the monthly content of the forum in the mag. Maybe the "Forum Elders" should offer to summariseany usefulcontentin the mag on the forum. Probably too short a post to make it worth while. Saying thatthe lastfew posts fromforum members like VMad in the mag were brilliant. So maybe it is about to improve.

Lets hope something eventually happens on this issue beforeit is too late.

[grahamb]

imported post

Paul,

put yourself forward. This needs some fresh input.