[17326] in APO-L
Another perspective on dues
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lisa M. Covi)
Sat Oct 4 11:51:21 1997
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 11:49:48 -0400
Reply-To: "Lisa M. Covi" <covi@CREW.UMICH.EDU>
From: "Lisa M. Covi" <covi@CREW.UMICH.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 04 Oct 1997 09:05:56 EDT."
<Pine.SOL.3.91.971004085938.22060C-100000@azure.engin.umich.edu>
Here's another point of view about dues from my experience working
with chapters in Regions I, III, X and now VI. Chapters decide on how
much dues to collect based on various rationale. Here are some of the
most common I've seen:
1) amount of fundraising they want or can do
(i.e., high dues if low fundraising)
2) the disposable income available to the students
(some chapters fundraise for the $12 for Nationals because for example
students, living at home and attending college at great personal
sacrifice to their blue-collar parents would not think to take even
the cost of a movie and popcorn away that they might even earn
themselves from their college costs.)
3) the kinds of activities their chapter supports
(high if lots of money spent on fellowship or if all fund-raising goes
to charity)
4) the costs of comparable organizations on campus
(though you might do well to consider whether your dues make APO
inaccessible to less-well-off students)
Also many chapters have payment plans which are difficult to
administer, but help people who need to pay installments afford their
membership. Alternatively, chapters who can afford it and are willing
to, sometimes subsidize chapter dues (but not usually initiation
fees).
One more point - if you want to know where National dues go, once a
year, there is an article in the T&T with pictures explaining this.
According to the Winter 1996 T&T (preconvention), 31% of national
income came from initiation fees ($25 before now $20 per pledge), 17%
came from pledge fees ($5 before now $10 per pledge) and 14% of income
from AAMDS (was $8 now $12 per member).
Almost half of our expenses go to personnel (paying office staff)
which the National Office is currently conducting a fundraising
campaign to endow rather than charge you for. The rest of the
services are listed: Office services such as printing, postage and
telephone, Field Services such as Torch & Trefoil and Certificates and
awards, and Other services such as Jewelry (pins, DSKs etc) and
Depreciation of Office Equipment.
Lisa Covi
Gamma Pi (University of Michigan) Advisor
Past Sectional Chair 97 (New York City & Long Island), 84 (DC and Maryland)
Past Section Staff 1 (Southern Calfornia) 2 (Southern CA and Arizona)
Alumni Kappa (Carnegie-Mellon University) '81
