I was surprised during the January meeting when two members were prepared to propose that publication of the paper Bulletin be reduced to bimonthly. I had not expected to have a discussion about the Bulletin, but one broke out right after I gave a report about the club’s finances that showed that the expense of producing the Bulletin in 2017 exceeded the revenue the club earned from membership dues.
I managed to shunt aside the move to cut the frequency of publication of the Bulletin, but the future of the paper Bulletin is one that club members need to address. It is just that the January meeting was not the best time to do that.
The ARRC ended 2017 with a surplus, meaning we took in more revenue than we spent. We were able to do that because we earned more than $800 from train show and silent auction revenue.
For at least the past 21 years, the ARRC has not taken in enough dues revenue to meet its basic recurring expenses of the Bulletin, meeting room rental and the summer picnic.
An increase in dues from $12 to $16 in 2013 managed to cover the cost of producing the Bulletin just once.
So long as we have a steady stream of several hundred dollars in train show revenue every year we can live with dues revenue failing to cover club expenses. But 2018 may be the last year that that occurs.
The inventory that we offer for sale at train shows is stored at the home of officer Marty Surdyk. He also transports that merchandise to and from the shows and arranges for the club to have a table at those events.
Later this year Marty plans to downsize his living situation from a house to an apartment. He will no longer have room to store the club’s train show inventory.
It is possible another ARRC member will volunteer to store that inventory and take it to and from the trains shows. But that is not a sure thing nor is it even a likely thing.
The options for the Bulletin are much the same as they were two years ago when I gave a presentation about club finances titled Managing the Decline: What Would E. Hunter Harrison Do?
Harrison was known for wielding a sharp pencil when reviewing income and expenses. A maven for efficient operation, he cast aside things that were being done because they always had been done that way.
Reducing the number of pages in the Bulletin will not materially reduce its cost because the setup charges and postage will not change.
Reducing publication to bimonthly will not cut the cost of the Bulletin in half as some might think unless the membership is willing to forgo sending a meeting notice in the mail during the months when the Bulletin is not published.
Some of those non-Bulletin months might require a notice of an upcoming activity that must be sent immediately. That has a cost.
One option that could be effective is to charge those who want to receive a paper Bulletin in the mail a surcharge to cover the cost of postage and printing.
We are already collecting dues for 2018 so that option could not be implemented until January 2019.
Someone raised the prospect at the January meeting of having Ron McElrath print the Bulletin. Ron operates a video business and publishes a newsletter for it. He said he could print the Bulletin for less cost than the ARRC pays a commercial printer.
It is an interesting idea, yet we need to see some hard figures on what those costs would be.
More importantly, we need to talk with Ron about some logistical challenges that would arise if printing of the Bulletin shifts to another venue.
I don’t know that those logistical issues are insurmountable, but they could cause problems with ensuring that the Bulletin is mailed on the Saturday before the next meeting as required in the ARRC bylaws.
Of course we could discontinue the paper Bulletin altogether and rely on the eBulletin, the ARRC blog and an ARRC Facebook page to communicate with members about upcoming meetings, activities and club matters.
But we have some members who want to continue to receive a paper newsletter. They said so two years ago. I doubt they have changed their minds about that since then.
I will put on the agenda for the February meeting a discussion about the Bulletin. However, a vote will not be held until April.
March is our annual member’s night and we won’t have a business meeting. This is a significant decision that should not be made lightly.
If things play out this year as I project they might and if we don’t implement some measure to deal with the reality of dues income not covering the cost of producing a paper newsletter, the club is going to begin spending down its bank balance starting in 2019. It will take a few years to get to a critical state, but that will happen absent some unforeseen financial windfall.
The club has had some lean years before, although those have probably faded from memory.
Some current officers remember the days when the club had to tell the restaurant where the December banquet was held to not cash our check until dues income replenished the treasury.
I’m not by nature a person who rushes into something. I want to gather as much information as we can about our options for the Bulletin and give our members ample opportunity to attend a meeting to give their views on what they want to see done.
But come April 27, we need to make a decision and ensure that it is a good one.
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