Info

Dues Income: Impact and expectations from our tiered membership levels

Since this topic has come up several times, I thought I’d cover some data with the board. Sometimes a video is better than an explanation. ;-)

  • Sorry that the numbers are small and hard to read.

  • I’ve pasted a screenshot of the spreadsheet below (click to enlarge it).

Main Points

  • Our overall annual dues income has been relatively steady since 2018

    • Roughly $16,000 each year

    • Although total dues collected decreased immediately following the tiered membership discounting, our total dues income has leveled out for the past four years

    • Not sure why 2019 was noticeably higher

  • The benefit of the tiered dues system ( 1-, 2-, and 3-year membership with discounts of 0%, 10%, and 20%, respectively) has been worth the cost.

    • As mentioned above, overall income is holding steady

    • Renewal rates for the discounted memberships are high

    • So, we’ve addressed the perennial “one and gone” problem MWSA faced for many years.

  • Although our dues are “future income” (i.e., paid each month during every year), we can adequately plan our budget based on assumed income from dues.

Click to expand

How to use the Action Items, Info, and Discussion blog

  • This section of our admin page is in the form of a blog and is meant to replace “management via emails.”

    • Emails included reply-all email trails including board members who weren’t actively involved in the topic being discussed.

    • Reconstructing conversations and decisions proved difficult—often involving going back through scores of individual emails.

  • Topics…

    • are for your information or to provide background before you’re expected to vote

    • are listed in the order created/posted (i.e., not in order of importance).

    • can only be created inside our web hosting website (SquareSpace), so if you’d like to add a topic, please contact John or Val (or use the “Suggest a new topic or action” button on the main admin page).

  • Board members have two ways to contribute or react to the articles: Like or comment.

    • For our purposes, clicking “Like” (the little heart) means you’ve read and understand the info and have no further comments or questions.

    • Adding a comment is self-explanatory… well, except HOW to comment. Here are the steps:

  1. Once you’re inside an individual blog topic, scroll to the bottom of the page and click inside the comment box. (see image to the right)

  2. Write your comments. If you want to add more than a sentence or two, you might want to draft them in your word processor and then copy and paste them into the box. Unfortunately, there’s no capability to go back and edit your comments.

  3. After you’ve written or pasted your comments, click on the black “Post Comment ...” button.

  4. You’ll be asked to enter your name and email. Leave the “Website URL” box blank; it’s not required. (see image below)

  5. Click “Comment as Guest” to submit your response.

Our website works this way (even after you’ve signed in to the admin page) because we’ve opted NOT to set up user names and password-protected sections of the website. Email John if you’d like a more thoroughly geeky explanation. ;-)

Please bear with us as we all learn how to use this new system.

John

MWSA Board: general observations, communication, board meetings, and responsibilities

Val and John’s thoughts about the way our board should function

Stress busting and empathy.

  • MWSA has had many personality conflicts and resignations over the years. Although many volunteer organizations share this phenomenon, I’d like to address this issue as we begin our duties as a board by sharing a few observations, suggestions, and expectations (rather than waiting until our first meeting in December).

  • We all care about MWSA and often have strong feelings and opinions. We’re also human, so we’ll sometimes disagree. Let’s do our best to keep our cool, resolve our conflicts, and collectively make it to the end of our terms together!

  •  If you have a problem, please email or call me. If I’m the problem (recognizing that I’m often the bull in the China shop), please email or call Val. In my opinion, open communication is the key.

Board Communications. The danger of “Reply All” and overflowing inboxes

  • MWSA board deliberations have often occurred via almost interminable back-and-forth email trail sessions for the past decade-plus.

    • Many board members were included in the reply-all trails even though they weren’t involved or interested in the topic under consideration.

    • Often, new topics were introduced into the email trails and subsequently lost in the shuffle. Example: email initially titled "December Board Meeting" includes discussions about the conference and/or other programs and initiatives.

    • Then, once things were somewhat hashed out, reconstructing the dialog and decision-making—which required going back through scores of emails—has proven almost unworkable.

  • To address this issue, Val and I have agreed to try out a new system using the administrative section of our website. The words you’re reading now are posted in this new section.

  • The communication is not one-way. Everyone is encouraged to share their opinions via the comment section included at the bottom of this blog entry (and every topic/subject you see in this section—note the topics to the right of this page).

Board Meetings

  • Board meetings are not the time to learn about an issue for the first time and then vote to do something.

  • A considerable portion of board meetings are dedicated to passing information that, in many cases, might be better handled via read-ahead material.

  • Often, topics of discussion and read-ahead material were disseminated only a day or two (or even a few hours) before the meeting—not allowing much time to digest and consider the issue(s) at hand.

  • Several times, it became apparent that one or two board members did not read materials before the meeting. Val and I aren’t pointing any fingers. Instead, we need to insist that we publish agendas and provide details early enough to allow everyone time to prepare and be ready. Armed with the necessary info, it’s then up to board members to be prepared for each meeting.

Agendas and minutes

  • Val, Jim, and I have created a single document to hold the agendas and minutes of the entire year’s board meetings.

  • We expect this new document will make it much easier to record what we’ve already done and prepare for what we’ll do in the next meeting.

  • The agenda and minutes document is now posted on our admin page (see link at the top of the admin page or click here). Although the two most recent entries are still in draft form, you can check today and see the minutes from our September meeting that you’ll be asked to approve during our December meeting. You can also check out the current proposed agenda for December (which is very much a draft as I write this).

  • More details will follow, and you can expect us to do a quick run-through of our admin page during December’s Zoom meeting.

Online voting to handle pop-up/time-sensitive issues requiring board action, input, or buy-in

  • Although you’ll find out about these issues via email, Val and I would like to try to resolve them online via our admin page (rather than email trails) when possible.                                    

  • As an example, I wanted to try to have the board approve Hugh’s and/or Dane’s conference fee reimbursement. I tried out the new online voting spreadsheet to get everyone’s input, but it didn’t go very well—only four of us voted. Likely, the problem was my failure to describe the process and what I expected.

  • Well cover this system and its spreadsheet later—certainly during our December meeting.

Board member portfolios

  • The duties of our board executive committee (president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer) are pretty well outlined in our bylaws.

  • At-large members do not have specific portfolios or duties, which are neither expressly stated via bylaws nor by tradition. Frankly, this has led to some board members’ involvement in MWSA being restricted to four one-hour-long board meetings each year.

  • Val and I would like to have each at-large member take on at least one additional portfolio during their term in office. Examples might be to either chair or contribute to communications, membership, social media, website, corporate sponsorship and donations, veterans’ outreach, awards, etc. If you’re already interested in helping in a specific area, please let us know. Otherwise, you can expect this topic to come up in December.

Board member participation/work

  • Since it’s our primary membership benefit and draw, our review and awards system is at the heart of what MWSA does. As important as our other programs are, if we were to cease doing reviews and awards, it’s unlikely that MWSA would survive very long without it.

  • Because 1) it’s central to our mission, and 2) checking out as a reviewer only takes about 45—60 minutes, Val and I expect all board members to be familiar with our review and awards system by becoming a reviewer. Reviewing a book or two would be nice, but I won’t hold anyone’s feet to the fire on that.

  • Val and I would also encourage all board members to contribute at least one content item (i.e., Dispatches/email blast/social media/website article) per year. Heck, we’re all writers; we should be able to commit to writing a paragraph or three per year for MWSA. 😉

Your comments, suggestions, and questions are more than welcome!

Dispatches Magazine

During the May 10 board meeting, Gary Zelinski was volunteered to head up a committee dealing with issues with Dispatches magazine. Especially the poorly-thought-out and executed article by Sandi Linhardt (pasted below).

Issues

  • Before publication, someone from the board (or someone appointed by the board) should approve each issue.

I think this organization is amazing. We truly have caring people on the board and in membership, volunteering their time and doing their jobs well. They are kind, considerate, and I consider them good friends.

Every day, it seems, more and more people are learning about MWSA and the opportunities we offer, and they (figuratively) come knocking on our doors.

MWSA is always looking for book reviewers. Not only can reviewing/scoring a book increase your writing skills, it gives you an insight to whatand how books are written and received by the general population.

I receive multiple inquiries monthly regarding...well, everything, from Dispatches (which I do answer) to membership, reviews, conferences, complaints, you name it. I try to forward the ones not pertaining to

Dispatches to their rightful email addresses, but sometimes I miss the mark. I hope the person to whom I incorrectly forward an email passes it on to the correct recipient. I mean, we are an organization, aren’t we? Not just a bunch of people assigned various tasks?

It recently has come to my attention the MWSA website claims Dispatches pays for published articles.

That literally was/is news to me. I’d not been told that was a thing. I don’t even know when the proclamation was advertised on our website, but the revelation did illuminate some snarky emails I’ve received over the past year.

A member recently contacted me and asked me how much I paid, and would they get paid for previous articles. They sent me a screenshot of the web page and a link so I could read it/find it for myself. I’ve requested clarification on whom is paying, how much per article, and to whom do I send the bill but have not had any valid response from anyone I’ve contacted.

At any rate, as far as I know, Dispatches does not at this time pay for published articles. MWSA charges for advertising in Dispatches... maybe that’s from where the confusion came. Although I get paid for my services, I am a mere cog in this organization’s wheel. I don’t get paid nearly enough to pay members for their submissions.

I do hope you enjoy your quarterly magazine and you find the articles pleasant, informative, or entertaining, though. If I ever get an answer on who is paying for articles, I will let you know.

Until then, Enjoy and In Joy ~ Sandra.

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