Re: [Leica] LHSA Gripes, long

[ternahan <ternahan@sonic.net>]

Have you looked into applying for non-profit staus?  Mailing is a LOT
cheaper that way, and it is not all that hard to complete the paper work.

> From: LEICAMAN56@aol.com
> Reply-To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 23:40:11 EST
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: [Leica] LHSA Gripes, long
> 
> It is with some interest that I have been reading numerous LUG postings over
> the last few days about the LHSA, Viewfinder and the Catalog.  While most
> have involved complaints about several aspects of our organization, mail
> service and the cost of membership, most have been complimentary about the
> quality of VF and for this, a hearty thank you.
> I would like to address some of these complaints with the facts and reality,
> and not conjecture.  The biggest issue here is finances and the cost of
> membership.  This year we have increased dues for the first time in 5 years.
> As most of you can surmise, the VF and Catalog do cost quite a bit of money
> to put out and in fact, most of the budget of LHSA does go to the VF.  We
> also realize that this is the main reason for most of you belonging to LHSA,
> and I have put my heart and soul into it for the past two years to give the
> membership the highest quality journal which my budget will allow. All
> without advertising which other sister publications resort to.  I would love
> to have the budget Leica Photografie, Leica World and Leica Quarterly have.
> Wow, can you imagine VF then.  Color throughout, better B&W reproduction,
> more pages, and on and on.  But back to reality. I am proud of the VF, but of
> course I always am striving to out do the last issue.  What most of you don't
> know is that we have gotten postage increases from USPS every year for as
> long as I can remember.  We have also gotten at least one paper cost increase
> during the past three years.  This year we were faced with a major decision.
> Increase dues or decrease the size, scope, color, etc. of the VF.  Naturally,
> I opposed cutting back on VF and I think all of you would agree that that
> cutting back on VF would be a huge mistake.  As the Editor, I refuse to
> compromise the quality level currently achieved by VF. I felt that cutting
> back on VF would be a great disservice to the bulk of the membership.  As
> part of a dues increase study, we looked at cost areas associated with our
> publications and were really surprised at the cost of postage being such a
> key factor.  It is also a factor we have virtually no control over. As
> reported by Emanuel Loewi, we use a mail service to handle the mailing of the
> VF, Catalog and other mailings such as the raffle, renewals, etc. This is the
> most efficient and cost effective way to do this.  US mail is by permit and
> the mailings to each country outside the US are also handled by this service.
> The pieces are bundled by country and forwarded on to be handled by the
> respective postal services in each country.  I'm sure you all realize that
> there is no way to mail each individual piece to each individual member, and
> that using this service is the best and least costly way to handle all of
> this.  I'm sure that you also realize that the efficiency of many of your
> individual countries mail services leaves a lot to be desired.  Many of the
> gripes about problems with receiving publications should be directed at your
> respective postal services and not at the LHSA. Throw in Sept. 11th, a major
> anthrax scare and general postal inefficiency and you begin to understand why
> mailings can be late.
> As I stated earlier, we studied the actual costs of mailing VF, Catalog,
> raffle tickets and other mailings around the world and we were very surprised
> at the huge cost differences of mailings in the US compared to Canada, South
> America, Europe and Asia. In fact, it was found that we were effectively
> subsidizing the cost of membership for those in Europe and the Far East.  The
> board felt that the dues structure must more accurately reflect the cost of
> supporting those members in other countries (insert the hated "foreign"
> word).  We also listened to our members in Canada who for years have
> complained that surely their memberships can't cost what those in Europe and
> Asia cost.  Upon examination, this is correct as far as mail costs go, but
> they still cost more to mail to than the US membership.  That is why we have
> now adopted a three tier dues structure.  As far as the LHSA considering
> everyone not in the US as "foreign", this is the definition of those outside
> the US by the US Postal Service.  After all, we are all members of the Leica
> family, but we just can't seem to convince the USPS of this distinction.
> As far as the amount of time the Catalog takes to reach overseas members,
> this again is something we have no control over.  I agree that it's not fair
> for "foreign" members to get their catalog three weeks later than those in
> the US.  I will now pose the question, What is the answer to this problem?
> We are in a new information age with email, ebay, etc. making the paper
> catalog more of an irrelevancy.  LHSA leadership realizes this and we feel
> that the electronic catalog will go a long way to address this problem.  Ed
> Schwartzreich, Catalog Editor, proposed the electronic catalog at our board
> meeting in April and after a lot of work by Ed and John Barnabus thinking the
> whole thing out, the board approved going forward with the electronic catalog
> at the board meeting in San Antonio.  Many things had to be considered in
> this, including security, fairness to those who weren't online, how to
> administer the electronic catalog, etc., etc.  We think we've got the bugs
> worked out.  Any input from you out there would be greatly appreciated by Ed
> or John.  Their email addresses appear on the VF masthead every quarter.
> I hope this answers some of the questions and complaints voiced here over the
> past few days.  The LHSA "big wigs" do listen to membership and there are
> good reasons behind a lot of what we do.  What really scares me now is the
> talk by the US Postal Service of dramatic rate increases next year in the
> wake of Sept. 11th and the anthrax scare.  The economy is down and mailings
> are dramatically down, and as a consequence, so are postal revenues.  Let's
> hope this doesn't come to pass or we may be looking at another dues increase
> next year! 
> 
> Bill Rosauer
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