Mandatory paid membership. Has the time arrived?

[Nick Caprinolo]

I was the admin of a site for retired police officers. We have over 5,000 members. Not a large group when compared to this forum but big enough. I could send a blanket email when needed, to all members in order to distribute information. With such a large group of retirees, as you might expect, the die off was constant. Death notices were very important to a group who risked their live together.

If the boss has access to the email addresses, that is an easy way to appeal to the entire membership for extra funds. They don't have to become a paying member, they can just send a few dollars. Imagine 10% of the members sending just $10.00. Some will dig deep and send a lot more. Some will ignore it. But we will be ahead of the game.

We could hold a yearly raffle. Who would not take a chance on a M1 Garand? Or something of equal value. The winner would have the choice of the rifle or equal value in dollars. How about a 1911 45 pistol. Hell, if this were a Catholic Church, we could just hold a bingo.

Make it a must that before you can post, you must read the rules of posting. Include a plea for a small donation of any amount you feel you can afford.

 

[cinch29433]

Good point. However, we don't have 3000 paying $50. More like 1400 paying $30 on average.

There are many interesting suggestions here. One private comment was to limit access one day a week to contributing members only. That might get some folks attention.

I figured my numbers would be off. I don't know all the answers but I do know we don't want to scare folks off. I have been involved in outfits where the heavy lifters start to resent the others, then when the others began doing more in the aggregate they began to resent the former heavy lifters who had paid life or patron memberships and were not anteing up yearly. So I understand the balancing act and appreciate the effort it takes to run this Forum!!

 

[KenOath]

End of the day as the the saying goes “you don’t get anything for free”.. Eventually the fat lady will sing if there isn’t any reprieve for the Boss and we’ll all lose...