Bankruptcy means that a person, firm, or corporation has been declared insolvent (unable to meet debt obligations) through a court proceeding and is relieved from the payment of all debts after the surrender of all assets to a court-appointed trustee.AML is able to pay its debts and obligations. The scarey red number on the balance sheet is because the money in the multi-year and life-dues accounts must, by accounting procedures, be listed in the liabilities line except for the monthly portion that is, on paper, moved to the asset line. I understand it, but I'm not sure how to explain it. AML doesn't actually owe anyone the money listed as a liability. If everyone resigned from Mensa and AML went belly-up tomorrow, the Lifers would not get refund checks. Think of the Life-dues money as being received in one chunk (which it is), but being apportioned over time on the balance sheet. We have 20 years' worth of money, but we write our budget as if we don't. And yet, when push comes to shove, we are able and legally allowed to put our hands on it in order to serve our obligations.
Now, obviously, if we used it all up now, we'd have an issue with paying for services in future years. This is why the AMC and National Office are working on ways to decrease spending and increase income at a reasonable, albeit painful, manner, in order to get things back on more comfortable footing long before there is any financial risk to the longevity of the organization. I know some members are not convinced that this is happening, but I am.
So AML is not going bankrupt. The real controvery is the pace and manner by which we halt and reverse the use of savings to provide ongoing services. Some think we should slash spending further, others think we should increase spending on marketing and recruitment. Everyone has different opinions and priorities when it comes to the budget: some want to do away with a paper Bulletin, others say it's the only thing members get and thus it should be expanded and improved. Some want more money for Local Groups, others are isolated from their Local Group and prefer that more funding be used to support online services.
The AMC is about to enter budget season. Please, let your RVC or other favorite AMC person know your funding priorities.
5 comments:
How about saving money by coming up with a way to let members opt out of receiving the Bulletin.
It's something that is being discussed, as it is every year. One big concern is that members will opt out, and then they will not get anything from Mensa at all. Right now, even the least involved member is reminded of the club's existence once a month. When i was under a rock with babies and diapers, I never read the Bulletin or local newsletter, but at least I was reminded on my way to the recycling bin that there was more to me than bottles of formula... and that kept me hooked just enough to see me through the dark years. Had I opted for e-pubs, I never would have bothered to look at the pdf and I would have lost all connection to the organization.
The AMC can think outside the box, or it can keep doing things the way they have always been done because that is the way things have always been done.
Example: the obsessive-compulsive dwelling upon Local Groups. I do not belong to a Local Group, and given the opportunity I would prefer that the portion of my dues that normally goes to a Local Group go instead to support online services. As it is, that money is sent to some SIG about which I care nothing, and there's nothing I can do about it. And every time I bring up anything related to how isolated Ms are treated, I am told that the solution to everything is to join a Local Group.
Think outside the box, folks! Think of those who live in remote areas perhaps hundreds of miles from a population center. Think of those members of the military serving in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Surely there are ways to better provide them with value for their money. If, that is, the AMC is prepared to take off the blinders and see the Mensa world as it is, not as it was back in the day.
I think many of us on the AMC are prepared to reassess the dependance on geographically-defined segmentation of the membership. I know I am.
Local Groups are no longer the only mechanism for service delivery to members. What remains to be determined is if they are and the most efficient.
The LG Service & Funding project will uncover some useful data, I hope, that will point the AMC in the wisest direction as far as how to align AML's assets with members' desires.
If a member wants to opt out of hardcopy publications, I see no reason not to allow them to do so, which also saves the organization money in the process.
There are a large number of people who want nothing more from AML than the knowledge that they qualified and have the membership card. Yes, we should attempt, organizationally, to help bring out those people who want *something* more (but just haven't told us what, yet), but allow those members who want to receive nothing to get that. (They'll get the e-mail links anyway. If they choose to delete them unopened, that's their choice.) At some point, we have to accept this choice on the part of these "inactive" members and stop beating our heads against the wall (and spending our money in the process).
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