Fellow members,

I just learned something that absolutely stunned me.... As of
January 15, approx. 45% of 2006 SDMC members have not renewed their
membership for 2007! I would have never dreamed that the figure
would be so high. And it is unfortunate because this puts a real
burden on the newsletter staff, membership staff, and, potentially,
on the club budget.

Please remember that all 2006 memberships expired on December 31. So
the January issue of the newsletter sent to expired memberships was
their last issue. Now, the club is hopeful that you will all renew
by the mailing of the February issue but, what if you don't? What if
the club ends up printing 45% too many newsletters? That would be a
large hit on the club treasury, particularly when the club might be
facing a significant membership decrease. A double whammy.

In addition, come January 31, the membership staff has to remove all
expired memberships from the roles. It's a bit of work to do so, and
another bit of work to have to put the late renewers back into the
database. Likewise, the postmaster has to remove all expired
memberships from participation in this club E-mail list. Again, work
to do so and more work to put late renewers back on.

The membership voted overwhelming to move to a calendar year
membership model. The whole idea was that everyone would know
exactly when their membership expired. I simply don't want to
believe that a full 45% of you don't plan to renew. I'm hoping that
this is a big case of year-end procrastination.

As a founding member who, in the past, dealt with many of the
membership tasks myself, I urge all of you that plan to stick around
to PLEASE renew immediately. Please get that renewal application out
of your last newsletter (or download it from the club web site and
print it out), write out the check, and get it in the mail TODAY.

The renewal application can be found here:

http://sandiegomiataclub.org/PDF/SDMC_app_renw.pdf

Thank you in advance for your consideration to our volunteers by
renewing as soon as possible!!

Mark