Bill Jackson is the NSS Fundraising Chairman. I passed along your concerns to him, and his response is below.
(forwarded by Wm Shrewsbury) -------------------- Jerry, the emailed message from the Fundraising Chair reports the needs of your Society. This one was to let everyone know we need donations earmarked for the HQ property which we purchased nearly five years ago. Just like everything in life, there are peaks and troughs in fundraising. We have had a recent trough over the last six months and want to get it back to a peak, and with continuing fundraising efforts to keep it up so that we can pay the mortgage ahead of schedule and quit giving interest to a third party. This is a long term project with a mortgage amortized over 20 years. Since it is a commercial mortgage, it was for five years with a balloon payment necessitating the refinance. This is not news; we knew it was coming and have had it on the radar. We appreciate Bill Steele’s comments and efforts to promote this NSS project. We want to solicit the support of NSS members. If anything we are interested in increasing membership rather than driving people out. We will make no headway either way by alienating members or nonmember cavers. The requirement that grotto members has been left to grottos to deal with simply because the NSS really has no good way to enforce it. This was recorded in the annual I/O report, however it was dropped by the I/O committee due the difficulty enforcing it. We encourage Grottos to do to enforce the membership rule as much as possible. We also understand that there are some who want to go caving and don’t feel the need to contribute to the “parent” of the organization that they go caving with - the one that most likely wouldn't exist if we hadn't been around to set structure for, to provide guidance for, programs for, camaraderie between others, a national voice, create federal cave protection laws for, sponsor expeditions for, etc.. At the NSS organizational level, we would like for membership to be appealing to cavers so that they would like to join. It is often said, by those who have sought and found answers from us, that we don't toot our own horn enough. It should be noted that membership dues, by design, do not pay a single dime against the mortgage. Dues are used to pay the office staff, produce the News/Journal/American Caving Accidents, other books we print, and many other things. We have been very careful to keep dues and the mortgage separated. Thus, the upgrading of our office from a tiny little building to the classy facility it now has been funded entirely by separate donations. Dues run the Society, not pay for the upgrade in our facility. More members gives us a louder voice at the table when we sit down at the table with the BLM, DNR, NPS, USFWS, and other government organizations. They are the caretakers of our public lands; we represent the voice of those who want to use our publicly owned lands for the exploration, study, and protection of the underground resources in them. We estimate that we could double the size of our voice if everyone in every Grotto, already receiving some of the benefits of the NSS, would join. That we are heard now is good. With a larger presence we could provide an even greater voice. In the meantime, we have our new HQ building that has to be refinanced by this December. The less we have to refinance the better, of course, and thus this appeal. We sure could use Team 404 members and grotto donations to help with this. Bill Jackson Fundraising Chairman National Speleological Society fundrais...@caves.org From: Texascavers [mailto:texascavers-boun...@texascavers.com] On Behalf Of via Texascavers Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2016 4:17 PM To: texascavers@texascavers.com Cc: texascavers@texascavers.com; speleoste...@aol.com Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Join the NSS and Team 404 Rather than "embarrass" our existing members, and further alienating those peripheral grotto members that don't desire to be formally NSS affiliated, why don't we share a bit of that embarrassment with the NSS leadership that decided their going-in business model for paying off the new NSS headquarters would be begging for donations from their membership. When that wisdom went south with the financial downturn, our present strategy is to now shake the donor tree even harder to the point of needing to embarrass existing members who don't sign up fast enough, and to force non-NSS grotto members to sign up or leave the grotto. Can you guys kick yourself in the ass any faster ? Jerry Atkinson. Sent from my iPhone On May 10, 2016, at 2:15 PM, Alex Sproul via Texascavers <texascavers@texascavers.com> wrote: Thank you for this Bill! This needs to be said, many times and loudly. If all the hangers-on joined up, even without joining Team 404, the mortgage issue would essentially be solved. And it would cost 'em less than pizza and beer one Saturday night. It's been a pet peeve of mine for many years that these provisions are never enforced. As you are doing, we need to embarrass the slackers into doing their part. We also need to embarrass our member slackers into renewing on time, so the staff doesn't spend so much of their time and effort in removing members, only to reinstate them a week later. They still have to wade through 200+ of those every month; that's more than a quarter of our membership. We need to stand tall and be proud of our Society,...and "frown at those who are not"! Alex PS Fantastic job with this year's PESH expedition! ________________________________________ On 10 May 2016 at 7:40, Bill Steele via Texascavers wrote: This would be a good opportunity to bring up something that most grottos seem to have a misunderstanding about. Numerous grottos believe that members don't have to be NSS members unless they are in a leadership position in the grotto. This is incorrect. This came up at the NSS Board of Governors meeting in Bend, Oregon in March. The rules are written so people can be grotto members and not be an NSS member for up to a year. After that, they are expected to join the NSS or stop being a grotto member. Here it is the relevant snippet regarding IOs (Internal Organizations, i.e. grottos, surveys, etc.): 5. The membership of IOs shall conform to the following requirements: A. All persons who serve on the governing board of an IO must be a member of the NSS except in the case of Surveys where representatives of state entities or other conservation organizations may serve on the board regardless of their NSS membership status. B. Full membership in IOs shall be open only to embers of the NSS. C. IOs may, at their option, have members who are not members of the NSS and who are limited to a year or less on this status. D. Membership in grottos (or chapters) shall consist of at least five members of the NSS who have designated that grotto as their Primary Affiliation. E. The formal name of a Student Grotto shall indicate that the organization is a Student Grotto (or Chapter), etc. Section C is the relevant section. So we should encourage grotto members to become NSS members. The NSS needs to raise money now to refinance the mortgage on its new office building in Huntsville, Alabama. Please go on and be committed to caving if you are a caver, and if you are not an NSS member, now's the time to join. And if you are a NSS member, then join Team 404. I am a member of Team 404. If 404 cavers allow $25 a month to be directly withdrawn from their bank account, the mortgage payment is met. All above that pays down the mortgage all the sooner. Tomorrow night I am giving the program at the DFW Grotto meeting. Before I do, I'm going to read the above about being an NSS member and talk about the benefits of membership. I may even paraphrase JFK and say, "Ask not what the NSS can do for you, ask what you can do for the NSS." You can admit that caving is a main interest of yours, become a member of the NSS, and join Team 404. I'll ask for a show of hands of who is not an NSS member. And I'll frown at those who are not. Cavingly, Bill Steele NSS 8072 (joined at age 16) -- Alex Sproul NSS 8086RL/FE NSS Webmaster & Acting IT Chair www.caves.org _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
