Memberopoly in review

Minnesota has a hefty membership goal of 26,014 members. On the National membership report of May 14, Minnesota reported 23,190 members. This number is 876 members short of where we were a year ago. Membership is still trickling in, but not at a rate we need to meet the goal.

This is also the time of year when our snowbirds are returning home from their warm roosts.  It is a great time to reach out to any of them that may not have paid their dues yet. Give them a quick call or send a card and ask if everything is going OK. Do they need a little help paying for their membership this year, or did they simply forget?

Take a peek at “your” individual units, see where you are today and where you were last year at reporting date; if not using ALAMIS, wait, wait, wait — everyone should be using ALAMIS.

It’s a great tool for membership. OK, so if not using ALAMIS, cross-reference transmittals to ensure all are processed accordingly. Has everyone that you sent in for processing been processed?

One of the things that I have come across while doing membership this year is that when I reviewed membership rosters and went through the names, especially the PUFL or HLM ones, I found many deceased members on the roster. Each unit needs to have due diligence in maintaining their membership lists to ensure that the member is deceased; we report it to the Department Office.

Looking over the year, we had one new charter started this year, but many, many charters disbanded.

If your unit is looking at disbanding, please reach out to your department membership chairman, your district president or the Department Office. Any of these people can give you the information that you will need to make an informed decision about this.

We would like to talk with your unit on the options your unit has. We don’t like closing charters. There is a procedure that must be followed to close a charter. This is not a decision that an individual can make.

If you are considering disbanding due to 990 non-compliance issues, explore the possibility of getting your tax-exempt back under the national ALA group exemption number.

This should be a no-cost method to bring your Unit back into compliance, there will be paperwork involved in this process.

It has been exciting working as your membership chairman this year, and I hope we continue finding ways to increase our membership.