How Can I Help? Send Money!

Article by Wayne Gathright

Over the past year and most recently during the 14th annual FRED, several members have inquired as to how they can help the organization. As always when asked I used my favorite reply, "SEND MONEY". It seems like we are locked in a constant struggle to do just a bit better than break even and can use every dime we get. Besides that, as a bona fide non-profit charitable corporation (final ruling pending), all donations are tax deductible! The obvious aside, there are several other things that civic-minded members could do.

Bring In New Members
The most important is to bring in new members. As you’ll find by reading this article, expanding membership is our club’s first and foremost priority for a multitude of reasons.

Renew Your Membership
The simplest, of course, is to make sure you renew your membership each year. One of the most significant problems facing us at this time is keeping members active continuously. Everyone joins when they want to go on a trip, but many skip a year when they can’t. It’s hard to build a solid membership foundation if we can’t count on the return of past members.

What we need most are members that look upon our club as an annual commitment. This is important to the group in several ways. One of these is that the size of our club greatly influences sponsor participation. Our leverage with them depends largely on how many members we can field.

Our eventual goal is to cover the entire cost of newsletter publication by selling advertising space to vendors and member’s firms. Attracting this type of money, of course, depends upon our amassing a larger membership. We plan to begin seeking advertisers in our 2001 spring or summer issues.

Our current sole additional source of income has been the annual prize raffle held during the Baja Invitational Gamefish Tournament. We generate approximately $1,200-$1,400 through this event. We need this money to fund new event development, a critical task if we are to continue to expand and attract new and return members alike. This money must also cover administrative expenses such as office supplies, postage and professional services like legal and accounting.

It will take the dues of approximately 150-160 members to pay for this year’s publishing and materials costs alone. Our membership currently includes only about 100. If you do the math you’ll see that there isn’t much income left over for new event development after deducting our newsletter and administrative costs.

Volunteer: Assist with Events or Develop New Events
Those of you who want to become further involved can do so either by volunteering to assist in managing a current event or by developing a new one. If you have an idea for a great club trip or have a worthy charity in mind, call one of the club officers and start the wheels rolling.

Contributions and Advertising
Others have expressed interest in getting their names and the names of their companies out to the membership. We handed out our first member directory during this year’s Baja tournament (contact a club officer if you have not received one and wish to). Since many of us work in related fields across the country and could benefit by a club network, we’ll offer advertising space for sponsors and interested member companies in our 2001 directory to be published late next March.

I have also been asked what non-cash donations can be made. We can always use raffle items. Most of you have seen what we raffle at tournaments. Whether you have a new or "like-new" item to give or a desirable antique you can help us generate working capital while receiving a write-off.

We are also always looking for event sponsors. If your company is looking to make a charitable donation, we ask that they consider one of our club events. We’ll provide exposure through the newsletter and tournament brochures as well as public media sources, when possible.

As the Director of the California golf tournament and the current volunteer to set up our next one, I would greatly appreciate any and all help in this arena. I am looking for one or more experienced golfers, preferably but not necessarily experienced in tournament management. I’m also looking for a co-sponsor for both fall and spring dates. Volunteers are needed to help find door prizes and trophies and to serve as the event photographer.

Sign Up On Time for Events
One last item and I promise I’ll shut up. This one is a biggie and although I know we’ve carped about it in past issues, I think it bears repeating. Please sign up on time for club events. We have had problems in the last year with members signing up for events well after the published cut-off date. This has resulted in two unnecessarily cancelled events and forfeited deposits in addition to wasted administrative time and money.

So there it is. I’ll go ahead and thank you all for doing what you can, whether you simply maintain your memberships, work to build the organization or come through with a donation. Every small effort on your part gets us closer to our goal and of fulfilling the corporation’s mission statement to help children and those in need in the places that we as sportsmen and women visit in our outdoor sporting pursuits.