In message , David
Cantrell writes

You're obviously not that interested in being a member if you can't even
manage to raise a cheque once a year.

You mean that the organisation doesn't care much about its members if it
insists on them using such antiquated and inconvenient methods. Perhaps
more importantly, it doesn't care about its officers if it makes them
traipse to the bank every few days to hand over silly pieces of paper.

You have no knowledge of our operation and are therefore unqualified to
comment about how we choose to operate our business.

To put this into some sort of perspective from our side of things:

We operate a membership system where members have to submit a
'requirements' form on renewal. This is because we offer something
approaching 100 varieties and combinations of product and the member has
to indicate their preference for the year. With any system we use, that
member would still have to submit to me a list of their requirements
before I could renew their membership. This is because that is what our
members prefer.

I have spent much time attempting to find a better way of dealing with
this, but the bottom line is still that members would be required to
communicate with us twice to renew - once with their requirements and
once with the transmission of funds and all this would have to be
re-assimilated once we received the two items - so, why not do this
once, altogether with a 24p stamp?

To use the banking system as it stands (ie. Giro transfers) costs us 96p
for every membership we receive in this manner. With around 2000
members that is a lot of money that could be put to better use for the
group. Then the paying in slips (which also include the above mentioned
requirements) have to be posted from North Wales to me for action as the
bank won't send then direct to me, adding to the cost. It costs us 40p
to bank 100 cheques; I have never been to the bank with these yet, I put
them in the post with the multitude of other items I have to send out.

So, until we (read I as I'm the only one apparently interested in
achieving a better cost/benefit in this matter) establish a better
system, we will continue to prefer cheques. Of course, this could all
change next month, year, whenever as it's kept under constant review.
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)