Mr. Marshall, our treasurer, informed us that we are hemor-rhaging money at the rate of about $700.00 per year. At that rate, the Society is in jeopardy of self-destructing in about 4 or 5 years.
Some possible "bandaids" have been suggested and are included in Terrell Trails for Winter 2006. At this point, the officers are not sure if any (or all) of the suggestions would be effective in bringing our expenses in line with our revenues from dues and donations.
Terrell Trails, our
quarerly newsletter, consumes most of our revenue just for printing
and mailing costs.
We have printed by offset printing since the mid
1980s. The cost is more than quick copy. We are being a
frugal as we can in this facet of our operations.
We are obligated
to provide a minimum of 6 pages per issue by our Incorporation Charter
and By-Laws. Since 1985, we have stretched our "shoestring"
and published over 2200 pages!
At first our issues varied in size
according to the funds. Later we settled on 20 pages per issue and
maintained that for years. For the past 2 years, we have had
30 pages per issue.
Our printer has informed us that cutting the number
of copies and/or the number of pages would not significantly reduce
our costs. Alternative means of printing have been explored,
but none has been found that is effective.
We have a suggestion to
e-mail issues to members who have the equipment and connection to
accept it that way.
This would reduce our printing costs, but
we must mail a minimum of 200 copies per issue to cut our mailing
cost by using Bulk Mail. Postal costs might increase more than
the printing costs are reduced. Last, but not least, many of
our members do not have computers with e-mail capabilities.
This suggestion does not appear to have much chance of solving our
problems.
Another suggestion is to upload each issue to the web site and let members download it from there. The only catch is that we will either have to assign a member access code to restrict entry to the issue or anyone who accesses the site can download it FREE! This would do as much or more damage to our mailing budget.
Research Fees have been suggested. However, most of the genealogical community is accustomed to the FREE sharing of information. We do not have enough members in any one location to set up an effective research team. Don Terrill & Dan Brinson freely share information with anyone who asks. A few have been grateful enough for the information receivedto make a donation to the Society; but most just say "Thanks."
We may be able to put a lot of the data that Dan
has not been able to publish in TRAILS into searchable data base andoffer it for a fee. However, when he tried that once or twice in TRAILS
in the past we did not have not had any takers.
Putting info
on the web site will make it available to everyone who can access
the site, but it will not be available to those who either are not
computer literate or who do not have the equipment to access our web
site.
In summary, I see only three ways of extending the life expectancy
of the TERRELL Society of America, Inc.:
1. Reduce pages from
30 to 20 beginning in 2007;
2. Raise dues;
3. Recruit our TERRELL
relatives and increase membership. That is the purpose for which the
postcard applications we mail with most issues are intended.
The latter option shows the most promise. There are over 20,000 families in the U. S. A. who still have one of the TERRELL variations as a surname. There are probably at least ten times that many who no longer have the surname who are eligible to join us. Why they have not joined us is known only the them and to God!
Please join us if you can. It will help us continue to make information available to your, and other, Terrell descendants.
If you have any additional ideas for solving
this crisis, please let us know.
Dan Brinson, Secretay/Editor
