NABIE continues an ambitious effort this year to find ways to enact cost savings while maintaining or enhancing features for members. Part of that effort focuses on volunteerism, committees, and NABIE officer commitments to spearhead various goals. In connection with that effort, NABIE will shortly be mailing out member certificates. These generally were issued in the early part of each year, coincident with dues payment. Beginning this year, NABIE will issue a permanent certificate to each member, hence the reason for a delayed release of them.
The permanent certificate will remain valid as long as two goals are met annually by the member:
- Dues are paid up and current.
- No change in membership status has taken place.
Proof of current dues payment will be achieved by the issuance of annual wallet card, which this year will accompany the permanent certificate. Beginning in 2012, once dues are paid, you will receive only a wallet card.
In the event your membership status changes, your current certificate will become invalid. The most likely reason for this will be an UPGRADE in your membership level, resulting in the issuance of a new certificate reflecting your revised status. Any membership upgrades must be initiated by you in a manner similar to when you initially joined NABIE. Refer to web site for information on different levels of membership.
This is an ideal time to see if you qualify for a higher level of membership in NABIE, based on increased experience.
Another change commencing shortly will be electronic distribution of the newsletter. This issue has come to you in the usual print format. We expect to conduct a pilot issuance of the same newsletter electronically during the summer. With that pilot effort completed and any necessary fine tuning or changes necessary made we expect to go to electronic distribution only by year’s end. Print issues will no longer be available once full electronic distribution is enacted. This will achieve a considerable cost savings to the organization as print and mailing costs are among the larger expenses for us. You will, however, be able to print a copy of the newsletter from the electronic distribution method, just as you can now print it from the PDF file of each issue on the web site.
It is extremely important that you keep your data current on the web site. Changes to postal addresses, phone numbers, and emails can all be achieved by members themselves. NABIE is further working to coordinate the communication between three data bases maintained by the organization and this goal is best met by members taking the personal responsibility to ensure the information is accurate and up to date. Web site data base changes by members are now automatically flagged for use in other NABIE data bases.
As you may know, NABIE is a Virginia based corporation, reaching back to the formative years of the organization. NABIE has been represented by the same legal counsel in Virginia over that time. The finalized revisions to NABIE’s incorporation documents and by laws, now approved by the board of directors, is being handed off to our legal counsels in Virginia for appropriate filing. While the changes may not appear significant they were executed to reflect necessary revisions to bring us current with typical operating requirements for societies such as ours.
*This article had been posted in the Summer 2011 edition of The Examiner.
