by Brian Wormald
As BMN’s Membership Secretary, I thought I’d take some time whilst we are ‘socially distanced’ to put some interesting facts and figures together about our club’s membership so that everyone can see how we’ve grown and diversified a little. The following Membership by Categories, and Membership by Geography tables tell a story:
Additionally, as part of the above numbers, we have two (2) Honorary memberships.
* BMN’s Constitution defines membership categories as: A Family Membership is a membership consisting of two or more individuals residing at the same address. An Honorary Membership is a category of membership for a person who has rendered distinguished service to the Society, or who is otherwise deemed worthy of the honour.
At the end of 2019, our club had 165 memberships. As you can see in these tables, as of August 4th 2020, there were 157 memberships. While we are down in ‘overall’ numbers for this year, it needs some context. There were 28 members from 2019 that did not renew for various reasons. However, we have had 13 new ‘Individual’ memberships and 7 new ‘Family’ memberships!
We also have a good selection of members’ geographies. Gone are the days of being solely Tri-City based – we have expanded our sphere of influence substantially. That’s a good thing; today Burke Mountain, tomorrow the World!!!! Spread the word!!!!!
You may also like to know that in general, members are becoming much more technically savvy. Membership paid via PayPal accounted for 25% of payments (40); Cash was 31% (48); Cheques were 38% (60); eTransfer was 4% (7). We fully expect that the ‘eTransfer’ and ‘PayPal’ figures will continue to grow into the future. There is also a decreasing number of ‘mail-in’ memberships, despite the growing geographic diversity of our membership. Once again, this is testament to the emerging ‘technical’ expertise of our amazing members!
On a side note, if you are contemplating switching to ‘electronic’ payment, we urge you to use ‘eTransfer’ in preference to PayPal. It’s easier AND saves your club money. There are NO charges incurred for you OR the club for these bank transfers.
Hope you found these stats interesting and, until we can meet again in person, stay safe!!