sole routine income, does not bring us in enough income to cover our routine expenses.
These routine expenses, as of today, are the costs of printing and distributing the Journal, the costs of printing and distributing the Newsletter, the salary of our Assistant Secretary, the office expenses of the Society and other minor expenses of a similar character. Our non-routine expenses are mostly, the costs of activities mounted as part of our Visits and Tours programme. We are in consequence obliged to set the charge we make for each such activity at a level which not only covers all the direct costs of the activity, but which also allows us to make a small contribution to our general, routine, income, to reflect the indirect subsidy which the activity would otherwise get from our general income. Thus, no visit or tour could be mounted if the Newsletter did not advertise it, nor could the Newsletter be issued if we did not have an Assistant Secretary to prepare it. We believe that it is reasonable to expect the charge for the activity to meet these indirect expenses. This is not always feasible, however.
I confess that I remain a little concerned about the state of our routine income and expenditure figures. I would feel happier if our routine income could meet our routine expenses. The Council has decided not to seek an increase in the annual subscription rates during 2004-2005, but I feel I must say that I do not believe that this situation can continue indefinitely.
The second point I would like to make is to point out that we have been urging Members for some years now to switch to Autopay for the renewal of their annual subscriptions. About half the Membership has now switched to Autopay. Those of the Members who have not switched cause the Society a great deal of work, however. We have to do an annual check, Member by Member, to see whether the sum due has been paid or not, whether any Standing Instruction has been re-figured to the current subscription rates or not, and so on, and to send out reminders and so forth. As of today's date, for instance, no less than 161 of our Annual Members not paying by Autopay have still not yet completed payment for this year, whereas all the Autopay Annual Members have, and 18 have still not reconfigured their Standing Instructions to meet the present-day subscription rates, even though these were put in place a good few years ago. Our expenses are, in
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sole routine income, does not bring us in enough income to cover our routine expenses.
These routine expenses, as of today, are the costs of printing and distributing the Journal, the costs of printing and distributing the Newsletter, the salary of our Assistant Secretary, the office expenses of the Society and other minor expenses of a similar character. Our non- routine expenses are mostly, the costs of activities mounted as part of our Visits and Tours programme. We are in consequence obliged to set the charge we make for each such activity at a level which not only covers all the direct costs of the activity, but which also allows us to make a small contribution to our general, routine, income, to reflect the indirect subsidy which the activity would otherwise get from our general income. Thus, no visit or tour could be mounted if the Newsletter did not advertise it, nor could the Newsletter be issued if we did not have an Assistant Secretary to prepare it. We believe that it is reasonable to expect the charge for the activity to meet these indirect expenses. This is not always feasible, however.
I confess that I remain a little concerned about the state of our routine income and expenditure figures. I would feel happier if our routine income could meet our routine expenses. The Council has decided not to seek an increase in the annual subscription rates during 2004-2005, but I feel I must say that I do not believe that this situation can continue indefinitely.
The second point I would like to make is to point out that we have been urging Members for some years now to switch to Autopay for the renewal of their annual subscriptions. About half the Membership has now switched to Autopay. Those of the Members who have not switched cause the Society a great deal of work, however. We have to do an annual check, Member by Member, to see whether the sum due has been paid or not, whether any Standing Instruction has been re-figured to the current subscription rates or not, and so on, and to send out reminders and so forth. As of today's date, for instance, no less than 161 of our Annual Members not paying by Autopay have still not yet completed payment for this year, whereas all the Autopay Annual Members have, and 18 have still not reconfigured their Standing Instructions to meet the present-day subscription rates, even though these were put in place a good few years ago. Our expenses are, in
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