Possible way for IHMSA to save money?

[kg4tyr]

I went back & looked at the 2011 statement of income & expense in the March issue of the paper. Total printing cost for score cards was less than $600. Total expenses were in excess of $102,000. People, we are not talking a major impact here! If every club printed their own cards and totally eliminated that expense we are talking saving one half of one percent of total expenses.

Steve W.

Printing cost was $600. But add postage to that, the amount of time it takes somebody to process pack and ship the orders out to match directors all over the country/world and there is more than $600 per year involved. In my humble opinion, scorecards, match reports, and anything else could be accessed on the website and save HQ printing, shipping, or whatever expenses may be involved should be utilized. A penny saved is a penny earned. $600+ saved could go towards marketing or something else to help get new shooters and promote the sport.

[19 Turkeys]

steve, was the $600 including shipping? i know the last time i got some scorecards from hdqs. the shipping was around $12 or so it said on the usps flat rate box. allen

That was just printing cost. Total postage (not counting mailing the paper) was just under $1,800. & remember that would be all postage including renewal notices and then mailing of the renewal membership card. Then you have postage for billing advertisers in the paper and general office postage. The cost of mailing score cards should be less than half of the $1,800 I would guess. Thus, you are talking around $1,500 (plus or minus a few bucks) for the total cost of score cards and mailing them (& that includes 80 round cards which local clubs use darned few of. That printing expense was just under $200.) & remember, we pay $1/gun sanction fees. That totaled $12,048. Thus, IHMSA's return on investment for score cards is pretty darned good!

If you want to cut expenses, I could make a better case for ceasing to accept credit cards. That expense was $1,368.61.

Steve W.

[wheelgun7360]

i agree about the credit cards. allen

[kg4tyr]

i agree about the credit cards. allen

I understand the concern about this cost, but I use my Debit Card for everything. I very seldom have cash on me. I'll use it for a soda at the store. On the other hand an electronic debit from your checking account doesn't "look" like a credit card to the automatic systems out there, it's simply like writing a check with out the time to physically mail it out and wait for it to clear. Is IHMSA equipped to do this? They really should update the website to accept various forms of secure payments, so that we could just take 2 minutes to renew our membership. PayPal works great. (I know they're anti gun, but it's convenient)

[mugs]

I've been shooting IHMSA for 33 yrs. Don't ever remember having to send in score cards.

Mugs
IHMSA 5940L

[260 Striker]

Just got a revised version of 40 round score card from kg4tyr (David) and it looks great. Doesn't have the new Hunter Pistol (?) category on it but that can be penciled in if necessary. I didn't expect this to save thousands of dollars but if this could have prevented our dues from going to $50 per year, I think everyone would have jumped on this download score card idea. Just trying to make our sport self sufficient even if taking baby steps to get there. Too bad MDs can't email match reports to HQ or upload to website and do some electronic transfer of match entry funds. Save more time and postage there too. I'm sure many clubs are using pcs to track match results. We (Logan Handgun Assocation) still use an Excel spreadsheet that started out as Lotus many years ago. We found it easy to use and it calculates all the scores at the end of the match. I'm not trying to act like I can save the world or anything. Just tossing ideas out on the forum to see if there is any value. Thanks David for the score card and others for looking into the details of printing and mailing score cards.

[Justin Cider]

How's about just consolidating with the NRA? They seem like a pretty solid group of folks.

[19 Turkeys]

How's about just consolidating with the NRA? They seem like a pretty solid group of folks.

I am not sure that their program is that solid, and every IHMSA range would have to move SB & FP chickens to 40 yards/meters and have new targets made as they are a bit larger as I understand it.

Steve W.

[Curious]

Printing costs should be for match cards alone. Postal fees are something different.

When HQ was at my house, I shipped a priority flat rate envelopes out stuffed full of cards, and any requested forms to the match directors. As many people only requested cards after they were about to run out, priority seemed to make sense because we were not wanting them to worry. The flat rate evelopes are still a cheap mailing format, and held quite a few hundred cards.

Many of the match reporting forms are printed out of copier that IHMSA HQ has, I formatted all the forms in MS-Word, and they are really cheap! Most printing expenses were trimmed to the bare bones back in 2002. Strictly the price of a ream of paper, and toner.

Understand that $40K is down probably $25K from operating expenses when IHMSA was in Iowa back in 2002, and there was rent back then. So IHMSA has done an excellant job of controlling the HQ expenses. That $40K it also covers travel fees for those who attend the Shot Show, that is where all prizes for drawings are garnered.

The paper has always been one of the hardest expenses to control. And the postage associated with it is not cheap either. Also, something else to think about how many life members do we have, and how many them still get the paper. If they don't shoot, what revenue are they contributing?

Maybe IHMSA should go back to raffle tickets, for prizes and hold a drawing at the Intls. Attendance not required. Or just asking for donations to the IHMSA General fund again like days gone by?

Curious

[260 Striker]

I like the raffle idea. I haven't been able to attend many Ints but would take a chance or two to win a nice prize. Thanks for the history lesson and thanks for being a part of IHMSA. I appreciate the help you gave us MDs back then.