Scout Patch Collectors

ISCA Life Membership Terminated?

For some reason, I received a cc e-mail from Joe Schloss, a collector from Wyoming who I’ve worked with at several NOACs, that tendered his resignation from the International Scouting Collectors Association (ISCA) board of directors because of his disagreement about how ISCA Life Membership were being handled.

Essentially, the ISCA board has decided to end the hard copy of its quarterly journal for all members, including Life Members. If you want a hard copy of the journal, an annual subscription must be paid. Doesn’t it seem like Life Members are getting the short end of the stick because of financial mismanagement by ISCA?

As a long time Life Member, I have been told by some people that I need to pay my fair share again because I haven’t paid any dues in over 10 years. But wasn’t that the point of shelling out a large amount in the past? Net present value and all that? I’ve also heard the argument that since I had Life Memberships in both predecessor organizations (American Scouting Traders Assoc – ASTA, National Scouting Collectors Society – NSCS), I lost both Life Memberships when the two organizations merged to form ISCA and therefore the new entity is not obligated to continue any Life Memberships.

So what? “That’s life?” The economic downturn is a good excuse to dump Life Members? What are your thoughts? Me? I’m not happy.

Comments

ISCA87L;2761 wrote: As a long time Life Member, I have been told by some people that I need to pay my fair share again because I haven’t paid any dues in over 10 years. But wasn’t that the point of shelling out a large amount in the past?

There are two problems. First, I gather that the life membership fees were not necessarily set in an actuarially sound manner. That is, the life membership fees were not set at a level such that the income from investing those fees was sufficient to provide membership benefits.

Second, and more importantly, is the fact that ISCA is the result of a merger of multiple organizations, some of which were also the product of mergers, and that when the organizations merged there was a (not well-though-out) decision to honor existing life memberships. Some of the earlier organizations had sold life memberships for very low prices (on the order of $10 in at least one case) which left ISCA with the obligation to provide “life member” benefits with essentially no money to meet the cost.

By Tegularius on December 9th, 2009 at 3:53 pm

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