President: Gale Betterly*
A Message from our President, Gale Betterly
– reprinted from the 2015 winter print newsletter*
“Did you see that bill! Why have my dues gone up so much?”
Yes, I did. Let me share why they increased and how it came to be.
In 2013, a report on a new membership model and a suggested dues increase was presented at the Ohio Farm Bureau Annual meeting. It had been ten years since the dues had been increased and costs had gone up. Over those ten years, the OFBF dues have been $46 per member the rest of your $63 dues or $17 per member stayed in the County. OFBF paid your AFBF dues out of that amount and also paid for the services they provide such as the magazines, newsletters, Organizational Director services, special programs, Washington and Columbus legislative activities and other services.
That proposed Code change – our by-laws – failed in 2013. This year, a special task force, requested by the delegates in 2013, presented a modified membership model that includes our traditional members and adds a Young Active category for young farmers. The new model also provides for a new non-membership category called Our Ohio Supporter. You’ll be hearing more about all of the changes because this year the membership changes and the dues increases were approved by the delegate body. The new dues going to OFBF will be $60 – a $14 increase.
Our county has been very active and I hope you have taken advantage of the special activities our members have planned and conducted. As you might imagine, even with all of the wonderful volunteer help, there are costs associated with everything we do. If we are putting on a dinner, there’s the cost of the food and the preparation if we have it catered. We share our office with three other counties and our brilliant office staff is always ready and able to answer questions, fill orders and mail letters, but we have the normal expenses associated with employees – salaries, benefits, taxes, office supplies and more. We help to support the County Fair, local charities and our youth. There is a price tag associated with each of these activities.
Last year Summit County Farm Bureau spent $30,000 more than we received in dues. With OFBF taking $14 more out of each membership, we had two choices – either cut out most of our programming which would mean no more scholarships, slashing support for the Ag Mobile, eliminating assistance for the Fair and other activities – or request a dues increase. Your Board of Trustees voted to go with the dues increase request.
If you were at our County Annual Meeting last fall, you had an opportunity to vote on our dues increase if you were an active member. Active members are farm family members and others who are defined as active members in our governing rules – our Code. The members who were at the Annual Meeting voted in favor of increasing our annual dues to $88. Those of us whose memberships renew in January were the first to see the increase on our membership application.
How can we justify that increase? It’s easy – we have many more Community members than Active Farmer members in our county. We appreciate all of our members, and hope that each one of us will help non-members understand just a bit more about where and how our food and fiber are produced. In order to do that, we need to continue to share information in our county newsletter. We need to invite community members to our Farmer’s Share Breakfast to have a great meal and gain a bit of knowledge about agriculture. We need to encourage youth to learn more about food and food production and reach out with sound programs based on science and current facts. We need to recognize our heritage and build our future.
By working together, with each of us contributing less than a quarter a day, we can build a stronger future locally, statewide and nationally. Out of that less than a quarter a day in membership dues, about 8 cents a day will stay in our county. By working together, we can do some exciting and interesting activities as we help share the great story that is Ohio Agriculture. At the same time, we have to keep our expenses in perspective. For example, it takes about 5+ days of your dues to pay the postage to get this newsletter to you. It’s only by working together that we can stay in touch with one another and build successful programs that focus on our local agriculture.
Thank you for being a member.
Gale Betterly, President
Summit County Farm Bureau
*The Summit County Farm Bureau mails out a print newletter to each of its more than 1,000 members each year. To become a member, apply online here.