The Florida Lupine Association’s (FLA) Board of Directors (BOD) has revised the annual memberships for all FLA Members so that they follow FLA’s fiscal year—July 1 through June 30. Fiscal year memberships will not only alleviate problems currently experienced by FLA’s Secretary, but they will also financially benefit the organization. The FLA BOD offers the following justification for making the decision to switch to fiscal year memberships:

1.     The join/expiration date for the bulk of the FLA membership is already near or at the beginning of our fiscal year, so the majority of our Members will not be affected at all by a change to fiscal year membership.

2.     It is extremely difficult for the Secretary to keep up with who joined when and to send the letters out to individual Members in a timely fashion so that they know their memberships are expiring or have expired. Previously, up to three renewal letters were sent out to Members just prior to and sometimes following the expiration of their annual membership. Switching to a fiscal year membership will allow all memberships to come due at the same time, thereby permitting the Secretary to send out membership renewal notices to all Members at the same time every year.

3.     Fiscal year memberships will make it easier for Members to remember when their memberships expire because everyone’s membership will expire at the same time.

4.     Previously, when welcome packets were sent to new Members, the Secretary included a sampling of previous newsletters. Under fiscal year membership, new Members will receive all previous newsletters from the beginning of the fiscal year during which they join. Thus, there will be no difference in service to new Members.

5.     Fiscal year memberships will allow renewal notices to be inserted into the newsletters, thereby saving the Secretary lots of work and saving FLA money because the notices will no longer need to be sent out in a separate mailing.

6.     If new Members join during the Spring Rendezvous—which is historically the time of year when most new Members join FLA—they will be rolled forward to the next fiscal year, starting July 1. This is an added benefit for new Members joining during the Spring Rendezvous.

7.     All new Members joining between the Spring Rendezvous (occurring at the end of April or beginning of May) and June 30 will automatically be rolled forward to the next fiscal year.

8.     Fiscal year memberships will have no effect on the Treasurer’s duties, on the year-end financial summary, or on the paperwork that must be sent to the IRS at the end of each fiscal year.