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In 2012 the NSCF approved a non-voting associate membership category, opening up membership in our organization to the ski industry.  The premise was to use our, then in development, web site to show ROI (Return on Investment) for any ski industry entity who joined the NSCF.  Our current challenge is to show prospective associate members that a membership in the National Ski Council Federation is beneficial to them.  We realize that the ski industry does not need us, but we need their recognition, and by joining our organization they would be showing their support for our mission statement as a non-profit organization with in the skiing community.

When the membership committee starts soliciting associate memberships we want to make sure we do it right and your input and comments will be most helpful.  Please take a few minutes to review the points below and send your thoughts and comments to me by the end of August.  This will allow time to put together the input from the councils for the annual meeting and hopefully reduce discussion time on associate memberships during the business meeting.  Even if your council will not be able to attend the annual meeting in Sun Peaks, your input is important, so please take the time to let us know what you think.

1. Voting and business meeting privileges.  Currently, associate members would not have a vote or the right to attend the business portion of our annual meetings.  The membership committee would like to suggest we give them a limited number of votes and seats at the annual NSCF meetings based on the number of associate members who sign up and attend the annual meeting. For example, for every five associate members who attend they have one vote and one seat at the meeting.

2. Use of the NSCF website to show ROI.  A two tiered pricing for associate memberships was developed as it was felt that not all ROI we have identified is applicable to all entities of the ski industry. Standard Associate Membership - $100 annual dues.  Premium Associate Membership - $200 annual dues. Attached is a list of ROI that the committee has identified to the tiered memberships as it relates to the NSCF website.  If you would compare the list to the site and come back with comments and suggestions it would be appreciated.

3. Council associate memberships and sponsorships.  It has been noted that a number of our member councils have associate memberships and sponsorships.  If your council has adopted one of these types of memberships, we would appreciate it if you could share your pricing structure and ROI associated with that membership with us.  This would be a great barometer to gage how the NSCF Associate Memberships compare to what the ski industry currently feels is good value to them.

4. Increase usage of the NSCF website. To make the NSCF website a real ROI, we need to show to the ski industry that our members – down to the club membership level – use the website as a tool for ski related information.  Joe is doing a great job by continuing to post current information on the site and sending emails to direct traffic there.  Pat has also put in the extra effort to get social media connected to the website.  But the really big challenge, since we know that not all federation material is passed on to all the member council’s boards or filtered effectively down to the club boards or at that level to the club memberships, is how do we get this line of communication down to the ‘grass root’ members?

To reiterate, the membership committee wants to make sure that our approach is on the right track before soliciting associate memberships from the ski industry and would appreciate your kind attention to this request for help.

Thank you,

Lydia Hill

NSCF Membership Chair

LHill99@comcast.net

membership@skifederation.org