"it requires a minimum amount of thought to realize that the Life Members built this organization."

Some did. Some did nothing more than pay there dues. Some who are not life membrs have been keys to this organization.

"They also are getting nothing for free."

Didn't say they were.

"Many who have paid for their life memberships have passed on, so the club is money ahead."

how many?

"The lifers prepayment allows us to have a surplus so the organization can do many things rather than spend all its energy trying to collect enough money to pay the past bills"

Actually the club bylaws specify that the Life Membership fees are to be placed in a seperate account "to maintain Life Member benefits" and not for any other purpose.

"The lifers are the foundation of this club"

I have no idea how you make this conclusion. In light of the fact that the only qualification to be eligible for Life Membership is the completeion of three years of membership. Your claim that LMs are the foundation of the club would have some sort of validity if Life membership required something more significant to the club.

Since I am the one who has used the phrase that you are attacking I will repeat my explanation.

A person purchases a life membership today for $300 (or next december for $450) and that money goes into the life Mebership account.

Now during the course of the first year how much imterest is that gneerating? How much is expended on that members benefits? I bet that the amount expended exceeds current interest rates. Multiply that by the number of the life members (now i understand that as LM pass on there money remains in the account although there expenses end, -- although in the future some life members may continue to be mailed there magazines after passing simply because no one is notified of their passing.) How many of our life members have passed or will pass in the early stages of their Life membership?

now over time we can be reasonably certain that the expenses of providing benefits will go up. And though i can not predict interest rates, I would feel really safe with the assumption that the costs of providing benefits will go up faster than the interest rates which provide inclome on the Life Member Fund.

Over time this means that less and less of the Life Members benefits will be able to be paid for solely out the Life Member account, meaning that the burden of the expense will eventually fall on the general fund, funded by the dues of regular members, so then the regular members dues need to pay the expenses of their benefits as well as subsidize the benefits of the LM members. So regular dues will need to go up at rate exceeding just the cost increase of an individual members benefits. Now this may may discourage membership do the cost of a regular membership meaning you now have even fewer regular members to make up the shortfall and the circle continues.

I am not against Life Memberships, but Life Memberships should be a small proportion of the membership. And that is why I am against the Club actively promoting the Life membership option. I think the Life membership scenario would be much better for the club in the long run if a member had to complete 10 years prior to becoming a Life Member.

So That is why i believe that in the long run Life Members will become a burden on the membership of the club, its not about individuals being burdensome, its about a financial structure that will be burdensome.

Honorary Life membership by its very nature is extremely limited in number. because of this I do not worry that HLM's will cause a long term problem for the club, unless the club werer to strat giving them out like water. But so far the club has limited these to a few very deserving individuals.