New Membership Card

[Paul Chandler]

I renewed my EAA membership at Airventure this year and it arrived yesterday. I was very disappointed to note the rather bland design rather than the B17 image that has been on there for a number of years. Is there a reason for this ?

I am not too sure that the plastic card will last the 5 years between renewals especially if kept in a wallet.

[FlyingRon]

Why on earth do you carry an EAA membership card. I carried my Vintage card for a while (it had both my Vintage and EAA numbers on it). I've never needed to ever take it out of my wallet. Every place that extended some benefit to me for being a member either took my word for it or had a way to look it up (I do know my EAA number off the top of my head). My wallet has too much other crap in it that I do need to carry.

[rwanttaja]

Why on earth do you carry an EAA membership card.

Scraping frost off the windshield in the morning. :-)

Ron Wanttaja

[CarlOrton]

Concur with the two Ron's above.

I love the B-17 - don't get me wrong. Have volunteered on it several times when our chapter hosted it.

However - I've always been curious as to why the membership card never changed. It's been the same since - ? - who knows when. Most other organizations with as diverse a fan base regularly change the pic.

[Eric Cernjar]

I renewed my EAA membership at Airventure this year and it arrived yesterday. I was very disappointed to note the rather bland design rather than the B17 image that has been on there for a number of years. Is there a reason for this ?

I am not too sure that the plastic card will last the 5 years between renewals especially if kept in a wallet.

Hi Paul,

Truthfully we ended up with the B-17 because it's a fan favorite and most people like that airplane, but it wasn't necessarily representative of all that EAA has to offer and could be misleading regarding what EAA is all about. When we start thinking about what plane could be on there, you can imagine that no matter which plane we picked, some would love it and others wouldn't! The basic design we put on now is a bit cleaner. What I'd really love to get to someday, although we have to do quite a bit of math to figure out if we can make the costs work, is allow members to put their own image on their card. Now THAT would be neat!

The reason we're going with 5 year intervals is we're looking to shave some costs that we can invest in other areas that will be more impactful for members. However, if you lose your card or it doesn't hold up, you can certainly give us a call and we can send you a replacement.

Thanks,
Eric

[Paul Chandler]

Hi Eric,

thanks for the reply - The B17 design was colourful and stood out. I have had people ask was it was when using credit cards etc. Unfortunately I doubt that will happen with the new design as it is very dull / bland / uninteresting.

Were the members consulted on this proposal as I am sure many would have preferred to keep the B17 design ?

[MNWORD]

Hi Eric,

thanks for the reply - The B17 design was colourful and stood out. I have had people ask was it was when using credit cards etc. Unfortunately I doubt that will happen with the new design as it is very dull / bland / uninteresting.

Were the members consulted on this proposal as I am sure many would have preferred to keep the B17 design ?

Paul, I am beginning to believe it does NOT matter what members think anymore! I have had some extensive correspondence with Eric Cernjar the EAA Marketing Manager on Lifetime Members issues and I believe they want us to just attend an Air Show and not worry about OUR lifetime commitments to aviation and vintage aircraft as it is implied in his statement to you. I will tell you until things start to change at EAA, I am not coming up to just see the same old airshow. If I come up it would be to fellowship with fellow aviators and reminisce about our experiences in aviation. The way things are implied now EAA appears to just want to make very dull/bland/ uninteresting changes.

Mike Wordell
779745
Lifetime Member

[skyfixer8]

Paul, Hopefully they don t go the way of the AOPA card... No pictures.

Bill l

[FlyingRon]

They can save money by not sending me the cards at all. I've got enough other important stuff in my wallet.

[rwanttaja]

Paul, I am beginning to believe it does NOT matter what members think anymore!

Well... we have to consider what level of membership involvement is necessary. Massive changes to the YE program...well, membership involvement SHOULD have been a priority. Whether to order Danish or Bagels for the Friday morning staff meeting....ummm, probably don't need to involve the membership.

Graphics on the membership card is probably not in the first category. I suppose they could have set up an online survey, etc., but otherwise don't think most of us care much. Yes, it's a great B-17 image, but most of us keep the cards buried in our wallet and it really doesn't matter that much.

Ideally, they'd set up the renewal process so that we could select from a set of images, or even use our own images. Would it be a nice program? Yes. Would it be worth cutting the AirVenture urinal cake budget in half in order to implement it? I dunno.....

Ron Wanttaja