Up for Renewal
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about Cathy Alter’s book Up for Renewal. This post has nothing to do with that. This post is all about the two renewal notices I received in the mail this week, my reactions to receiving them, and my ultimate decisions to renew or not to renew.
The first was a membership renewal notice for the Smithsonian Young Benefactors. I joined this group last year so that I could combine my passion for the arts with my desire to support an arts organization. YB events benefited the Culture4Kids Fund and the Resident Associates program while affording its members various discounts and insider invitations. Great causes and perks. Things were fine until I changed e-mail addresses and joined Facebook. Despite notifying the appropriate YB contact about my e-mail change – several times, my e-newsletter subscription was never re-routed, thus leaving me out of the loop with events and other happenings.
Then, I joined Facebook and its Smithsonian Young Benefactors group. I friended the administrator of said group and introduced myself by informing her that I was a YB member, expecting that this would rectify my out-of-the-loop-ness, and that I would at least receive Facebook invitations to events. Silly me. I read in the news feed about friends who were planning to attend YB happy hours or the Jingle Ball, yet I still never received a single piece of information about any YB events. I assumed that I was somehow lost in the system and being ignored. I had already made up my mind not to renew my membership, and then I received my first membership renewal notice. Grrrr. Not wanting to waste my time being exasperated, I just tossed it out, and figured that would be the end of it. Not so. This week I received a second notice (signed by the group admin who I friended on Facebook) espousing the benefits of renewal and encouraging me to “act quickly” so I “don’t risk missing out on the action.” Gosh…let me think about it…um, no. I had planned to enclose a note with my returned non-renewal, but have decided instead to post a public message.
Dear Smithsonian Young Benefactors:
Your lack of responsiveness has caused me to “miss out on the action” for the better part of my last year of membership. I’ll be taking my passion for the arts and my sponsorship dollars elsewhere. I’ve heard wonderful things about the Corcoran’s 1869 Society.
Regards, Barbara
My next renewal dilemma occurred when I got the latest invoice for my Sunday New York Times subscription. Apparently, my initial subscription was under some kind of promotional rate, and now the cost for Sunday delivery would be $6.80 per issue. Of a newspaper. One issue. Of a newspaper. I get that it’s not local, but, um, that’s a tad spendy. I know in the grand scheme of my weekly expenditures, it’s a pittance, but this just seemed outrageous to me – a markup that high. So I called customer service fully prepared to cancel my beloved Sunday paper. The nice woman on the other end of the phone seemed particularly concerned about my decision and inquired about the reason. Without missing a beat, she offered to extend my promo rate and adjust my invoice. Deal. Can’t wait for tomorrow’s issue to arrive at my door.
YBs, take a lesson.
