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DOES CHANGING MY
MIND MAKE ME A ‘WISE MAN’?
At its Annual Meeting in May 2004, the Board of Directors of the Long Island Platform Tennis Association voted to proceed with an investigation into making the use of credit cards available for its membership to pay their dues, annual dinner tickets and entry fees for tournaments. There was only one dissenting vote. It was that of the Treasurer. That’s me. I could not understand why the Association should pay fees and maintenance charges to a credit card firm so that a few members could avoid writing checks. There was a second vote in May of 2005 when more detail of the program was brought to the Directors. It was approved overwhelmingly. Again I was alone in my opposition to the program. Our computer guru, Henry Wilshusen, who runs his business as wilswebs.com, contributed uncountable hours arranging the details of the on-line charging mechanism and the arrangement for our “merchant” status with the Association’s bank. It all came together last month and the first charges to pay the annual dues were entered by members. The credits have been entered in the Association’s account at the bank. As Treasurer, I receive an e-mail confirmation of each payment of dues with the information (address, phone numbers, e-mail and date of birth, etc.) needed to register the member. About a dozen members have made use of the credit card charge to pay their dues and the system is working well.
“A wise man changes his mind, but a fool-never” is an expression on a card shown above that my son sent to me while he was in Florida at college. Now I am not intimating that I am a “wise man” because I really have not totally “changed my mind” but I have come to the conclusion that there may be some good to this system after all. As many of your know, a tournament chairman has always had some trouble collecting entry fees. Somehow a team can’t send a check in time and resorts to “I’ll pay when I get there”. A list of unpaid teams is given to a hut captain where the teams are scheduled to play their first match. The collection is usually accomplished. The check (or cash) is eventually handed over to the tournament chair and finally on to the Treasurer of the group conducting the tournament. It is not a smooth procedure and sometimes fouls up with non-payment by a team or a misplaced or lost check. Now I have good news. With the ability to have an entry fee paid by credit card, the tournament chairman no longer has to collect “at the door”. The regulation of “payment with the entry” can be fully enforced. Up to the very last hour before the deadline, an entry by e-mail and the entry fee by credit card can overcome this once upon a time odorous problem. While I still remain a skeptic about the need, at this time, to provide this service, at least I have been able to find a “silver lining”. Its use can insure payment of a team’s entry fees before its arrival for the first match of a tournament and also help to guarantee that the team will show up. Even if it costs a few dollars in fees, I’ll take that over looking for a lost check or pursuing a team for non-payment every time. |
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