Join BFC & Trout Unlimited

Q: What is the annual contribution of $50 used for?

A: The donations are used to pay for chapter operating expenses such as bank fees, newsletters, sponsoring a youth to attend the CTU summer camp, chapter events like member meetings and recent special events such as the Float Clinic and the Half Hitchers Fly Tying night and for chapter conservation projects such as the habitat improvement for Rogers Park on Middle Boulder Creek and South Boulder Creek.

Q: Why should one donate $50 to become a Supporting Member?

A: We expect that the supporting membership donations will be our primary revenue source for yearly BFC operations. The old ways of raising money have become stale and ineffective, particularly the annual BFC auction. The auction placed an unreasonable burden of raising funds on just a handful of members who got burned-out over time. We get essentially no funds from the dues that members pay to National TU. For example, we got the grand sum of $15 from TU for our 750 members in 2009. We created the annual Supporting Member program as a way for our members to sustain the general operating costs of the chapter and to encourage more focused participation from the members. We want to create a group of members who really want to participate and dedicate themselves to our chapter and provide them benefits for doing so. You can fully participate in the chapter without being a Supporting Member and it is not mandatory. However, Supporting Members will receive some benefits that non-supporting members will not. For example: lower rates for club trips and events , merchandise discounts, first priority on limited spaces at events. Our plan is that Supporting Members will get their $50 back and more in savings at events each year.

Q: Are the general funds of the chapter being used to subsidize these benefits that the general members receive?

A: No. For events (e.g. Sylvan Dale), the Supporting Member fee for the event is not lower than our cost for the event. So the chapter is not subsidizing the "discount" given to Supporting Members. Non-supporting members will pay higher than our costs for the event. We don't use the chapter’s general funds to finance events for which Supporting Members get a reduced rate.

Q: Why do we have three different forms of communication: the website, the Blog and the newsletter? How are they different and isn’t it more costly than having everything in one place?

A: The website is the source for more static and uni-directional communication. Information there tends to not change that often and it requires a web manager to update it. Examples: general announcements of upcoming events, bylaws, meeting minutes. The Blog is meant to be a more dynamic, interactive forum where anyone can publish articles, comments, photos, etc. and changes/updates are made many times per day. Anyone can create, comment or respond to a blog post. The newsletters are used when we really need to "push" a message out to the chapter and make sure everyone sees that message (even those that don’t use the Blog or website). Both the website and blog are hosted at no cost to the chapter. The cost of sending an electronic newsletter to all of our members is around $25.