An Announcement History · 1950–2023

Dues, the Newsletter and the Society's money, 1950–2023

← The Society · what it cost to belong — two dollars a year in 1951, forty by the 2020s — and what the Society did with it

Assembled for this archive from the Society's newsletters, 1951–1991 and 2008–2022, and its Annual Meeting reports. Six pages of the years to 1991 carry the figures and names most worth being sure of: Autumn 1953 p. 12, Spring 1970 p. 2, Winter 1974 pp. 7–8, Spring 1983 p. 8, Winter 1984 p. 14, Autumn 1954 p. 10 and Winter 1990 p. 3. The newsletters and Annual Meeting reports from 2008 on are already digital text and are quoted exactly. No dues notice survives in the newsletters for 1992–2007, and the account resumes at Spring 2008; the one change recorded in those years is the vote of 2003, which set the fee at $25.00 a year from 1 April 2004 (Spring 2003, pp. 3 and 8).

Two dollars, and what it bought

The Society's price is printed in the footer of every early newsletter, and it is a single figure for two things at once: “Subscriptions to Canadian Leathercraft and General Membership in Society — $2.00 annually” (Autumn 1953, p. 12). Above it stands the reason the two could not be separated: the newsletter is “published quarterly by the Canadian Society of Creative Leathercraft as an educational service to decorative leathercraftsmen”. It was not sold. It was what belonging consisted of.

General Membership in the Society and a subscription to Canadian Leathercraft were one payment and one price. You could not have the newsletter without belonging
The published rate rises six times in sixty-five years: $2.00 (1951), $3.00 (by 1970), $5.00 (1972), $10.00 (1 April 1984), $20.00 (by 1990), $25.00 (1 April 2004) and $40.00 (1 April 2016)
The membership year began on 1 June until some point in the 1960s and on 1 April thereafter, which is why the dues notice is a spring fixture in the newsletter
The $10.00 increase was put to the membership as a Notice of Motion and carried at the Annual Meeting of 1983 by 57 votes to 3
The rate was not always one figure: by Autumn 1954 it was graded by rank — Fellow $5.00, Associate $3.00, General $2.00, Sustaining $10.00 — before the newsletters return to a single membership fee
The $25.00 fee was approved by the General Membership at the 53rd Annual Meeting and took effect on 1 April 2004 (Spring 2003, pp. 3 and 8); the next dues notice in the papers is Spring 2008, with every rank merged into that one flat fee
By 2015 the fee is a table, not a figure — $40.00 for a General Member or a Member-at-Large, $5.00 for a full-time student, $100.00 (or its equivalent in materials) for a Sustaining Member — printed unchanged through the last issue to carry a dues notice, January–April 2023
The Society's own Annual Meeting financial reports, 2019–2022, show membership dues income falling every year — $1,265, then $1,200, $1,080 and $980 — as the pandemic emptied branches and cancelled the in-person Annual

The notice that spells this out is the membership announcement of March 1952. “All membership fees become due on June 1st of each year. Registered members only will receive Canadian Leathercraft, the official quarterly educational bulletin of the CSCL.” New members could join at any time, and the date of joining decided what they received: “Registrations received prior to January 1st entitle members to back issues of the current volume of CL. Members registering after January 1st will receive complimentary copies of CL from January to June, when their new membership-subscription term will commence” (March 1952, p. 2).

The same page carries the frankest administrative sentence in the run: “Special Notice — Because of an accident to early membership records, it is regretted that some members may not have received issues No. 1 or No. 2 of CL. While every effort has been made to reconstruct original mailing lists as accurately as possible, should back issues of CL not yet have been received by any registered members, please report to the Secretary and your missing issues will be mailed promptly.” The Society was twenty-one months old and had already lost its own list of members.

A branch set its own rate on top of the national one, and the London guild's is the earliest this archive records: after passing a working examination before a Board of Examiners, “a two dollar initiation fee is required with dues at twenty-five cents a month, or two dollars a year in advance” (Summer 1952, p. 3). Two dollars to the Society, two to the guild, and two to get in.

Four rates, not one — by 1954

By the autumn of 1954 the flat rate has split by rank. “Membership fees are as follows: Fellow Member $5.00; Associate Member $3.00; General Member $2.00; Sustaining Member $10.00. Check your membership card for date, and if not dated 1955, renew now” (Autumn 1954, p. 10). It is the earliest graded fee this archive holds; the single figure quoted from Autumn 1953 was the General rate all along, and this is the first notice to say a Fellow, an Associate and a Sustaining Member each paid differently for the same newsletter.

The same page changes hands on the membership desk. It introduces two new Secretaries — Miss Viola Harris, Recording Secretary, and Mrs. Louise Smyth, Corresponding Secretary — and reports, in a separate notice, that Miss Elizabeth A. Prince has taken over as Membership Chairman from Mrs. Faith Schnarr, who “had to give up that post” under “the pressure of other activities.” All dues, from that autumn on, were sent to Miss Prince at 153 Close Avenue, Toronto. Viola Harris went on to become the Society's President, 1963–65; this is the earliest office the archive can date for her, a year ahead of the Recording Secretaryship dated 1955.

The dues notice becomes an annual fixture, and by the end of the 1950s it has settled into a form that was reprinted almost word for word from year to year: “Members are reminded that all membership fees are due and payable at the Annual Meeting, April 9th. Only paid-up members will receive news and notices of special meetings, etc.” (Winter 1959, p. 8). The following spring the same paragraph appears in the past tense, under the report of the tenth Annual Meeting: “MEMBERSHIP FEES WERE DUE AND PAYABLE AT THE ANNUAL MEETING APRIL 9th, 1960” (Spring 1960, p. 4).

Beside it, both years, is the notice for back numbers — the Society's only other source of income from its own paper. “There are extra copies of most of the back issues of Canadian Leathercraft. Complete sets are available up to the end of Volume V, and except for one issue in Volume VI which was sold out, complete sets to date are available.” In 1953 the price had been “25¢ each issue while a limited supply lasts” (Autumn 1953, p. 12); by 1960 the terms are firmer: “Price for a complete set is $4.50 and individual copies 25 cents each” (Spring 1960, p. 4). Seven years of quarterly newsletters for four and a half dollars.

Three dollars, then five

The first increase this archive can date lands somewhere before 1970, and the notice that records it is a piece of advertising rather than a demand. The notice itself: “DID YOU KNOW — that your $3.00 membership in C.S.C.L. enables us to send you each copy of the Canadian Leathercraft as it is printed? DID YOU KNOW — that three quarters of our present membership has already paid their 1970 dues? Have you? IF NOT — please send it soon to — Mrs. Kay Cloughley, 5 Shannon Street, Barrie, Ont.” (Spring 1970, p. 2).

By the following spring the membership year has moved from June to April, and the notice has acquired the shape it keeps for twenty years: pay your branch, and let the branch pay the Society. “It is now time to renew your membership for the year April 1/71 to March 31/72. You can aid your officers if you renew early. Your branch officers will be pleased to receive membership fees for C.S.C.L. and forward a single group list and remittance to the C.S.C.L. membership secretary” (March 1971, p. 3). The Society collected from eight or nine branches rather than from several hundred people.

The rise from three dollars to five is not announced in any issue this archive holds; it is dated by arithmetic. The notice that raised the fee to ten dollars says the increase then being asked for “is the first increase in 12 years” (Spring 1983, p. 8), which places the previous one in 1972 — and by the winter of 1974 the rate is five dollars, printed on the masthead of every issue for the rest of the decade beside the membership chairman's address.

A past treasurer's argument

In the winter of 1974 the newsletter printed the only sustained defence of its own subscription that this archive contains. It is headed “OBSERVATIONS OF A PAST TREASURER” and signed by George McPhail (Winter 1974, pp. 7–8), and it opens by conceding the point: “In these days of rapidly escalating costs it's quite a problem to decide when you are getting full value for the money you spend. It's quite right that in your consideration you include your annual membership dues. I think you should, as I do, look upon your dues as an investment rather than an expense.”

What follows is a costing. “Your Society supplies you with four Bulletins each year at no additional cost although printing and postage take a considerable bite out of your fee. The Editorial Committee endeavour to present an interesting publication with news, technical articles and other information of interest to our craft. The Bulletin has not yet reached the goal of perfection but we are heading in that direction.” Membership also “entitles you to attend various shows, exhibitions and of course our annual meeting”, and, he adds, opens “a window to a larger world”. He ends where a treasurer would: “So from my point of view I think our membership fee of $5.00 is a definite bargain and I have no hesitation in forwarding my remittance to the Society.”

The figure in that last sentence is typed with a broken dollar sign and prints as {5.00. Five dollars is the rate printed on the newsletter's own masthead in Autumn 1975, Spring 1976 and Winter 1980, and is the sum the membership chairman asks for in Summer 1978, so the reading is not in doubt.

What the money went out on

The Society's outgoings are rarely itemised, but one notice lists them plainly. In March 1972 the executive reports that “C.S.C.L. have renewed affiliation with the following Associations: (1) Canadian Craftsman Association $20.00 (2) Canadian Guild of Crafts $50.00 (3) Craft Foundation of Ontario $25.00”, and adds a fourth line: “Again C.S.C.L. has given a $35.00 prize award to Canadian Guild of Crafts, Canadian National Exhibition competition” (March 1972, p. 2). Ninety-five dollars to belong to the wider craft world and thirty-five to endow a prize in it — at five dollars a head, the subscriptions of twenty-six members.

Where a year went badly, the newsletter said so. The first attempt to fund branch workshops from the centre was withdrawn “due to C.S.C.L. operating at a slight deficit” (Spring 1975, p. 9), and the autumn of 1984 brings the sharpest passage of accounting in the run — the report of a sales shop that did not pay: “However, we faced the large storage costs of last season, and hoped for good results this year to cover our deficit… total sales were a mere $2,663.85, with the Society receiving only $532.77. This was not an amount that would cover this season's expenses, (rent etc.) Where do we go from here? … Or do we find other methods of financing our Society expenses, preferably NOT by any fees increase!” (Autumn 1984, p. 1). The fee had been increased six months earlier.

Ten dollars, 57 to 3

The 1984 increase was put to a vote in front of the members, and the newsletter printed the motion twice so that nobody could miss it. The members voted on an increase again in 2003: at the 53rd Annual Meeting Larry Atkinson moved that the fee rise to $25.00 per member per year from 1 April 2004, Nancy Durham seconded, and it carried (Spring 2003, pp. 3 and 8). In its own words: “We hope that all members received their ‘Notice of Motion’ re dues increase in the mail this past month. In case your copy didn't reach you, we repeat the motion. That, effective as of April 1, 1984, the Annual Membership Fee will be raised to $10.00 per annum. The motion, as presented above, was discussed at the Annual Meeting, and was passed by the general membership by a vote of 57 for, 3 against” (Spring 1983, p. 8).

The justification is on the same page, and it is the newsletter itself: “We regret the raise in dues was made necessary by increased expenses, particularly due to printing and mailing costs of notices, newsletter, etc. plus booth rental at C.N.E. This is the first increase in 12 years.” Twelve months' notice was given, and the old rate held to the last day: the note at the foot of that same page still asks Members-at-Large for five dollars.

The page prints the clause “plus booth rental at C.N.E.”, “$10.00 per annum” and “The motion, as presented above” (Spring 1983, p. 8).

By the winter of 1984 the new rate is in force and the notice has moved to the back of the newsletter: “ANNUAL DUES should be paid PRIOR to APRIL 1st, 1985, to continue your membership in the C.S.C.L. … Branch members should pay their own Branch treasurer, who will see that you receive your membership cards. Branch dues are also payable to your Branch Treasurer. Members-at-large should send their cheque in the amount of $10.00 to: Membership Chairman, Hilda Chynoweth, P.O. Box 68, Norland, Ont.” (Winter 1984, p. 14).

That notice states its own figure twice and the two do not agree. The summary line reads “Amount per member — $ 70.00”; the instruction four lines below reads “$10.00”, which is the rate carried by every other notice of 1984 and 1985. The seven is a struck or doubled typewriter character, and ten dollars governs. The page is quoted as printed rather than corrected.

Twenty dollars, and the end of the run

The last rate the archive records is double the one before it. “N.B. C.S.C.L. Annual Dues of $20.00 are due in March and also any dues to the branches. Members-at-Large and branch Treasurers please send the 1991–1992 dues to: Joyce Scruton, 212 Southview Rd., Oakville, Ontario” (Winter 1990, p. 3). Forty years after the founding, belonging cost ten times what it had cost in 1951 — and still bought the same thing: four newsletters a year, the Annual Meeting, and the right to enter the Society's competitions.

The connection between paying and taking part is stated outright wherever a competition is announced. Of the Leather '84 exhibition at the Scarborough Civic Centre: “ONLY MEMBERS in good standing of CSCL will be eligible for entry in this show, so please see that your dues are in in adequate time” (Autumn 1983, p. 5). And where a branch described itself to outsiders, the fee was the first thing it mentioned after the welcome: “Visitors are welcomed at most meetings and demonstrations and membership dues are kept as minimal as possible to encourage participation by all” (Autumn 1980, p. 8).

Two names on this page are worth flagging for anyone reading further. Kay Cloughley, membership secretary in 1970 and 1971, is printed Kay Cloughby in the notice of March 1972; the spelling used here is the one printed in Spring 1970, and it is the spelling the Barrie branch uses of its own member elsewhere. Joyce Scruton is the spelling printed in Winter 1990, and the Spring 1990 masthead of the same year prints her as Membership Chairman under that name; the 1990 group photograph key gives the same woman as Joyce Scraton, a slip of the typewriter for the same name.

What one Annual returned, 1993–94

The Society's Annual Meeting was itself a piece of the Society's income, and one surviving comparative statement shows how much a single weekend could move it. Hamilton hosted in both 1993 and 1994, and the report printed that autumn sets the two years side by side: registration rose from 44 people to 47, and the fee each paid rose more than fivefold, from $15.00 to $75.00. Total registration income went from $660.00 to $3,525.00, and after the host guild's own costs — meals, hotel, refunds, a demonstrator — and the Society's own charges on top of it — the Robert Muma Award prize, printing the annual report, the president's room, mailing the notices, judging facilities, and ribbons and the Weston Trophy plaque and keeper trophy — the Annual handed the Society $1,129.88 in 1994 against $188.96 the year before (1994-fall, p. 9).

A gap, then twenty-five dollars

The next dues notice in the papers after Winter 1990–91 is Spring 2008, seventeen years later, and the grading by rank that had lasted from 1954 is gone: “Did you pay your dues? Memberships in CSCL were due April 1, 2008 – but it’s not too late… Send you $25.00 fee (payable to CSCL) to our new Membership Chair – Tracey Howard, RR#1 – 2316 Conc Rd A, Brecken, ON, L0K 1B0” (Spring 2008, p. 10). The same notice, worded almost identically, ran again that summer: “Did you pay your dues? It’s not too late – send you $25.00 fee (payable to CSCL) to – Tracey Howard…” (Summer 2008, p. 7). One figure now for every member, where the newsletters of 1954 had graded four.

Forty dollars, and a table instead of a figure

The rate the archive can date earliest after that is $40.00, first seen in Spring 2015 and printed, unchanged, in every quarterly newsletter this archive holds through January–April 2023 — the last one on file. By 2021 the notice has become a table rather than a sentence: “General Member … Individuals interested in leathercraft who belong to one of the CSCL Branches … $40.00. General Member – Student … A registered full-time student shall pay $5.00. Member-at-Large … Individual interested in leathercraft who does not belong to one of the CSCL Branches … $40.00. Sustaining Member … Commercial Organizations interested in supporting the Society. $100.00 or material equivalent to $100.00” (Spring 2021, p. 2, and reprinted the same in 2022 and January–April 2023). The rise from $25.00 to $40.00 was moved by the Executive for the Annual in Spring 2015 and announced in Summer 2015: “CSCL will be increasing the Annual Membership fees to $40.00. New fees will go into effect starting April 1, 2016.” (Spring 2015, pp. 2–3; Summer 2015, p. 2).

The books, opened

The Society's own Annual Meeting reports for 2019–2022 print the full operating account, and together they are the plainest picture the archive holds of what dues actually funded. For the year to 31 March 2020, membership dues brought in $1,200.00 against $1,265.00 the year before, and the account also carries a one-time gift, “Estate of Bill Whittingham, $1,800.00” — a bequest that more than doubled the year's total income of $5,147.57. Expenses that year were mostly the Annual Meeting itself ($2,844.34) and two years of indemnity insurance ($1,036.80), leaving the Society $1,193.93 ahead and a year-end balance of $8,718.24.

The following year is the pandemic's. For 2020–21, membership dues fell to $1,080.00, the Annual Meeting — held on Zoom — returned only $10.00 instead of the $2,055.50 it had the year before, and total income for the year was $1,156.00. Expenses collapsed with it, down to insurance and bank charges alone, $1,099.00 in all; the Society still closed the year $57.00 ahead. By 2021–22 dues had fallen again, to $980.00, and total income to $1,025.00 — offset that year by $270.00 paid out in awards and $125.00 to the Ontario Crafts Council. Through all three years the ledger balance still climbed, from $8,718.24 to $8,775.24 to $9,324.61, and the Society's nine named award endowments — Michigan Soft Leather, Betty Heacock, London Jewellery, MSCL, Woodstock, Maunuel, Al Foss, Jack Meharg and Bruce White — sat through the pandemic at very nearly the same total, $6,446.85 falling to $6,296.85, untouched apart from one Woodstock Award payment (2019–22 Annual Meeting reports).

Written for this archive from the Society's newsletters, 1951–1991, and from the Society's own posted newsletters and Annual Meeting financial reports, 2008–2022. The pages quoted are linked from the newsletter and document archive.

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