Your Thoughts

[old fart]

I have been wondering if an organization wants to gather a group of collectors such as farm tractors for the purpose of representing them in the matters of government regulations ETC and wants to charge a due per member should they not all be the same ?? For example there would be a 5 minimum members to be recognized as a group IE Fordson tractors have 5 members in their group they would qualify for membership . There would be a minimum of $31.50 per group or $2.40 per member for the larger groups, so the Fordson collectors would be actually paying $6.26 each member .Then there is the John Deere group with 30 members and they pay $2.40 per member . The International Harvester group has 13 members and pays the minimum $31.50 would actually be paying $2.43 per member . The question is would the organization doing this are they discriminating against the smaller groups such as the Fordsons by charging the minimum??

[studegary]

I do not know if discrimination is the correct term, but yes this commonly happens. One way to look at it is that all of the groups, no matter their size, gain some general benefit.

I think that my water bill is analogous to this. Even though water usage is metered, there is a minimum charge. I use much less than this minimum usage, but I have to pay the minimum. Some use much more than me and still pay the minimum. If they use twice what I use, they pay the minimum plus a surcharge for what is over the minimum. I have unsuccessfully argued that this system is counter productive to water conservation. I do get a separate line item in my property tax for the water infrastructure (wells/lines/etc,).

[old fart]

studegary :
Glad you answered I have a different point of view now to think about . I guess what I was curious about more than anything was how they arrived at the fixed numbers (min members and min group dues ). I was thinking basically around our hobbies in the motorized field . But as you said it looks like a common practice no matter what field it's in , cars , airplanes or water bill.

[StudeRich]

These Tractor Owners must be a VERY Local Group, if it were State wide or Nationwide, there would be Hundreds or Thousands of Members!
We must have several Hundred right here in this County of those Brands, especially Antique Deer's & IH.

[old fart]

From what I am told they are similar to our set up , have several chapters and divisions . Some even include combines and other farm equipment .

[old fart]

Studerich :

If your interested google antique tractor clubs .