Most horticultural societies are facing the same problem of diminishing membership. In the specific case of the ARS, I was one of the founding members of the Maine chapter back in the 1970's. Went through a long period of non membership, then rejoined in 2013 at the urging of a friend. I did receive my four copies of the Journal, but that was it - no welcome letter, no contact from the local chapter whatever, no reminder to renew membership. I found the Journal to be too much as I remembered it. Some useful articles, but far too much space devoted to the inner workings of the society itself. Of course I could have emailed inquiries to the chapter, etc., but I pretty quickly decided that there was too little value in continuing my membership.

My experience with the Rhododendron Species Foundation has been quite the opposite. Even though I'm about as far away from Seattle and the RSF garden as you can get and still be in the lower 48, I have had nothing but positive experiences with my membership. Excellent journal and, most importantly, a sense of belonging created by email and USPS contact throughout the year.

The response to your suggestion about streamlining operations is not surprising. Organizations do tend over time to become sclerotic and imprisoned by a "this is the way we've always done it" mentality.This seems to be the case with the ARS.

Agreed. I'm closer at the point to joining the RSF than the ARS. I've only been to the garden in the Puget Sound area once in the winter, but it seemed like a really top notch facility. They sponsor expeditions to looking for new rhodies and other woodland plants, many of which are de facto threatened whether recognized as such by the IUCN or not. I like that they are willing to bend the rules once in a while and offer some cultivars.

Fortunately the ARS and RSF have been the major supporters of whatever advances are being made in the genus Rhododendron.

The ARS and RSF have completely different methods even though they both are committed to promoting the genus Rhododendron.

The RSF is Foundation supporting scientific research and support of schools. It is dedicated to conserving, displaying and distributing Rhododendron species. It has a large garden and maintains regular office hours at its home near Olympia, WA. The RSF has a 10 times larger budget than the ARS and maintains a large garden and horticultural facility. The RSF has a significant staff and promotes rhododendron exploration. It maintains catalogs, and newsletters and an annual year book made available to members. The RSF specialized in rhododendron species and companion plants.

On the other hand, the ARS is a horticultural, educational and research oriented Society. It is dedicated to stimulating interest in and disseminating information about the genus Rhododendron. It has a minimal budget and no significant property. It has chapters world wide but has no facilities or hours. The ARS has no employees and contracts out clerical and editorial duties which consume nearly all of its income. The ARS maintains a significant technical journal that is archived and made available worldwide online. All work to promote new and existing hybrid rhododendrons comes from the ARS.

I donate to the RSF, but I belong to the ARS. The ARS needs members while the RSF need money, lots of it. I will not accept membership in the RSF because I can use the full tax deduction more than the membership benefits. The tax deduction pays for my ARS dues. However the ARS needs more money than it generates from dues. It needs donations as well as dues money. Unfortunately, the logical step of raising the dues hasn't worked and actually has resulted in a loss of members and more of a budget crunch.

I hear it said that a person dropped out of the ARS and when they went back, they were not welcomed. However, that person didn't say whether they welcomed new members when they belonged. Unfortunately many of us go to meetings to visit with people we already know and it is the rare member that goes out of their way to make new members and visitors feel welcome. But friendship is a two way street, you reap what you sew. In a different forum I posed some ways to bring in new members:

Art contests for children at truss shows. (it gets the kids and their parents interested)
Get group discounts on plants or supplies.
Give free memberships to libraries that agree to place the journal on the shelf.
Give plants to people who bring in new members. (they usually give it to the new member)
Have a presence at horticultural events in your district.
Have door prizes at meetings like free plants or something.
Have refreshments at meetings or make them pot-luck suppers. (food works)
Have someone designated to welcome all new members.
Invite the speaker to come early for a dinner with members who want to get together before the meeting.
Move meetings to weekend daytime during the fall and winter. (older people don't drive at night)

Two different organizations with different aims and resources, for sure. I do not discount the difficulties the ARS has with a pretty much all volunteer workers. Nor am I particularly in a pique about my most recent experience with the ARS. Rather, I just find the RSF a better use of my limited resources. Chapter meetings are, I think, most succesful in areas where there are interested people living in relatively close proximity to each other. In those areas the social aspect of the ARS is probably the most important membership benefit. In more rural areas with widely scattered membership, long travel times to meetings, etc. this is not true.

No one has done more than rhodyman to bring the ARS into the digital age. His foundation needs to be built upon by following some of the suggestions from him and davidrt28. I'm not a huge internet fan, but the model provided by RSF in using it as means of making widely scattered members here in North America and abroad feel a part of the organization is the only real path I can see for the ARS to reverse it's sharp membership decline.