Re: Rent-a-Realist

[P3D Dr. George A. Themelis <fj834@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you to all for your encouraging comments regarding the "Rent-A-
Realist" idea.  I still need to iron the details and will hopefuly find a
few people to use this offer.

There was a suggestion that perhpaps clubs can buy a stereo camera and make
it available to members (great idea, if you can access the stereo club)
and Greg W. suggested that pehaps clubs can buy and RBT which is a camera
that most members could not afford:

>Maybe "most of us" will
>never buy an RBT (speak for yourselves :-) ), but certainly a club with
>30 or 40 members ought to be able to afford one (that works out to about
>the price of a Realist 3.5 per member).

Regular membership fees in these clubs are usually low enough to barely
cover the production and distribution of a newsletter and basic operating
expenses.  A well-established club like Detroit with over 40 years in
operation has $1000 in its treasury and just now decided to buy its own
stereo projector (a TDC 716 for $350) instead of using the one that belongs
to a member.

For our new club in Cleveland, it might take over 5 years to collect enough
money to cover the startup expenses (mass mailing campaigns, etc.)

Expecting the members to contribute an extra $100-$150 to buy an RBT camera
is unrealistic.  There are more important things (like a better projector)
that must be purchaced first.  Plus, how can those people agree on who is
going to use the camera and when?  Too many questions, not enough money.
That's life! :-)

-- George Themelis


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