Friendly High School Collections Agency

[wryness]

I'm a teacher and a club advisor. The kids have to pay some money to the international branch in order to be officially registered members, but so far only maybe 4 out of 30 kids have paid their fee--and it's been about two months. (Even most of our club officers haven't paid! Eek.) I'm not really a collections officer, so how can I get them to pay?

So far I've mentioned it several times at club meetings and pushed out more than one text message about it. Nothing seems to be working.

My best idea so far is organizing some sort of fun club event for people to go to, but you can ONLY go if you've paid your dues. Any better ideas?

[Whistler]

is there some kind of natural consequence? Like a convention or something that is only for registered members? If there is no consequence to them, it seems like from the kids' perspective, why bother. If you have to make something up, I'm thinking... what are the dues going towards? If it's not something the students can enjoy then why bother with official recognition?

[Shrinky Dink]

I was part of my high school debate team and we had to pay fees to be part of the tournaments (since they take a lot of time and energy to put on). We weren't allowed to compete if we hadn't paid and competing in 5+ tournaments a year was required to pass the class or we wouldn't be allowed on the team next year. It would also affect our ability to graduate with honors, etc.

If this is also part of the class, maybe it could be factored into the grade like a 20 point assignment or something. But, I agree with Whistler, if it's something that's not really necessary, and if they don't want the official recognition, they shouldn't have to have it. If all they get is a little card saying that they're a member, I don't think I would pay the dues either.