As you know from reading Malcolm Boyd’s editorial, based on input from our recent survey, Tandem Club of America is ready to make the transition to web and possibly email-based communications with our members.  Our Club is very fortunate to have had so many loyal, dues-paying members over the years.  Thank you again!  Your past dues, and, hopefully, your current goodwill, will allow us to finance this transition and seed the TCA’s future operation.

This [was originally printed in -Ed.] is the second-to-last hard copy issue of DoubleTalk you will receive.  The last issue will be Jan-Feb 2014, to be mailed right before our postal permit expires at year’s end.

We are changing our business model.  The Club’s new website will be, substantially, open to all; future financial support will come from advertising revenues rather than member subscription dues.

In preparation for this transition, we have stopped cashing your dues checks effective September 21^st.  We will notify you individually if your check was NOT cashed.  For those of you with PayPal subscriptions, our Treasurer Sue Berzinis has commenced manually cancelling automatic renewals.

In the interest of fairness, we’d like to offer you a choice:  invest in the TCA’s and DoubleTalk’s future, or, the TCA will make a one time offer to reimburse the balance of your paper subscription.  If you can afford to invest in the new TCA, you  need not take any action.  If you choose a partial refund, meaning a refund of your outstanding balance, read further.  Your past TCA annual dues, at $15 per year, works out to $2.50 per issue (though our per-issue expenses by 2013 actually exceed this).  If you want a refund,  the Jan-Feb 2014 DoubleTalk issue will contain information on how to be reimbursed for the balance of your dues.  [Alternately, send us an email at membership@tandemclub.org including your snail-mail address and name, and request a refund.]  Again, we hope many of you will not request a refund, and consider your outstanding balance an investment to seed the future of the Tandem Club of America and this, our electronic version of DoubleTalk.  Reimbursement requests received before April 1, 2014 will be reimbursed individually by back-calculating $2.50 times the number of issues remaining on your subscription, based on your last mailing label expiration date.  The reimbursement offer closes on April 2^nd.

More importantly, thereafter, the website will be your source for ongoing tandem cycling information, for updating your email and contact information, for future electronic access to DoubleTalk, including access to the Event Calendar, classified ads, and more!  Thank you for your ongoing support in tandems, and tandeming.