And in that comment section, I found something curious. Now, fellow eligible non-SFWAns: when we've asked over the last N years why we should join SFWA, what's the first thing everyone says? All together now: The Emergency Medical Fund! When people like
matociquala gave up their SFWA memberships, I seem to recall that doing something else in that direction was an important factorRobin Bailey -- who presumably would know, being a past president -- says in Scalzi's comments that SFWA dues do not support the EMF, that the EMF is funded by voluntary donations and other SFWA income.
Huh.
Sheila Finch points out that while dues do not go to support the EMF, SFWA is the administering body, and it wouldn't exist in its current form without SFWA. This is true. Also, if Honda and Toyota didn't make a bunch of other cars, they probably wouldn't have gotten to the point of making hybrids at this point. I just feel that people should be clear on whether they are actually purchasing a hybrid or just a randomly selected Toyota.
I don't mean to imply here that anybody who cited the EMF as a reason to join SFWA was intending to mislead prospective members by bringing it up as the first thing. I just wonder how many such people think their own SFWA dues are going to support something that they are not, in fact, going to support. I suspect it's a substantial number. And I do feel like it's best, when someone is asking why they should pay SFWA dues, not to cite something that their SFWA dues categorically will not support.
