Dear Fellow Microscopists,
We are getting ready to say goodbye to yet another successful year. At our Spring Meeting, Spring Symposium, and Fall Meeting this year we had 38, 85 and 34 attendees, respectively. Also, a total of 22 members attended our Spring Workshops at MBL. As of this writing, NESM has a total of 185 active members, which comprises 38 corporate, 95 regular, 4 retiree, and 48 student members. And we expect this number to keep increasing as the date of our Fall Symposium & Business Meeting approaches.
A review of the last twelve years shows us that the membership has declined from 184 in 2002 to 31 in 2008 (see the chart below). This decline is a significant one, down almost six fold in a matter of eight years. The membership data for the years 2006 and 2007 were not available. It is interesting to note that this trend closely follows the economic boom-and-bust in United States in the last decade, so in my opinion the decline does not represent a decrease in interest in NESM and its activities. It looks like not only the for-profit sector, but also the nonprofit sector was affected by the economic crisis. After 2008, there has been a steady increase in membership.
I am happy to report that we have completely bounced back and are now projecting growth in the coming years. As the NESM Board, we are doing our best to ensure that this upward trend will continue. We have a brand-new professionally-designed website to attract more microscopists and microscopists-in-training to our organization. We are reaching out to new venues for our meetings. We are inviting brilliant speakers with diverse microscopy topics to present. We are in the process of contacting local microscopy core facility managers to promote our upcoming meetings and to announce the Affiliate Events section of our new website – a free feature that allows local microscopy groups to advertise their own meetings on our website. We have a new mission statement, which we think is more descriptive than the old one and will inspire and excite the reader about the world of microscopy.
Another development in our organization this year relates to its nonprofit status, more specifically to its IRS Subsection. As its mission implies, NESM is an educational organization. This can be confirmed by the following excerpt from IRS Publication 557, page 27, regarding the types of organizations that qualify as educational: “An organization whose activities consist of conducting public discussion groups, forums, panels, lectures, or other similar programs”. Hence, NESM should be a charitable nonprofit under IRS Subsection “501(c)(3) Public Charity”. Nonetheless, NESM had been originally incorporated as a tax-exempt organization under IRS Subsection “501(c)(6) Business Leagues, etc.”. When we survey other similar regional and national microscopy societies, we see that they are all 501(c)(3) organizations. The main advantage of 501(c)(3) organizations over 501(c)(6) is that any donations a 501(c)(3) receives are tax-deductible for the donors, which increases the organization’s chances of receiving charitable donations. Earlier this year we hired legal representation and are working towards this goal. We will be presenting you the new bylaws at our annual Fall Symposium & Business Meeting at Brandeis University on December 5th and ask you to vote.
Before I conclude my letter, I would like to thank all our members and corporate sponsors for their continued support and contributions. As my term comes to an end, I wish the incoming NESM President Blair Rossetti and the board members much success. I hope to see you at the next NESM meeting.
Happy Holidays and May the Focus be with you!
Fettah Kosar, Ph.D.
NESM Interim President
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