Belonging to a community

Belonging to a community means a lot of things. One definition of a community is:

A feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals: the sense of community that organized religion can provide. • [in singular] a similarity or identity: writers who shared a community of interests. • joint ownership or liability: a commitment to the community of goods.

As I did some basic research on the word “community”, I found that the word community connects us to each other and gives us an individual and collective sense that we can, as a part of our community, influence environments and each other. The IART was designed in such a way that it requires new members to be transparent by not allowing the use of aliases upon signup. This fosters trust between members and allows us to avoid the banter and bitter comments that are so common with similar groups we see online where no one knows who the poster is, only their alias.

The IART community is about shared experiences and the exchange of ideas and methods that can further the growth of others in the community. Everyone is encouraged to participate by leaving comments on posts and videos, by sharing their opinions with the community, and ultimately, by adding helpful information to the conversation. Take a look at the IART ETHOS and you’ll get a good understanding of the IART’s view on how we approach our goals and why we have an international focus (by the way, the first organization of its kind to declare such a focus). The ETHOS talks about our statement of purpose and lays out our focus even further on the community aspect.

The last statement in our ETHOS says it best:

While other organizations look for where people are coming from, we’re more interested in where you want to go and how the IART can help you get there.

Why should I have to pay to have premium access to the IART website?

• First of all, by joining IART you get access to all of the wonderful features on the website. Those features required professional development that came at a high cost and continue to incur ongoing fees to maintain. They were designed to give you important tools that help you in your everyday stringing activities and they were added because, at the time of development, they were not available through any other service. Some are still not available anywhere else.
• Websites require continual maintenance fees and upgrades to ensure maximum performance. That means monthly hosting fees and additional costs to maintain and update the required plugins that make the site work.
• When you belong to a community such as the IART, you have constant access to professional racquet technicians that are willing to share their vast wealth of experience with you. Their investment in themselves becomes a valuable asset to you when you have direct access to them. In the case of the IART, you have the premium member Q&A and you can ask your questions directly to a specific member or to the entire community, your choice.
• Your annual fee for premium access to the community goes toward offsetting the expenses explained above and keeps the community vibrant and ensures its ongoing existence. Without your support, the community will, at some point, cease to exist.

It’s about priorities and perspective

Let’s put this into perspective and think of it this way. There are a LOT of coffee drinkers in the world and you may very well be one of them. Suppose you are and you stop off at your favorite coffee shop on your way to the office, and for our example, we’ll say that’s Starbucks. Your drink of choice is a Grande Latte (that averages $5.38 in my area) and let’s say you don’t stop every day, you only stop 3 times a week. If you do this 3 times a week that comes out to $16.14 a week or approximately $64.56 per month. That’s $15.56 more per month than the $49 you’ll pay for an entire one-year premium subscription to the IART website. For a real eye-opener, that equates to $774.72 per year!!

The bottom line is that people spend money on exactly what they want to spend money on. If you value what you get from the IART community then $49 a year for total access is not a great deal of money in the larger scope of things. Your investment in the IART goes towards building and supporting a vibrant community of like-minded people just like yourself. Oh and by the way, yes, I like to go to Starbucks just as much as the next guy but I also go to my local coffee shops whenever possible because I like supporting local businesses in my community. There’s that word again…..COMMUNITY!

Check out the post HERE about the benefits and features available to premium subscribers

If you’re a racquet technician and would like to join a community of like-minded people please visit our Membership page at www.gssalliance.com/join/ to join us. Already a basic member? You’ll find an easy upgrade link on the join page to become a Premium member.
IART Premium Members have FULL access to all content and exclusive membership directories. Knowledge is power, so become a Premium member and get THAT power!