Lifetime membership question

I hope I picked the right forum to post in for this question.

I am nearing my first year of being a member of BMWCCA, I joined in March '09 the same day I bought my first BMW.

Because of the wonderful welcome of the Houston chapter (woohooo Road Mokeys) and the amazing time I had attending O'fest with this group I decided a few months ago to go ahead and sign up for the lifetime membership prior to the price increase.

I am 45 and hopefully I will make it another 20 years to where it will pay for itself the same as if I bought a yearly membership or 5 year blocks or any of the alternatives.

But I wanted to share with you a bit of my disappointment to the limit of benefits of a lifetime membership.

Basically I no longer have to remember to renew my membership and they are going to send me a pin and of course I am not subject to membership fee increase but those are all of the benefits a lifetime membership provides.

Oh one more thing and I found this funny. If I had renewed for another year and gotten the BMWCCA credit card it would have paid for my renewal, but the club did not even allow me to get the same amount of the one year renewal credited to the price of the lifetime membership but I got the card anyway to support the club and they do have good interest rates.

Even with that in mind because of the fun I have been having with my local chapter and O'fest I decided to go ahead and spend the money.

I would however like the club to take another look at this and see if they could come up with a few more benefits for people willing to become a lifetime member. Obviously membership fees are very important to the club so wouldn't it be worth it to provide them with a few other benefits.

By the way another member of our local chapter also asked me to mention that if a person has been a member for a consecutive 20 years or more purchasing one year or five year memberships they also should receive some benefit like maybe just freezing the membership fee for any future years beyond 20.

Off the top of my head I don't have any specific suggestions as to other benefits, it could be as little as a ball cap, polo shirt, t-shirt or anything. But to have the big prize being a pin I just found that a bit lacking. Don't get me wrong I am a very happy member of the club and am now committed for life. Sure hope I make it the 20 years so I get my money's worth (said tongue in cheek.)

I like that idea! [sez the guy whose 25th is this year ]

There's a lifetime membership option? I don't recall seeing it when I joined, did it go away?

Interesting. I don't remember seeing it. Maybe with me being a new member last year it wasn't there.

I say lifetime members get a free car raffle ticket every 5 years . Oh, is this 5 years for me? Oh, I didn't know.....