I received a link from the Society for American Archaeology today. It was for a survey for why I did not renew my membership for 2015. I had to be honest and tell them that I just could not afford it unless it is a year I can afford to attend a meeting.

I have friends in other professions, some science based, and some in the finance industry. And their society fees are quite astronomical compared to the SAA fee's some are 3, 4 even five times as much as the SAA fee's, and the same goes for meeting fees. So I do understand that as societies go, the SAA is genuinely not out there gouging people. HOWEVER these other professions do not have a complete subculture that has a commercial component that includes the income demographics of archaeologists (and related professions) practicing CRM. Most of these other professions with these exceptionally high fee's *only* have members who are working for institutions and companies that pay these fee's for them.

I would like to see the SAA introduce a category for practicing CRM archaeologists to be able to join the SAA at a level most CRMers could afford *without* undercutting the other membership categories.

The survey I took is located here, it has a comments section at the bottom.

Non-renewed Member Survey 2015