Hate to cast a damper on things, but a good many societies run on a shoestring budget so that they can be inexpensive enough to have people join them. (And yes, I know a lot of them that have very expensive dues.) Having assisted on the board of one of the local societies, I know the number of projects that have to be bypassed because there isn't funds or volunteers to tackle them. I know that most of the smaller societies aren't rolling in dough, and their publishing projects are not major money-makers because of the expense of publishing. Personally, I don't think motivation for needing some return on the investment is greed at all. Greed implies big returns on an investment, many societies would "make" more money putting it into a savings account if greed were solely the motivation. Karen