A few days ago I got a letter, in the post, with a stamp and everything. It said that if I didn't hand over my 9€ annual membership fee the Club would, unhappily, have to strike me from their membership register. I haven't actually taken part in a single event or even been in the building since I signed up. They never send me any information and the only way I know to find out what the group is up to is to go to the building and ask someone. I do know though that it's an active club because I often read about their events, after the fact, in the local news. And, like Bellgrove from Gormenghast, as I prefer to be out of it in a group rather than out of it altogether, I hurried over to pay my debts.
To the best of my knowledge the only way to pay is in cash in the club building. I asked if I could pay for next year too whilst I remembered. "No," said the woman who does the group's clerical work. She added, without any prompt from me, that there was no reason as to why I couldn't except that I couldn't.
My membership card is in a fetching fawn colour and it is made of cardboard. In the left hand corner there is a glued on photo. It's a real Polaroid, not a digital photo and it was produced by one of the town's professional photographers. The administrator took the card out of its plastic wallet and used a rubber stamp to print 16 in one of the little boxes on the back. She then found the card's twin stored in a small wooden drawer in a mini filing cabinet and did the same to that. Next she ticked my name off on a printed list. She took my proffered tenner and gave me the change. A fully paid up member once again.
It was so sweet. So brown paper and string. Not much chance of their records being hacked or someone's card being cloned.
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