What a membership supplies

A subscription to a professional association puts services, education and colleagues within a member's reach, and what it returns turns on how far the member uses them. This branch covers what a membership supplies once the body is chosen, and its parts divide by the side of the membership a question is about: the value of the membership as a whole, the continuing education and webinars, the network of contacts, and what stays usable when the fees and the travel are out of reach. It leaves the choice of body to which association to join, what the body does for the profession rather than for the member to what an association does for the profession, and each offering a member takes up on its own to the topic that holds it: the conference, the workshops and certificates, writing for the journal, the discussion lists and online groups, the local chapters and the special interest groups.

• Getting value from a professional association — what members say the membership returned in craft, career, colleagues and freelance work, what an association offers a writer past its certificates, and why its benefit turns on using it actively, with a road map for a new member
• Using an association's webinars and continuing education — the courses and training an association supplies, its journal, keeping up with the industry, the live webinars and who may attend them, and the archive of recorded webinars
• Building the network a membership opens — the colleagues a membership puts a writer among, visibility, collegiality and dialogue, what members say their contacts returned, and how the contacts are built and kept
• What a member can use without the fees or the travel — conference fees and travel as the cost of a course, the resources behind the member login, the conference sessions and presentations posted online, free courses and social media, direct help from members, and the hardship fund that meets the subscription