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| - I would never recommend this social club. It is way too expensive for such little quality. I've been a member for over a year (the minimum "official" membership") and I've been sorely disappointed.
The gist of the club is for unmarried people to "get out of the house" and "do stuff" and "meet interesting people". E&A is supposed to set up at least one event per day for people to sign-up and attend. It is advertised as "not a dating club", and that is probably the most accurate statement in their sales-pitch. E&A has been around for "over 20" years, but the Phoenix chapter had only been around for less than one year when I joined.
I paid $2100 for a year membership; this includes $1600 membership for 12months + 3months "free", monthly membership dues of $30/month, and sales tax. I was misled with their sales pitch that this whopping $2100 would pay for everything. In fact, it pays for nothing but access to the "exclusive" website so you can sign up for events. Then, you have to pay IN FULL for the event yourself, PLUS gasoline/transportation costs, PLUS the time it takes to get there. There have never been any "group" discounts and usually you could get a better deal if you had gone to the event on your own.
When you first enter their office, they avoid telling you the cost and make you list out the reasons why you want to join, as a way to hook you in, and they say that "this price" is only good if you sign up THAT DAY. Come to find out that once I joined and talked with other members, not one other person paid the same amount as any other person. Each person had a completely different deal than everyone else. Some people were offered 6month memberships, others paid only $500 for a year, etc. What the heck?!
PROBLEMS:
1)I found their calendar of events to be very "uneventful" and predictable. Every Tuesday evening is volleyball. Every month consisted of a members-meeting night, bowling, volleyball, at least 2-3 restaurants and 1 hike per week. Yawn. I wanted _adventure_, to experience exciting or new things with people that also had similar interests in enjoying all that life has to offer. Phoenix/Arizona is such an exciting and diverse state and I found that E&A's lack of innovation extremely disappointing.
2) The members-meetings were supposed to be a time to suggest events you would be interested in seeing on the calendar. After trying to be enthusiastic and offer suggestions, I quickly learned that none of the events would ever show up on the following month's calendar. Long-story short, the Phoenix chapter is owned by Christian-Mormons and have "high ethics" and veto-power for what events will actually be offered, despite high-demand for activities and that we are paying so much money. If by chance a cool event was on the calendar you could pretty much count on it never being offered again, so if you couldn't attend on _that particular day_, too bad for you.
3) E&A also brags that it has over 1000 members, but I really only saw perhaps the same 50 people over a number of events, or never some people again, despite attending on average at least 1 event per week. I have no idea where these other 950people are. And you'd think by costing so much you'd meet "quality" people, but you still get a bell-curve mix of jerks and nice people.
4) I attended several of the hikes and outdoorsy events. These are ok in theory but if I wanted to join a hiking club...$! Hikes were time-consuming and early in the morning. We wouldn't even begin the hike for another 45min past the "begin time" because we would be "waiting for people to find it". That is entirely too much time. The policy should have been "within 15min of start time, we are beginning without you". We would be waiting for people that would never show, or people that were lost en route.
5) Their website seems somewhat clunky to use. If you sign up for an event (and thus your credit card is charged immediately) and then later cancel, you cannot get that money "back" except to use it as credit on future events. And you cannot use a $29 credit towards a $36 event. The website is not sophisticated enough to only charge you the difference, $7. E&A is extremely good at taking your money, but it takes a long time to get it back.
6) E&A burns thru event-coordinators every 6months, because they make them work over 60hrs/week, making them host many of the events, paying them little, and being the only voice between "management" and us members, but giving them little power to offer events (see veto-power).
7) Hosts of events should have been provided with a cell-phone so that members could call and say they were late/not-attending/lost. This would have prevented alot of frustration with inadequate driving directions, and waiting around for people. I attended too many events where we were waiting for others for over 45min.
I made a handful of good friends, but still, the xp is way too $$. Could have had A TON more fun for $3000 last year. ($2100 +event$)
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