RARES Membership and Employee Discounts

Who we are

RARES is a professional, non-profit organization dedicated to education and promoting the concepts of employee services, human resources benefits development, and recreational programs as an integral factor of sound business management principles. Our association seeks to further the advancement of business conditions by providing discounts on area products and services to Upstate New York-based businesses and organizations as part of their benefits package and by providing educational opportunities to assist our members in their workplace duties. The common bond holding our membership together is a commitment to integrating recreation (and the resulting improvement in physical and mental health) as a vital component within employee benefits programs.

The improvement of business conditions in the manufacturing, research, and service sectors of the upstate economy is a prime component of RARES mission and we work cooperatively with organizations such as area chambers of commerce, business organizations, the Society for Human Resource Management, and the Greater Rochester Visitor's Association to actively improve the business climate of upstate NY.

Our association is comprised primarily of two types of membership. Click on one of the links below to learn more about each type of membership level.:

Associate Members or vendors, who provide benefits to the RARES membership, and
General Members who are the businesses that join to obtain and offer these same benefits voluntarily to their employees. Once a company is approved for memberships, any employee may voluntarily become a member of RARES by accepting our membership card.
Individual/Family Memberships are available as well.

For further information on any of these categories of membership. just click on the red highlighted link.

An investment in RARES is an investment in your professional development, your business, and your employees. It's one of the least expensive and most important investments you can make.

General Members

General membership is designed for businesses or community organizations interested in enhancing, developing, or starting employee services programs within their companies. General membership in RARES is held by a company and will provide ALL employees of your company (and their families) who voluntarily wish to be included with discounts on goods and/or services that are provided by our Associate Member vendors. We currently have over 212 General Member companies with a total employee population of over 210,000 people throughout New York State. Applications for membership are available below.

RARES provides access to group discounts on life insurance, workmen's compensation insurance, auto & home insurance as well as long-term care insurance to its General Member organizations through relationships with select companies.

RARES also hosts a number of seminars throughout the year on topics of interest to the Human Resource and Benefits Community as well as seminars devoted to improving business practices. Many of these seminars award continuing education credit to help our membership in maintaining professional certification standards.

As a General Member, you can opt to receive and retain select discounted tickets at your business on consignment. Employees may purchase the tickets at work for maximum convenience and your RARES Representative periodically reconciles sales with our office. Car wash, all movie tickets, and many amusement park tickets are available on consignment. Alternatively, you may also have your employees obtain all discounted tickets directly through the RARES office (or any combination of the two). RARES strives to offer your company the maximum flexibility in administering your benefits programs.

What are your employees worth to you? Well, here's what a typical employee with a wife and child (family of 3) could easily save in a year with RARES:

ACTIVITY

SAVINGS

Entertainment:

3 trips to the movies ($2.25 savings per ticket for a family of 3 = 9 tickets)

1 trip to an amusement park ($13.24 x 2 savings on an adult ticket at Six Flags Darien Lake and $7.24 savings on a child's ticket)

$20.25

33.72

Home & Clothing purchases:

$75 purchase at Target.com (10%)

$60 purchase at Shoebuy.com (15%)

Floor lamp at Overstock.com (10%)

$7.50
9.00
9.75

Automobiles:

3 oil changes ($4.09 savings)

8 car washes ($3.37 savings on Super Kiss washes)

Insurance (5-10% savings from Liberty Mutual)

$12.27
26.96
67.00

Sporting Events:

3 baseball tickets (Red Wings reserved seating)

$4.50

On the Town:

A night away from home without the kid at Geva (2 of the best Saturday evening tickets at $43 each - 15% savings)

Nice dinner for 2 at over 130 area restaurants honoring the Taste for Independents Dining Gift Card ($80 meal bill and 5% savings with the Taste card)

$12.90

4.00

Electronics:

New desktop PC from Dell (3 to 12% savings)

$56.00

For the kids . . .

Chairs & table rental from Bob Spatola's Party Rental for your daughter's 13th birthday party

Shrine Circus at the BC/BS Arena

Rochester Museum & Science Center ($2 off 2 adult admissions, $1 off child)

$24.00

6.00

5.00

Family Pets:

Heartworm medication from 1800PETMEDS

$6.00

Cleaning:

20% discount from any Staub's and Ben Barnet Cleaners

$25.00

Total Savings

$329.85

And of course, if that employee and his or her family took a trip, they could save at over eight dozen out-of-area amusement parks and ski resorts as well as on hotels, car rentals, cruises, etc. And if they decided to buy or sell their house, they could save THOUSANDS of dollars on real estate commissions (and that applies to buyers, not just sellers), hundreds or thousands on their mortgage costs, and other great savings on their legal costs and homeowners insurance. The above figure is conservative. Realistically, your employees can save many hundreds more, even thousands, each and every year. Multiply these savings by the number of individuals in your company and you can see what a spectacular investment as part of your benefits package that RARES truly is.

General Membership for 2008 is available for a small investment starting at just $85 annually depending upon company size That's just pennies per employee for most organizations to offer your employees dozens of money-saving discounts on area products and services. For smaller organizations, we have kept our dues level the same since 2003.

Company Size

2008 Annual Dues (Jan – Dec)

1-25 employees

$85

26 – 349

$235

350 – 999

$250

1,000 - 1,999

$300

2,000 - 2,999

$400

3,000 - 4,999

$450

5,000+ available upon request

Dues may be prorated depending upon the time of year your company joins. See the General Membership Application below for further information.

Fill out the Online General Membership Application here.

General Membership Application - Word .pdf

General Membership Brochure - Word .pdf

RARES Policies & Procedures - Word .pdf

In many instances, all RARES members need to do to receive their discount is show their RARES Membership ID Card (available at no cost from their RARES Representative) at the box office or retail counter. RARES members can save by showing your ID card at over 75 locations - more.

Other discounts require an advance phone call, reservations, online purchases, or purchase of tickets/coupons in advance. Our members are encouraged to consult the RARES web site, contact your company's RARES Representative, or the RARES office on when to obtain discounted tickets or services BEFORE visiting - more.

Please note that the participation of the above organizations and their discounts may change at any time. The RARES web site lists all companies who are presently members of RARES and the current discounts they offer. New members are added frequently so please check the web site for further information on Associate Member Vendors who offer discounts through RARES.

In 2004, RARES entered into a partnership with Iroquois Healthcare and now provides access to RARES discounts to all Iroquois ESP members throughout eastern and southern NY State (approximately 35,000 members).

What follows is a partial listing of those organizations making up the current RARES and Iroquois ESP General Membership. Employees of these organizations are eligible to receive all of the benefits RARES offers including access to all RARES discounts. Please note that this list may not be complete. If you are a member searching for discounts, please utilize the categories you'll find to your right on every page or search alphabetically.

General Member Benefits & Services

Employee discount ticket and consignment programs for a variety of cost-saving services provided for member companies.
Combined strength of a professional organization with goals, interests, and influence in the employee services and recreation field. Networking opportunities.
Seminars featuring presentations by employee services experts and associate members on a variety of issues and trends - more.
Newsletters featuring upcoming events, General and Associate member news and other timely articles.
Increased buying power by representing over 105,000 employees in the Rochester and upstate NY area.
Membership Directory of all General and Associate members.

Associate Members

Associate Membership was created for businesses that offer discounted goods and/or services as well as value added items that benefit or enhance employee programs. These discounts or value adds are offered to the RARES General Membership. For a small annual fee and a discount that you set to drive business, Associate Members can promote their products or services to our more than 210,000 General Members through this web site, a monthly newsletter, and special events such as our annual Vendor Fair (Spring. Applications for membership are available below. Dues paid by associates fund many of our activities including ongoing educational seminars and charitable contributions supporting the local community and activities benefiting children.

It is the goal of RARES to utilize its collective "buying power" to maximize the savings available to its members. Associate Members (also referred to as Vendors) agree to offer RARES members a discount on their goods or services which is greater than the price offered to the general public. In return, Associate members who take advantage of our membership network receive a very attractive marketing opportunity and potential return on their investment.

Please note that RARES accepts NO outside advertising. Any promotions on this web site are placed by and for the benefit of our members only.

RARES is an extremely effective, low-cost method for reaching thousands of individuals in the Rochester area with information about your product or service. In 2007, Associate Membership in RARES is available for just $250 annually. Where else can you reach tens of thousands of individuals on a regular basis with information about your products or services for just a few hundred dollars?

RARES offers you the following a-la-carte membership levels beginning with our preferred Profile Page membership level that will drive hundreds of interested discount seekers to your web page each month by virtue of our ongoing monthly prize giveaway program.

Membership Level

2008 Annual Dues (Jan – Dec)

Associate Membership - Rotating banner ad on the RARES web site, ongoing listing on the RARES web site, featured notice in the monthly newsletter of new or enhanced discounts, plus a Profile Page (includes 1-2 pages of dedicated web pages on the RARES web site devoted to your products and services and highlighting your RARES discount.

$250

Restaurant Membership - RARES offers a special rate to restaurants that will accept the RARES ID card at their establishment and another rate for restaurants that publish online coupons on the RARES web site. Please call

Non-Profit/Small Business Associate Membership - (special rate for our not-for-profit members or for small businesses within the geographic area we serve) ongoing listing in the RARES monthly newsletter, featured notice in the newsletter of new or enhanced discounts, standard category listings for your discount along with contact information and links to your web site where applicable

$175

A la carte services . . .
General Membership Directory - Available only to our associate member companies for a small additional fee. The perfect way to reach those company reps in Benefits and HR you want to make contact with. Includes current contact name, CEO name, # of employees, address, telephone, fax & E-mail addresses). The file is available electronically in Microsoft Access, Excel, and HTML formats. Updated regularly. This list is the most up-to-date and well-maintained membership list you will ever purchase.

$75

Our monthly online newsletter is published at the beginning of each month with a distribution of 24,000+ and is available (space permitting) for promoting your program at no extra charge.

The RARES "Consignment Corner Newsletter" is published in the middle of each month and is made available only to RARES Representatives in each member company. This publication allows you to target your promotions directly to HR/Benefits personnel.

RARES web site activity 2005-2007 (in millions of hits bi-monthly)
Sep-Oct 2005	Nov-Dec 2005	Jan-Feb 2006	Mar-Apr 2006	May-June 2006	July-Aug 2006	Sep-Oct 2006	Nov-Dec 2006	Jan-Feb 2007	Mar-Apr 2007	May-Jun 2007	Jun-July 2007
2.62	3.21	4.41	4.00	4.25	3.59	2.84	3.20	3.78	2.84	3.29	4.46

RARES web site activity 2007-2008 (in millions of hits bi-monthly)
Aug-Sep 2007	Oct-Nov 2007	Dec-Jan 07/08	Feb-Mar 2008	Apr-May 2008	Jun-July 2008	Aug-Sep 2008	Oct-Nov 2008	Dec-Jan 2009	Feb-Mar 2009	April-May 2009	Jun-July 2009
3.12	2.92	3.19	3.89

Fill out the Online Associate Membership Application here.

Associate Membership Brochure - Word .pdf

Associate Membership Application - Word .pdf

Membership into RARES puts you among some of the finest corporations in upstate New York. Over 210 General members with 210,000 employees, more than 110 Associate Members, and the numbers are growing rapidly!

For a small additional fee, your company may also become a General Member, whereby your employees also become eligible to receive all of the discounts offered by other RARES Associate Members - allowing you to enhance your own employee benefits and services.

Here is a listing of many of our current Associate Members (Vendors) that offer discounts to RARES members. Please note that you should NOT use this list to avail yourself of current discounts as all links may not connect to the discount offer in question. For information on current discounts, consult the alphabetical listing or search by discount category in the list to your right.

	"A non-profit organization dedicated to employee buying power through discounts."