[wplug-board] -members@ posting regarding dues changes

[chris at teodorski.com]

>
> The following is a draft to send to the members list:
>
> There will be a members meeting at the upcomming GUM on Aug 5.
>
> It's very important that we get a good attendance for this meeting.
> The reason is that a dues issue needs to come up for vote.
>
> The reason the board wants to raise dues it multi-faceted.  I want to
> start out by saying that WPLUG does not have any money problems at this
> time.  While we're not rich, we have enough money to fund current
> projects.
> So offering to arbitrarily donate money, while appreciated, is not
> necessary.
>
> The first problem is attendance.  We've had a great deal of difficulty
> getting quorum at membership meetings.  As a result, we've been having
> less memberships meetings than we're supposed to.  These two problems
> are not good.  The board (as a whole) seems to feel that the problem
> is that it's so easy to become a member of WPLUG that it's a no-brainer.
> Considering you get membership for the outstanding price of $0, there's
> no reason I can think of for anyone to give membership a second thought.
> The unfortunate result of this is it increases a number of overheads:
> 1) The quorum required to have a membership vote goes up with the total
>    size of the membership.  As we get more and more members who don't
>    show up regularly, this gets more and more difficult to accomplish.
>    Which means it's more and more difficult to get enough members
>    together when a vote is required.
> 2) The size of the board goes up.  This election will probably be for
>    7 board members instead of 5.  But a large board to govern a small
>    number of active members and a large number of fringe members seems
>    impractical.  It makes it more difficult for the _board_ to get things
>    done while not really improving the representation of active WPLUG
>    members on the board.
> The thought here is to make membership something to think about.  Since
> most events are open to the general public, it's not that big of a deal
> not to be a member.  The main benefit of membership is the ability to
> vote and have a say in how WPLUG is run, but it seems that a large
> portion of our members aren't participating in the voting process (even
> as seldom as it occurs).
> The goal here is not to scare off the poor, but to cause people to pause
> for 3 seconds and think, "Do I really need to be a member?"
>
> The second problem we're up against is a possible shift in venue.  We've
> been talking about this problem off and on for over a year now, but if
> you missed out, here's the scoop: for various reasons, hosting meetings at
> CMU is getting more and more difficult.  We've been doing a good bit of
> research into alternate meeting locations (thanks to everyone who's
> helped!).  The result is that we can't find any alternate meeting
> places that are completely free (as CMU was).  The good news is that
> they are all fairly affordable, we need to raise the dues just a little.
>
> The board believes we can solve these two problems by raising the dues
> just a bit.  The proposed new dues would be $10.00 per year.  This does
> not include pizza as it formerly did.  We believe that this is high
> enough to help with the two problems listed above, but low enough that
> we shouldn't lose any members purely due to financial reasons.
>
> If anyone has any questions or concerns regarding this, please bring
> them up on the plan list.
>
> --
> Bill Moran
> Potential Technologies
> http://www.potentialtech.com
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>


I think this letter is great.

The only issue I have is this (and I apologize profusely if my leaving the
last meeting with a migraine caused me to miss this discussion):

I am of the belief that we should make sure that the increase to $10 will
be enough to keep us from having to go back to the well next year or the
year after (as best we can tell).  I understand it is difficult to predict
but there is nothing I hate more than being told every year that the price
of X is increasing.

I'd rather be hit with the increase in a larger chunk up front than small
increases every single year.

I also don't think that $10, $15, or $20 for a year would be a financial
hardship for the overwhelming majority of our members.

If this was already hashed out at the meeting, I will gladly keep my
opinions to myself :P