response 1 of 50:

Apr 8 15:21 UTC 1998

Short term trial membership drive with reduced rates?
Say, $4/month for up to three months, available only during such-and-such a
three week or month period....

response 3 of 50:

Apr 8 16:58 UTC 1998

When were grex's membership dues last raised?  I would not mind paying up to
$10/month, with student memberships at $5/month, four-year max.  But I am sure
most students could also afford the $10 (they probably spend that much in
restaurants every week).  Is there any extra benefit that could be offered
to anyone who paid $10?

response 5 of 50:

Apr 8 19:20 UTC 1998

I would humbly suggest that "students" as a group are neither more or less
affluent that most other Grexers.  I'd much rather see us set a suggested
"low-income" membership that would help community users who dont have access
to one of the best computer labs in the world.  

response 7 of 50:

Apr 9 03:15 UTC 1998

And I don't think Grex's membership-donation level has *ever* been increased,
for whatever that's worth.

response 9 of 50:

Apr 9 04:15 UTC 1998

I certainly agree with Mary that I would rather not increase the amount of
Perks we give out, and I get tired of answering all the mail I get saying
"If I become a member, can I run eggdrop?" from people who think membership
is about buying service.

However, I disagree that money is not a problem.  We had enough to buy the
new computer, yes, because a lot of people thought the idea was exciting and
worth contributing to, through a fundraiser.  The same thing happened when we
had a fundraiser for the ISDN lines, though we took a bath on the installation 
costs, so the fundraiser didn't cover them.

But now we are having a fundraiser for some more mundane items, spare parts
and a mail machine, and we are well short of paying for them.  So some of the
money will have to come out of the general fund, most likely.

If we could pay for all capital improvements (including the boring ones)
through fundraisers, then dues (at the level thery're at now) would just
barely cover our operating expenses.  But not only is it rather annoying to
keep begging for money every couple of months, it doesn't seem to work very
well if we go to that well too often.

It seems pretty simple to me:  our operating expenses have increased (as has
our level of operation), so we need more regular income to cover them.  That
means either getting more members or raising dues.  I certainly hope we don't
have to raise dues; I think there must be people using Grex who are willing
to contribute but haven't done so yet.  As I said in another item, if we could
get 20 new members, I'd sleep a lot better.

response 11 of 50:

Apr 9 05:41 UTC 1998

Rane suggested in another item that we might send mail to people who have been
on Grex for 6 months.  Is there a way (technically, I mean) to identify all
the people who are just passing their 6 month anniversary?

response 13 of 50:

Apr 9 13:27 UTC 1998

Basically, we need to bring in a bit more money to support things as we stand.
We aren't living beyond our means now, but we are living close to our limit.
So what are the ways we can raise more money?

  - Raise membership rates.  This increases the barriers to becoming a
    full participant in the governance of Grex.  This makes Grex a worse
    place.
  - Hold more fund raisers.  This means constant solicitations for money
    which seem to work well only if we are raising money for something like
    a faster net connection or a faster computer.  The current mail machine
    project will make Grex faster, but nobody cares because Grex is already
    fast.  Having all those fundraisers doesn't make Grex a nicer place.
  - Selling more T-shirts and stuff.  This is a good idea.  We haven't really
    marketed t-shirts to the party crowd very effectively.  We could try to
    come up with a cool T-shirt design that is more marketable to non-Grex
    computer users and try to squeeze some money out of the non-Grex geek
    market.  Pushing T-shirts harder as means subjecting our users to more
    solicitations, though they get something more substantial and it is
    kind of cool from a community standpoint to have Grexers walking around
    in Grex colors.
  - Selling more memberships.  Again, this means soliciting more users for
    more money, with all the same negatives as the last two options.  On the
    plus side, it may draw people into more active participation in the
    Grex community.

I think we should be doing things on several of these things.  Continue to
hold fundraisers.  Definately market T-shirts harder.  Definately do a push
on marketing memberships.

I've thought of generating a list of long-time users who are not members,
and writing personal E-mail messages (not a form letter) to each of them,
encouraging them to consider helping to support Grex if they are able.

response 15 of 50:

Apr 9 18:02 UTC 1998

To Jan's list I would add:
  - Push the auctions harder, so we get more donors and more bidders.  This
    has the same drawbacks as the other solicitations, but at least it has a
    semblance of fun about it.  My parents told me that their church auction
    grossed over $26,000 this year - and it's not a big church!  People
    donated items like a weekend at their summer cottage, a cruise on the
    Concord River, with lunch for 18 people, a fancy brunch for 8, and lots
    of furniture and stuff.  I imagine the level of income of their church
    members is higher than that of the average Grexer, but it's really the
    commitment that impresses me - apparently people got really caught up in
    the thing and donated a lot and spent a lot.  It's conceivable to me that
    we could generate that kind of excitement for our Grex auction, but I
    don't really know how to go about exciting people.

I'd still like to hear from a staff person as to how easy it is to identify
the people who are just passing their 6-month anniversary.

response 19 of 50:

Apr 10 00:18 UTC 1998

i think a wrapper on mail/elm/pine and party resembling a shareware
registration reminder would be great.  just a brief reminder suggesting that
a donation will help support the service, and as an added bonus, the annoying
reminder message will go away.

response 21 of 50:

Apr 10 05:29 UTC 1998

"telnet lines" are not something that we pay for a set amount of.  We have
a certain amount of bandwidth (128 kilobits per second) that can be
transferred between Grex and the Internet.  This is shared by telnet, mail,
and anything else anybody does over Grex's Internet connection.  If we cram
more stuff down it than will fit, it will still work to a point, but it will
get slow.  The same goes for Grex's hardware.  The more stuff we make it do,
the slower it will be for each individual task.

What this means is that, given some money, we can't just go out and "buy more
telnet lines."  We can do some upgrades that will make us able to handle
larger numbers of users well, but that gets quite expensive.  If nothing else,
that's because we are paying well below market rates for the Internet
connection right now, so doubling the connection speed would likely do a lot
more than just double the cost.

I would also oppose giving members priority when telnetting in.  That's
something we've generally tried hard to avoid on Grex, and it has worked
pretty well.  M-Net has tried opening more ports to paying users, and has
marketed their various support options as ways to get better access.  That
has done some rather destructive things over there, in terms of getting people
to see giving money as a purchase of services, rather than as a donation. 
When people purchase services, they expect more reliability and support than
a volunteer staff can comfortably give.  It also causes people who don't need
the extra services to not see as much of a point in donating.

response 23 of 50:

Apr 10 12:43 UTC 1998

Quite aside from the technical difficulties, I agree with those who say heading
down the path of more perqs for members is going in the wrong direction.  

I think people need to join us because of what Grex provides for the community
rather than for it provides for them personally.  Otherwise we dance pretty
close to the "pay for service" cliff and I think we're likely to get cremed if
we go over.