proposal to open the membership

Feb 10 19:25 UTC 2013

Proposal: Open the membership, to allow all users who can be validated
to be full members of Grex and for their votes to count in all elections.

Discussion: Dan Cross has suggested this in the agora conference.  My
intention is to propose what he has suggested.  If he suggests changes
to the wording of the proposal, I will almost surely them.

The justifications for requiring dues are that the corporation needed
the money to pay the bills, and that a financial contribution allowed
for verifying the identity of the member.  Those things are not issues
any more.  A few years ago, there was a proposal where the votes of
non-paying members were counted and meaningful (or was it an election).
 It worked okay as I recall.

response 2 of 43:

Feb 11 03:12 UTC 2013

I have not gone through the by-laws to list the ones that need to be
changed.  Is there a definitive current set of the by-laws?  If you
search the WWW page, you eventually can come to a set that refers to 7
Board members and membership fees of $60 per year.

Meanwhile, I hope it is okay to start the process with a general proposal.

response 4 of 43:

Feb 11 12:45 UTC 2013

We have bills to pay periodically. And there is always the chance that
some repair is needed, even in new hardware.  At some point in the
future our situation might change.  It would not be wise to let our bank
balance run down significantly just because we (mistakenly) believe we
have no expenses now.