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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 186 responses total. |
jp2
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response 50 of 186:
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Nov 23 18:30 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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other
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response 51 of 186:
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Nov 23 20:13 UTC 2003 |
That would make sense if price was the significant obstacle to
increased membership, which is very doubtful.
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other
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response 52 of 186:
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Nov 23 20:17 UTC 2003 |
(on a month-to-month basis, rather than annual.)
Note that I say this with full knowledge that there is anecdotal
evidence that price is a factor in the recent membership drop-off.
$6 per month is not an amount that would cause most people who might
ever pay for a Grex membership to pause, but the fact that
supporting Grex is just one more of a number of ways money sneaks
away probably is, especially when things are tight.
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jp2
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response 53 of 186:
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Nov 23 21:26 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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naftee
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response 54 of 186:
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Nov 24 01:37 UTC 2003 |
More affordable, and yet harder to keep.
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gelinas
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response 55 of 186:
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Nov 24 03:44 UTC 2003 |
(Membership is not hard to keep. Nor, to be honest, is keeping an account.
Vandalism is an act of _co_mmision, not _o_mission. But again, this item is
not the place to discuss that matter.)
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willcome
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response 56 of 186:
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Nov 24 04:32 UTC 2003 |
It is.
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aruba
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response 57 of 186:
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Nov 24 06:07 UTC 2003 |
> But you have suddenly brought up something interesting. You say the drop
> in August is $9.80 less than the average month. Depending on how you got
> this number, you could be dead wrong, and this is an artifact of the
> pricing structure.
Your FUD is getting tiresome. You should realize by now that if you make
vague remarks suggesting that you know more than the rest of us, without
actually saying what it is you supposedly know, that I will call you on
them and ask you to explain yourself. So, explain yourself.
If we decreased the cost of membership by 1/2 in the summer, we would have
to double the number of members signed up just to break even. If we
only got one extra member, we would lose money. Duh.
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other
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response 58 of 186:
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Nov 24 06:16 UTC 2003 |
Maybe he's suggesting a split-pricing structure in which new members
get a reduced price special while renewing members are exempt from
the special. That sounds like it would cause more headaches than
encourage memberships.
I could see trying a special price offer of $12 for three months or
$40 for a year for only those people who have not been a paying
member for at least a year, if the complexity of managing the
necessary information isn't too great a strain. I could see some
people possibly being upset about it, but I also think that if it
brings in additional money beyond what might have otherwise been
expected, the complaints might be worth it.
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jp2
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response 59 of 186:
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Nov 24 13:40 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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other
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response 60 of 186:
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Nov 24 14:52 UTC 2003 |
Since the labor to implement a membership is volunteer, how could
the cost of providing a membership be anything other than zero?
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jp2
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response 61 of 186:
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Nov 24 15:12 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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keesan
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response 62 of 186:
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Nov 24 15:25 UTC 2003 |
Why do you need a special offer for new members when people can already use
grex for free while deciding whether to become members?
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other
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response 63 of 186:
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Nov 24 15:44 UTC 2003 |
It would be an experiment to determine whether people can be encouraged
successfully to donate at all by making it seem like they're getting something
more for their money than they might otherwise have gotten by donating money
to Grex.
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other
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response 64 of 186:
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Nov 24 15:49 UTC 2003 |
And Grex can indeed "lose money" on memberships if someone who was already
going to pay the full price is offered a less-than-full-price membership.
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jp2
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response 65 of 186:
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Nov 24 15:58 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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other
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response 66 of 186:
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Nov 24 16:01 UTC 2003 |
That's the distinction I was hpoing to suggest with the quotes. I knew it
didn't actually mean our cash reserves would decrease by the amount of the
discount, believe it or not. Nor, for that matter, did I think anyone reading
this would so believe.
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cmcgee
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response 67 of 186:
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Nov 24 17:24 UTC 2003 |
I'd rather see us set up a scholarship fund. More affluent members could
donate a year's membership. Anyone who has paid _yearly_ dues and goes
more than 4 months without renewing could have their login placed in a
random drawing for that month. The winner gets the "scholarship".
We could strongly suggest that all scholarship winners donate something
back to the scholarship fund when they are able.
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flem
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response 68 of 186:
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Nov 24 19:42 UTC 2003 |
The scholarship fund sounds interesting, but doesn't necessarily sound
like anything that would need any kind of official sponsorship from Grex
(other than perhaps ease of bookkeeping). People could just as easily
set that up on their own.
The idea of offering a reduced cost membership for people who have
previously been members but have not contributed recently is also
interesting, and I think worthy of further discussion.
I remain in the unconvinced majority who see grex's accounting as quite
adequate. I have yet to see jp2 suggest as a benefit of some other
accounting system anything other than mysterious "hidden information"
that might be "mined". I've spent a fair amount of time (three years
ago, admittedly) in that data, and I think Jamie is on a wild-wmd chase.
Ain't nothin' there that isn't already available in treasurer's
reports, except such things as members' personal data and the actual
dates/amounts of the specific contributions.
I note in passing that Jamie still hasn't answered my question from a
while ago. Not that it matters a whole lot.
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aruba
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response 69 of 186:
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Nov 24 19:53 UTC 2003 |
I admit to providing more significant figures than I should have when I said
that memberships for the month of August provided us with $9.80 less than
the average month. My point was, the difference is insignificant, and about
that I am not "dead wrong", even if the correct number is something less
than $9.80.
As Eric pointed out, the cost of providing a membership has always been
zero, and we can tell that just fine with a cash accounting system.
I'm not going to argue whether or not memberships are selling service,
because I think they are from one perspective and they aren't from another,
so it's a semantic discussion. I will say that giving perks with membership
is a very accepted part of nonprofit fundraising, accepted by the IRS and
just about everyone else.
I like Colleen's idea, but I'd always like to see more people involved with
Grex by becoming members, rather than fewer people paying more. But, if
it's a choice between fewer people paying more and going the way of M-Net,
I'll take fewer people paying more.
I'm still hopeful that when the economy recovers and the new machine comes
online, our membership will increase again. I don't know, but I'm hopeful.
The other option to consider is ways to convince people who don't contribute
now to consider contributing. We have always been very lacquidasical about
asking for money, mostly because no one wants to be the one who does it. I
think finding a way to ask nonmembers for money is something we should
explore.
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aruba
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response 70 of 186:
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Nov 24 19:59 UTC 2003 |
"lackadaisical" - sorry.
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naftee
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response 71 of 186:
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Nov 25 01:17 UTC 2003 |
re 55 At a certain point, it was nearly impossible for me to keep an account,
and yet I had vandalised nothing related to the system.
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gull
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response 72 of 186:
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Nov 25 15:48 UTC 2003 |
I'd be really reluctant to see us move to any accounting system that
assumed the treasurer owned a specific piece of software.
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jp2
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response 73 of 186:
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Nov 25 17:32 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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naftee
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response 74 of 186:
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Nov 26 03:57 UTC 2003 |
Me too.
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