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| Author |
Message |
jgelinas
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Modifying the Dues
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Sep 27 21:08 UTC 2010 |
At yesterday's Board meeting, I was asked to draft an amendment to
Article 6, "Dues," of the bylaws, which currently reads:
ARTICLE 6: DUES
a. Membership dues are $60 per year or $6 per month.
b. The fiscal year shall begin on January 1 of each year. The
incumbent treasurer shall close the books prior to this
date.
c. The BOD shall be responsible for keeping the membership
informed as to Grex's financial status. Should circumstances
warrant a change in membership dues, the membership will be
notified and the issue discussed and put to a vote according
to the procedures of Article 5.
d. Dues paid to cover a membership of two years or less will
not be affected by an increase in dues.
In accordance with Section C, above, I propose the dues be changed to
three dollars ($3.00) per month or thirty dollars ($30.00) per year, and
that any members who pay dues at the current rate for the purpose of
voting on this proposal have those dues credited at the new rate, should
the proposal be adopted.
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| 56 responses total. |
kentn
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response 1 of 56:
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Sep 27 21:11 UTC 2010 |
Do we want to modify a. above to leave dues to the discretion of the
Board?
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rcurl
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response 2 of 56:
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Sep 28 05:01 UTC 2010 |
That is generally preferable - it is uncommon to state the dues in an
orgasnization's bylaws.
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mary
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response 3 of 56:
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Sep 28 12:43 UTC 2010 |
Joe: Do you prefer being specific in the bylaws rather than leaving it up
to the BOD?
All: What would the dues need to be in order for you to jump in and become
a voting member? (Said realizing many simply aren't interested, at any
price, in voting membership.)
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nharmon
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response 4 of 56:
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Sep 28 20:17 UTC 2010 |
My cutoff is somewhere between $15 and $20.
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jgelinas
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response 5 of 56:
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Sep 28 21:02 UTC 2010 |
I figured it would be just as quick to follow the procedure outlined in
the bylaws as it would be to give the authority to the Board. I started
another item to discuss the question of how to make changes in the
future. I think it is Item #287.
As an item of administrative interest, please note that all three items
currently proposed can be voted on simultaneously, since they don't
conflict with each other.
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mary
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response 6 of 56:
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Sep 28 21:25 UTC 2010 |
Interesting. My initial thoughts on this would be to set the dues at
$18 a year. But crunching a few numbers we get monthly expenses at
~$140 a month. $100 to Provide, ~$30 for a phone line, and a few bucks
for things like domain charges, filing fees and certificates.
So, even if we drop the last dial-in, we'd need ~75 members to maintain
Grex as is. That's a lot of members. We have ~$1900 at present, so we
could coast for a bit, but without reasonable support the party won't go
on too much longer.
As hard as it is to imagine 75 people giving $18 a year I'm left
wondering if maybe it's time to close shop if 75 people can't or won't
help with that amount.
I suspect some folks are just going to sit back and see what happens -
if others pick up the slack. But I'm also getting the feeling that they
may be disappointed in how that goes.
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kentn
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response 7 of 56:
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Sep 28 22:24 UTC 2010 |
Considering we aren't trying anything new around here, per se, but
rather debating it ad nauseum (these sorts of what do we do discussions
have been going on for years and on mostly the same topics), we probably
will coast.
But that's not what I'd like see. It is within our power to keep it from
happening. This is partly where Mark's comment about "more enthusiasm"
comes in. We need to think more about what we can do rather than about
what we don't like, what we can't do, etc. You don't know until you
try. And we need to act rather quickly.
A lot depends on what we can accomplish in terms of applications and
improvements to applications on the system that might attract new
users (for example, those who want to avoid a command line). Whether
such improvements would attract any new users, let alone any number
approaching what we need to continue operation (with any dues level)
remains to be seen. (But consider that we aren't asking people to become
members in any significant way and are, after over 9 months, still
trying to figure out to send out renewal notices!).
I do think we can get more users if we "provide a system worth
supporting" as one user said, and some users are asking for web-based
applications (and note that this does not mean that if we implemented
more web-based apps, the CLI apps would go away. There is no good reason
they can't remain).
The fact that we can't compete directly with Facebook or Twitter is
not an issue since we are looking at a niche market anyway. And that
doesn't mean we can't have a more modern interace to the system. There
are plenty of small backwater web sites on the internet that have
small but thriving, active communities. They aren't trying to compete
directly with any of the big social web sites. We don't need to compete
directly, either. I doubt we want to be that big of an operation,
anyway. We can define success differently.
However, without enthusiasm and a willingness to participate in a
meaningful fashion, it all falls apart.
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rcurl
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response 8 of 56:
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Sep 29 03:47 UTC 2010 |
Might try dues of $25/annum. In another organization that has dues of $24/a,
a lot of members send $25 anyway. Some sort of "round number" psychology is
at play (not that 25 looks very round).
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mary
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response 9 of 56:
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Sep 29 11:33 UTC 2010 |
Would you send in $25 a year? Anyone?
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