> Oh yes, I do realise that, but the pay-to-vote is my biggest grief :) I > would be happy to pay for the other perks, but paying for the > opportunity to vote rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps another source of > funding for the group could be to pass the hat at meetings with the > intent of getting a 'big-name' speaker out to a future meeting.
Ian, As a former Executive and one of the individuals who helped bring the two tiered system in I feel the need to defend it. If you disagree with the reasoning that is your prerogative but I thought you should know some facts. We felt that in order to enable CLUG to grow that we should incorporate as a Society. There are fees associated with dealings with the government of this nature. There are continuing fees incurred for changes to our organization that must be filed yearly and in some cases several filings per year have the potential of incurring more fees. According to the Societies act we HAD to be able to provide a detailed list of members. As such the Tier Two level was made. We chose a nominal fee of $20 as that was the most common denomination in a person's wallet. We did not want to fuss with change or complicate matters by asking potential members to have to provide exact change. As for your oversimplification of 'puchasing a vote' for $20, we felt that this was a minimum show of commitment on the member's part. There is an accountability to the government... a Tier Two member must provide their full name and residential address and if asked we must provide them with a detailed list of our members. You probably do not appreciate what a dilemma we faced in the decision to create the two tiered membership. We first and foremost did not want to alienate the people that had been involved in CLUG since its inception. We also decided that in order to keep accurate records we needed to provide something for the Tier Two member. We needed to generate funds to pay for things like our Society name search, the registration of the name with Alberta Government. Taking in a steady stream of funds also necessitated opening a bank account and the account as it is incurs monthly fees. We also wanted to build a treasury to enable us to do some fun things for the group. The Tier Two members are granted voting privileges while the Tier One members are not. We came to the determination that as members with vested interest in the group only Tier Two's should be allowed to vote, it is their money we are dealing with. I would like to point out that as a Tier One member you reap the benefits that Tier Two members enjoy without laying down any money. We do not charge admission for any meetings or events. If we were to ever bring in a speaker like RMS, I feel it safe to say that you would still not have to pay anything. Seems like a deal to me. At any rate, we also realized that charging any amount was going to annoy people and that this issue would rear it's ugly head from time to time. I wish we lived in a Utopian Society where money is not required but we do not. There are real things we need to pay for, donations only go so far. I believe in Open Source and Free Software. The idea of charging people for membership seems wrong but it was felt to be necessary. The voting membership may decide to change this and have that option at any time. And frankly, just because you are a Tier One, it does not mean you don't have a voice. The members of this group are quite reasonable. It's about choice, we have a two-tier membership and you have chosen to remain a tier one, that does not make you less of a member. I like to think that a member's worth is determined by how much they put into the group. Comments like yours serve as destructive tools that wear down what those of us who decided to become actively involved built up. Nobody is profiting directly from the funds we take in (certainly not the Executive). We have the treasury in hopes that we can make our meetings and events more interesting. Jarrod Major _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
