[TriLUG] Financial Status (The pizza email)

[Brian Henning via TriLUG]

Warren> Personally, I’d be all-for an annual membership fee *FOR NEW MEMBERS*, and maybe a one-time “this is how much TriLUG has meant to me” donation/fee request for *ALL EXISTING MEMBERS*

I'd be worried this could (1) be an impediment to increasing membership numbers, and (2) cause division in the community between "paying members" and "one-timers".  

I'm not against the idea of a membership fee, though.  We need to know what that fee needs to be in order for the group to break even.  I'd like this to be considered a request to our current Treasurer to determine the following figures and present them to the mailing list:

1. What are the annual costs associated with the group?  Broken down by month and purpose would be nice.  (e.g. "In January we pay $$$ to renew our 501(c)(3) status.  Each month we pay roughly $$$ to feed your hungry maws")
2. What would an annual per-member due be in the following situations, assuming zero at-will donations:
	a. All members (local and remote) pay the same amount
	b. Remote members don't pay anything, all local members pay the same amount
	c. Only members that attend meetings or other group events pay anything
	d. All members pay an amount prorated based on usage of member benefits (e.g. $ for attending meetings, $ for using pilot, $ for lurking on the mailing list, etc.).  This would have a lot of management overhead and is probably not the best solution.

Once we have numbers like this, then we have real data to argue about when it comes to deciding who should be asked to contribute what.  I'm local but a sporadic meeting attendee, but I understand that meetings aren't the only drain on our coffers.  Perhaps our remote members would be content to pay a certain amount of dues for the upkeep of remotely-accessible membership benefits (e.g. pilot, the list itself, etc.).

It's probably fair to assume TriLUG will die eventually if the current situation doesn't change.  I imagine most of the membership would rather contribute than see that happen!  So let's get some real numbers and figure out the best plan.

Cheers,
-Brian
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