[TriLUG] Financial Status (The pizza email)

[Joseph Mack NA3T via TriLUG]

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019, Joseph Mack NA3T wrote:

Two things are valuable to me about TriLUG

o the mailing list

o the shell account on pilot

I'd be happy to pay for both of these.

I'm an amateur astronomer. The Charlotte amateur astronomy club has a blank 
calendar page. Presumably at one time the calendar was functional, but now news 
of events, like observing, is served by e-mailing members on the thursday night. 
Functionally they have a members only mailing list. (The regular monthly meeting 
is posted to the webpage.)

Presumably we could raise money by making the mailing list be for paid up 
members only. Maybe you could have free trial 3 month period.

Joe

> o Pizza costs money, even if the lecture is free. I expect we can pay 
> whatever it costs for pizza, $1.50-$2/slice. Asking for donations doesn't 
> cover expenses. Someone from the SC is going to have to sit infront of the 
> pizza line and handle the cash. There are people who like doing that.
>
> o It costs to run the club. I'm happy to pay $10/yr.
>
> How many people do we have in the club, say measured by the mailing list?
>
> Someone in the SC has to keep track of memberships then. That's not trivial. 
> Do you mail cards?
>
> If we have paying members, what does a member get that a non-member misses 
> out on? With everything free in TriLUG, there not much you can keep aside for 
> paying members. (Anyone can come to meetings.)
>
> 	x mailing list (rw)
>
> 	x shell account on pilot (doesn't seem there's many who take 
> advantage of this)
>
> 	x Membership discounts at Intrex.
>
> We used to have quite nice used gear sales. That used to be for members only. 
> I haven't seen any of that for at least a decade.
>
> Other than being a nice guy, there doesn't seem to be much incentive to pay 
> $10. Without something for your $10, the club then is in the same situation 
> as asking for donations for pizza.
>
> Joe
>
>

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant
map generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!