[Lopsa-regional-project] Defining relationships

[Eric Eisenhart]

On Sun, Jan 15, 2006 at 08:04:27AM -0500, Adam S. Moskowitz wrote:
> Eric Eisenhart <lopsa.org at eric.eisenhart.name> wrote:
> > III) Require all members of the local group to be members of LOPSA
> 
> Sorry, no: Many (most?) local groups do not charge dues (or even
> admission); almost as many don't maintain any sort of membership
> database beyond a mailing list. Not only is this *WAY* too much hassle
> for the local group, it's intrusive and over-bearing. Forcing people to
> join an organization is likely to hurt as much (if not more) than help.

For "LOPSA Affiliates", I agree 100%.  At most require that *somebody* in
the group being a member of LOPSA.  And maybe not even that until LOPSA is
better established.  My LUG has never charged and has no membership database
beyond who's on the mailing lists, and has done pretty well with that.

I was thinking of this one only for "LOPSA Chapters".  If a group *does*
want to have memberships that are charged for, *and* they're a "chapter"
instead of just "affiliated", it could make a lot of sense for the
membership roster of the local group to be handled by adding a field into
lopsa.org's membership DB stuff with whatever extra money beyond base LOPSA
membership dues made available specifically for that local group.

Maybe require it if LOPSA's going to handle the membership roster and the
money bits.

Charging membership dues is a fair amount of work; basically requires that
there's an elected board with a treasurer and some kind of roster someplace
that keeps track of who's paid up until when, etc...

IMO, groups should avoid charging money if they can.  Definitely avoid
charging anything for attending a meeting.

OTOH, a group that charges dues can use that money for things like flying a
speaker to their location and paying for a night in a hotel.  If you've got
30 members paying $30/yr each, you could probably pull such a thing off
twice a year.  Maybe three times with discount airlines from not too far
away, cheap hotel rooms, and speakers that cover other minor costs like food
themselves. http://baylisa.org/members/join.shtml - BayLISA seems to charge
$45 for membership and I hear they're a quite successful group; looks like
there's a few benefits that come with membership and that they don't charge
to attend meetings.

> >   V) Not to be associated with SAGE.
> 
> The day that LOPSA (or any other organization) were to tell BBLISA what
> other organizations we can't or must be affiliated with would be the
> day BBLISA tells LOPSA to go take the proverbial flying fuck at a
> rolling donut! In general, LOPSA and SAGE need the local groups a whole
> lot more than the local groups need SAGE and LOPSA. Unless LOPSA can
> show that SAGE (or any other group) is actively trying to harm or
> destroy LOPSA, I am hard-pressed to think of a reason to disallow such
> multiple affiliations. I have *never* had a "parent" organization impose
> such a restriction, and I hope I never do.

I agree.  My original note after V agrees with you, too (just less
vehemently ;)

I updated http://lopsa.org/local -- left V right out.  Glad nobody's saying
"oh yes, we need to do that".  :)
-- 
Eric Eisenhart <*@eric.eisenhart.name>
IRC: freiheit; often on #lopsa
AIM: falsch freiheit
http://eric.eisenhart.name/
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