[Nelug] Rowing Club

[Brian Ronald]

Hello from Tyneside LUG.

On Mon, 2007-09-03 at 21:01 +0100, Dougie Nisbet wrote:
> We didn't really come to any consensus at the last meeting about how to 
> pay our way for using the club for our meetings. Perhaps we could do a 
> quick 'straw-poll' and see what people think.

I wasn't there, so I'm only making inferences from the content of this
email.  Let me know if I'm misunderstanding any of this.

The rowing club are charging you?  That's painful.

> I'm quite happy to pay £15/year to become a social member. I suppose it 
> depends on how many other regulars would also feel this way. Perhaps we 
> could suggest that if the regulars were willing to become members, and 
> newcomers were given a grace period of, say, a couple of months, then 
> we'd have a system where newcomers would be expected to join if they 
> wished to carry on coming along.

What about irregulars who aren't newcomers?  I'm one, and there will be
others.  Once my grace period is up I'd be unlikely to want to pay an
annual subscription.  I'm not there frequently enough.

If you're going to charge subs (and this is exactly what it'll look like
to potential members) you're going to have to provide (and continue to
provide) something more than just a place to meet.  If people are
paying, they will expect something - and they won't take into account
the cost of the room in their expectations.

Tyneside LUG has in the past paid for venues.  We didn't charge the
members; we (Chris Burton and I, who were coordinators at the time)
simply went halves on it and paid up.  This wasn't something we could
continue in the long term, and on several occasions we were the only two
people to turn up anyway.  We had to stop doing that altogether.

> We're not a big crowd as it is and the fear is that if someone turns up 
> for a look to see how things are, and immediately have to pay a couple 
> of quid, they might not be too keen.

People won't be keen to pay entry to a meeting unless they think they're
going to get something from it.  A competent talk from somebody,
perhaps, or some actual useful help on a problem they're having.  As
soon as there's some kind of fee, you start to look like a support
group, like the numerous Windows user groups out there.

> The problem with my proposal is that, I think, there are too few of us 
> regulars to come close to hitting the £120/year that the club are 
> suggesting. Having said that, it might be more profitable for the club 
> than the people who do turn up paying a couple of quid each!

Is this suggestion in any way negotiable?  Is there any service that can
be rendered to the club that would persuade them to waive the fee?  Is
there, dare I suggest it, another venue?

Tyneside LUG has had an amazing amount of support from the Discovery
Museum, although we've had to work to their timetable to an extent.  We
now have a new permanent home in one of their classrooms, which is very
well equipped and very spacious, for free.  We did have to change our
regular meeting date for them to accommodate us, though - that classroom
is in part of the museum that is only open when the archives are open,
on the first weekend of the month.

-- 
Brian Ronald (Brianetta)            http://www.ppcis.org/
_________________________________________________________
I didn't want to hurt you, but you're pretty when you cry
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