It doesn't matter what your position or anyone elses is

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Dec 08, 2005 at 10:31:03AM -0500, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> The conspiracy theorist in people might wonder whether the whole point 
> of this exercise is to ultimately funnel membership funds into the hands 
> of those who "run the club", to one day generate profit for the 
> subcontracted provision of resources that are currently volunteered. 
> Since no other purpose has been offered for the money collected, and the 
> management of said resources is *the* key stated function of GTALUG, 
> it's not inconceivable. Furthermore, since we don't even have access to 
> the bylaws online, we don't know what safeguards if any exist to prevent 
> this from happening. I for one certainly hope that such bylaw safeguards 
> exist, in which case such a theory would be moot.

If I thought there was a point in joining GTALUG as a paid member (and
the membership fee was something I thought was reasonable), I probably
would join.  I don't think either is the case right now.

I have been a member of the Computer Science Club at the University of
Waterloo for some 11 years now (even though I graduated over 5 years
ago).  They way it was run was much simpler to understand.  To join you
paid a membership fee of $2 per term (something even students can
afford), which allowed you to vote at the meetings being help, and run
for the positions (president, VP, secretary and treasurer).  The 4
elected positions would nominate a system administrator (to run the
machines the club owns) and the members present at the meeting would
either accept or reject the proposed sysadmin.  A minimum number of
people were required to be at the meeting for votes to be valid, which I
can't recall anymore, but I think it was 15 or 20 people or so.  Given
the club has probably around 1000 members, many of whom are not at the
university, it seemed to work pretty well that way.  The money collected
were used to pay for new hardware once in a while for the club machines,
and occationally new furnitue for the club's room and such.  Members can
also request an account (and most do) on the machines, although the
membership does not buy the account, so that abuse can be dealt with
simply.  I know where my $2 are going every 4 months, while I would have
no idea where my $20 would be going if I became a member of GTALUG.  I
don't miss the $6 per year.  I get a lot of value for them.  I might
miss $20.

So what is my point?  Well this particular club had all it's rules (the
club constitution) listed on the web site, and brought a printed copy to
the election meeting every term, to make sure it was followed.  Changing
it requires quorum at a meeting with I think 66% in favour minimum.
Maybe if GTALUG was as clear in how it was doing things, people wouldn't
be complaining that they don't know what is going on.  As for how to get
rid of things if they don't work, well I have no idea what incorporation
involves, but at least the university clubs would occationally start to
dwindle, and sometimes two clubs of related interests would merge so
that they could have only one set of people organizing things.  This
happend to a bunch of clubs for math interests causing a club with a
very long acronym for it's name to evolve, which seemed to then stick
around just fine.  

If no one had any interest in GTALUG anymore, I am sure it would stop
existing, and anyone that had a desire for a mailing list could start
one and continue running one unrelated to the corporation.  I honestly
have no idea why the mailing list couldn't be spun off again if that was
decided by the board if for some reason GTALUG was to be disolved.
After all companies spin off divisions sometimes, why can't an
incorporated group do the same. :)

Lennart Sorensen
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