[Linux-aus] Proposal: yearly reminder/expiration of free membership

[Mary Gardiner]

Hi all,

Presently voting membership of Linux Australia the association (that is, the
kind you sign up for at https://www.linux.org.au/membership/ ) is more-or-less
perpetual.  Our Constitution http://linux.org.au/org/constitution.phtml would
normally have people renew membership yearly by payment of an annual fee (see
Section 4 Cessation of membership) but since we don't have one and don't plan
to introduce one, membership is currently carried in full year to year.

There's a few reasons why this is not ideal:

 1. it doesn't give us a sense of how many people are interested enough in
    Linux Australia to be members. Currently membership means that you were
    interested some time in the last half decade or so, only.

 2. individual people who may have opted into membership at some point (most
    commonly, when registering for LCA) might not anticipate the de facto
    perpetual nature of the membership and might, if asked, not wish to be members
    because:
    2.1 they aren't interested any more
    2.2 they don't even remember who we are
    2.3 they actively dislike us

    Membership of organisations like Linux Australia can impact on people in
    non-trivial ways (most notably, some people with security clearances are
    supposed to report all such memberships) so a small number of our members
    could be harmed by de facto perpetual membership, although likely most
    don't much care, or find it easier to not have to renew

Options:

 (1) leave the status quo: people basically sign up and stay members forever

 (2) email people yearly reminding them of their membership and offering them
     the opportunity to resign

 (3) email people yearly reminding them of their membership and make them
     re-confirm to remain a member after the opening of the next AGM (this may
     require a Constitutional change to Section 4, Cessation of membership)

Any thoughts?

-Mary