Re: [Fsfe-uk] AFFSAC details

[Andrew Savory]

Hi,

On Thu, 1 May 2003, Marc Eberhard wrote:

> We have a room from 9am to 5pm. To give everyone sufficient time to travel
> to Birmingham, we thought about something like a 10am to 11am start and 5pm
> end. We plan to scedule the AGM for something like the last 2 hours, that
> would be 3pm to 5pm. However, these are just estimates at the moment. Our
> main objective is to find suitable times to allow everyone to come and
> participate, so suggestions are very welcome!

Ah, sounds good. I'd suggest something like registration/coffee from
10.15, kick off at 11, but I guess it depends on how many people you've
got doing talks, how long you want to break for tea/lunch, etc.

> http://www.afsp.org.uk/

Thanks. Site's quite sparse though - Neil, are you on this list? Care to
give us a bit more info? This sounds like something quite a few of us here
would be interested in joining - what's the AFSP? How's it differ from
AFFS?

> Well, then you pay 10 pounds, attend the conference and never renew your
> membership. You don't really lose anyhting by joining, but you gain being a
> member at no extra cost. I don't really see a problem with that.
>
> If you want to stay at a youth hostel, you have to join them too. If you
> don't renew the membership, that's it then after one year. Where do you see
> the problem and why do you find this harsh?

Ok, well, joining a youth hostel is not a great analogy - better to use an
analogy of other IT conferences, where you aren't required to be a member
in order to attend, you just cough up your money, no strings attached.

Consider the example of a proprietary software vendor who may be
interested in hearing about Free Software, but for whom membership would
be a contradiction, or against the vendor's beliefs, or could possibly
even cause harm for the vendor's business if word got out that the vendor
was an AFFS member.

Also, given that one of the AFFS's aims is to promote free software, then
the conference shouldn't just be about "getting current AFFS members into
a room to talk", it should be about getting *anyone* to come along and
listen to what we have to say. In that light, having an obligatory
membership clause on attendance is counter-productive.

What might be a better move would be to charge, say, £7.50 for those who
wish to attend but don't wish to become members. That way, there's a
direct contribution toward the costs of the conference, but no strings
attached.

My apologies for not mentioning all this sooner, but discussion of this on
fsfe-uk has been somewhat sparse, and the recent haphazard announcements
have drawn my attention to it.


Andrew.

-- 
Andrew Savory                                Email: address@hidden
Managing Director                              Tel:  +44 (0)870 741 6658
Luminas Internet Applications                  Fax:  +44 (0)700 598 1135
This is not an official statement or order.    Web:    www.luminas.co.uk