This post makes some very good observations but I’m still very much against getting rid of dues. We, as a club are in great finical standing, but getting rid of dues gets rid of the only avenue of income that we KNOW we will get. As stated above the art sale could fail, and we could not make any money at all, or even worse something (this could be a variety of things such as fines or the need for equipment if the projector in our room breaks down and Truman refused to fix it) that we could not see coming down the line could come up and we suddenly don’t have money to support ourselves. I’ve was once in a club that got rid of dues for many the same reasons that we are thinking of getting rid of dues and then they were broke in two years (I will not state the name of this club because I have a very good friend that is still a member). They then tried to install dues again and the club fell apart from the inside out. I don’t want to see that happen to this club.

A note on going to cons. This is the the FRIST year club has ever done this. Of course there will be a few bugs in the system that have to be worked out. An order will have to be made so that members going to the con work the art sale that will fund such a con (or what ever fundraising event we decide to throw) as well as making sure that other members dues are not paying into con funds and going to all member events. From the way it looks like the art sale worked this year and it seems like we made far more then we needed to to fund gas to go to a con and that excess money will most likely be either saved for next year or put back into general funds (when you think about it isn’t that bad of situation either). Once we work out the making sure people going to the con work the table I do not see what the problem is with using the art sale to fund con goings. If we do put into action such a thing then getting rid of dues is impractical because relying on the art sale for all our money every year is shaky hope at best to pay for all club expenses.

On a last note, I know everyone is a college student living on college student funds and money is tight, but $5 is very cheap due wise. Most clubs dues are in the 10 to 50 dollar range and I would never raise dues to that height. If at most lowering dues to $3 would be a better option.

Another thing (I swear this is the last one), yes getting rid of dues raises the barrier between paid members and none paid members, but what happens, for example, if we get rid of dues and a new student wins oh-no hour (one of the benefits of paying dues right now is that you do get to participate in oh-no hour) and we never hear from that person again. This happens a lot in other clubs where a person comes one night and then decides that that club isn’t for them. Paying for a membership entices members to come to club more often because they want to get their five dollars worth. Not paying dues can translate into ‘that club is not worth it.’ I’ve seen this happen before. It doesn’t end pretty. And suddenly that aren’t coming to club.

These are just my thoughts. I hope you consider them.

The money does not matter to me as much as the rest. We have shown that we can make more than our club dues twice within the art sales we have had. Some years will be more difficult than others to make funds so those years we can use saved funds or skimp on our spending or just have more fundraisers to compensate. I understand the need for financial security to cover damages if something terrible were to happen, but I believe that by not allowing the bank account to fall below a certain range would allow us to have that security. We should add a clause into the consitution that states something to the effect.

Why I object to having club dues has nothing to do with the money. Because we have dues we have allowed there to be a hierarchy, two seperate classes of people within the club. You have the members and the paid members. The paid members who give their money to the club and in turn they are given the right to make decisions about what we watch all semester, what events we have all year and who becomes future officers, things that I believe directly relate to the future of the club. To place the future of our club in the hands of only those who pay up seems backwards. We are not a feudal system based upon who has the money and who doesn’t, but it sure seems like sometimes because our current policies value those who pay club dues over those that do not.

Does any body know how many new members we have aquired this year that have actually stuck around? I dont have the exact numbers but I can tell you it is not many. When I look around the room in Anime club, I see the same people that were in club last year. I do not want Anime club to become stagnate. I want us to grow as a group and make many more new friends along the way. And in order to grow, I feel that we have to be willing to let go of some of our old policies in order to make new ones to lead us into the future.

Debt will only result if the officers are complete idiots, and I would like to think that we are not. Sure we may have to do a little budgeting but that’s nothing that we cannot handle. If we have to cut spending in the area of fancy things then we do, the world will not end. Likewise if we need to have another fundraiser to get a few extra dollars then we can. While fundraisers don’t always bring in wads of cash they will always bring in some because if you can’t get someone to buy a cookie there is something wrong with you. Debt can be avoided if we try to avoid it. Barbwire, The same goes for those who come five years in the future. If they are tight for money they will find another ways to supply it. Don’t worry about those people five years in the future if they have a problem with money, or anything else, it is their own fault not ours.

I would like to refocus the discussion on a topic brought up earlier that I believe has not received adequate attention.

All decisions we make as an organization should be focused on a consideration of who is affected by those decisions. Currently, paid club members are entirely responsible for deciding the two stable elements of the Anime Club Experience: ongoing shows and elected officers. However, all club members, paid or not, are greatly affected by these decisions.

A valid point was made that membership dues distinguish those with a commitment to club from casual attendees, and thus ensure the people making decisions are the ones who will be living with them. The problem is that there are unpaid members who attend club every week, or at least more frequently than many paid members. Yet these dedicated club members are excluded from contributing to the most important decisions made by the club.

I submit that the most important qualities of a club member are a high club attendance rate and a commitment to making Anime Club delightful for all members. Any system of decision making that does not have this principle at its core should not be part of our policy.

Logically, it follows that we should do away with a payment-based system of decision making because it defies the above Principle of Attendance and Delightfulness. Because the power of decision making is the only incentive for paid membership and because other means, discussed above, exist to adequately meet our primary financial needs, I conclude that there is no reason for paid membership to exist and it would be best for Anime Club to discontinue the policy.

I think this needs to be voted upon within this school year.  If the vote fails, then it fails, but at least we would have given the club as a whole (not just who checks th forum) the opportunity to put forth their viewpoint.  If it succeeds, then we will be able to enact a  new policy at the beginning of the school year  instead of enacting it partially through the year and having to refund club members money.

Nothing ever happens quickly in this club because we mull ideas over in business meetings for months upon a time, shooting one idea after another down or letting them be forgotten, without giving the club as a whole input into matters that affect everyone.