[Barbwire]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw9Vy1mJIv0

[Barbwire]

I was able to get VH1204 last minute. We have reservations for MG 1000 and VH 1204. It is up to you where you would like to have the event.

[Barbwire]

As far as I’m concerned Jacque can submit a T-shirt design. She may not be a part of Truman anymore but she’s pretty much an honorary alumni.

[Barbwire]

Okay so to answer some of you questions:
1) We do need to decide what we are going to do for the first night. My suggestion is for each officer to bring in one anime. If an officer forgets I’ll bring plenty of backups to chose from and we also have the library on standby. We will also most likely be doing scenes from a hat as an ice breaker to ease everyone back into the feel of club.

2) Yes I have gotten that email and I”m taking care of the all the things that need to be done.

3) I move for the first officer meeting to be Wednesday the night before classes start so we can iron out everything before Friday.

4) The Activities fair is Aug 28. We will have sign up for the table at Fridays first meeting.

5) We need to also plan the demo on the quad. As I said on facebook I have the table and chair reserved. I’ll be sending out an email soon to all members about it so we can start sign up quickly. If memory serves me correctly the it’ll be Thursday and Friday 1-4.

[Barbwire]

I was never trying to imply that I was taking the choice away from club. I am simply stating out of the three options which one I think is best. I never once said that we weren’t going to present of the other options and a possibility. I’m only showing my support of one idea over the other two.

[Barbwire]

I think we can all agree that money is not an issue with whole dues thing. It might be down the line, but in the hear and now it’s not. I will state again though, voting so close to finals is great idea. People a stressed out, busy studying, and have other matter they are paying attention to that a study vote my be looked over and only the people involved in this discuss will vote/care. This is most definitely not all of the club. Do a power point presentation I club will only grab maybe a fourth of active members because again members might be busy, or not show up in time for such a presentation.

There I think the third idea is best. Vote to get rid of dues IN CLUB next semester as a trail run. Then at the end of the semester hold a debate and vote. This let’s members that might be ridding the fence about the idea make a clear cut decision.

In reference to Doallem if you think we are taking away your idea, I do not understand why you see it as such. We are not taking away you idea just expanding it to where it will be better for all of club. This is the point of getting rid of dues is. To better club. Personal stakes in it should be a part of the issue if we vote now or later. If you feel cut out we will be happy to get in contact with you next December or when ever the vote is being held and set up a time you can come back to club and give yourr stance. I feel like this is very reasonable because we’ll work in whatever way we need to to help you fit it into you schedule.

I want to this to be the best for club. Therefore I want to give club members time to think about it, experience it, and not have the finals crunch hanging over their heads. Adding more to most members already full plate is probably not advised.

[Barbwire]

I apologize for not being clear enough : D

[Barbwire]

No I’m more proposing asking for a in club vote, quick and simple, about just doing the third option. That way we can just get it out of the way and let members focus on finals rather then club issues.

It’s my opinion that this idea will include everybody’s interests in the matter.

[Barbwire]

Thinking about it I would like to propose a third option to presented this Friday. So far we have two
1) Get rid of Dues
2) Don’t get rid of Dues
A third option could be a trial run without dues. For example we vote that next semester we don’t have dues. And then everyone can vote to see if the want to keep this as the standard procedure. This gives everyone time to see what it’s like to live without dues and come to their own conclusions about the idea. If no dues get’s voted, Great! We don’t change anything and add it to the constitution. If it get’s voted down we move on to either reducing dues or putting them back where the were the next semester and just charge 2.50. If the vote goes down in the middle of the semester then same thing happens. Voted in nothing changes. Voted down, it’ll just be a free semester and we’ll reinstate dues next semester.
This plan I hope will please all parties, because this issue can’t go cold over summer and it deals with shoving it in so close to finals.

[Barbwire]

My concern with it being so close to finals is that people will be focused on other things then having the time to think about this decision fully. Plus is less time for people to put forth their view point. I propose dropping dues to 1 or 2 dollars next year and then having a vote to abolish dues or keep them to be implemented the year after. This is plenty of time for this decision to take effect and if officers really want to do this then it’s not going to go away next year.

The point of this forum is to debate this issue, but if we really want everyone’s opinion we need to set up a set date and time to all club members to gather in person and discuss this issue, not rush it into completion because we feel the clock ticking. Rushing it will not help it at all and even less members will vote in one issue because they won’t know where then want to stand, and that will skew the vote to only the people that are actively involved in this debate. Zorina you stated yourself we need to let everyone have input so wouldn’t it be good to let everyone that is busy at this time of the year not have this added to there load.

Obviously this will be announced in club, but the putting it to vote so soon and at the end of the semester may not be the best idea.

[Barbwire]

I do not believe it is dues that is causing members to leave club. I believe it is more members become bored with watching anime for six hours and have school/life that takes priority. On the note about only paying members being able to vote, isn’t the same as only established US citizens being able to vote in elections. It is essential the same concept. If everyone paying and none paying were allowed to vote we can have people voting that never come to club and don’t have any idea what is going on voting and skewing the vote that way. It’s a double edged sword. Yes you’ll probably have more people come in and vote, but voting alone isn’t going to make everybody want to stay. If club numbers are becoming a issue then I think getting rid of dues is the last thing we need to be looking into to keep members.

On another note. If we do get rid of dues, how can we prove to CSI how many members we have and not get stuck in a smaller room, because a email list will most likely not cut it with them?

[Barbwire]

I would like to put forth a very true fact for everyone to think about. This year alone we had forty paying members. That is (if I am not mistaken) almost all if not all of the people that enjoy club. It does not seem like paying dues is creating this 'gap' between paying and none paying members that keeps coming up in these discussions.

And on the note of Oh-no-hour "Dan of the N" I'm certain you are quite capable to dealing with a problem like that, but if it happens multiple times then we have a serious problem.

What I'm trying to say is that dues are not there to create a barrier between members, but to feed into club growing as an organization. If we need to come up with something to where dues are used every year for something then that is something the officer team can work on. We CAN NOT rely on a the art sale or any type of fundraiser to provide us with money every year. That is literally leaving club funds up to chance which is not a smart move to do. Like the saying goes never count you chickens before the hatch.

Even when we don't have to worry about money. If we get rid of dues and five years down the line officers after we are long gone need money and decide to reinstate dues can cause conflict within the organization that I want to avoid.

Just because we have money now doesn't mean we'll have money down the road. Dues are a safety net for club. Getting rid of that safety net is asking for trouble. What if something happens to the library and we need buy a new external hard drive. What if, what if, what if? The world shouldn't run on what ifs but if you don't cover your all your bases your going to shot yourself in the foot.

And I will say this again. If $5 is deemed to expensive fore people then the better option is to reduce dues to three or maybe two dollars.

[Barbwire]

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.

[Barbwire]

A note on the room for the end of year party. It is not reserved through the CSI. You have to go the the main office in VH directly to reserve the room. I will do this personally.

[Author]

Posts