Re: [Fsfe-uk] Increasing Membership

[Alex Hudson]

On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 11:38:39AM +0100, Andrew Savory wrote:
> Our income is from building Free Software sites and services and from
> supporting Free Software. I'm considering reducing all our prices by 10
> pounds, and adding ten pounds as "AFFS membership fee" to sign up a
> nominated person at the customer site. To us, 10 pounds will make little
> difference to the total price.

I think I can say this is an idea that hasn't been raised before.

We have talked about - and intend on doing - a 'Free Software Directory' 
for the UK. The idea being that membership would allow you to register
on this thing, and businesses would also be able to register. People
such as yourself, doing business with Free Software, would be the people
this kind of thing would be aimed at.

I guess what you're talking about is almost the opposite - a membership
for businesses who aren't necessarily Free Software business, but are
doing business with Free Software, or are customers of the former. 
Interesting idea.

> Which leads me neatly on to my next point. Are we currently doing anything
> to retain members at the end of their first year membership? Are we doing
> form mailings from the membership database?

Mark is the person to ask really, but we have discussed it - so the plan
is to do something ;) I don't think it's actually an issue for another
month or two yet, but yes, I would suggest a form mailing (probably a
sumary of the year's activities, a forward-looking plan and renewal
form?) would probably be 'the way'.

> Finally, do we have good links with the various conference organising
> companies? I think it would be a good idea if we could arrange stands or
> publicity at diverse events, not just specifically computing-related. The
> only conference organisers I know of are 101 Communications, who are of
> course predominantly IT-based. Does anyone know of any others we could
> talk to?

Not especially (beyond the Linux Expo peoples). I know we have looked at
conferences who are education-oriented, so they would be an ideal first-
stop. I think there are also Govt purchasing fairs, which might be 
interesting, but I don't think we've ever had any contact at all with
anyone doing that kind of thing.

Would people find it useful to have some kind of ideas-wiki or something on
www.affs.org.uk? While it's quite easy to pick ideas up off list, something
like the conference organiser stuff is kind of an on-going thing & hence
would require ongoing work - it makes sense to open that to anyone who
comes across something interesting.

Cheers,

Alex.