Phil Phillips asked what additional opportunities charging would bring -
1. Ability to offer small subsidies to potential hosts - the hope would be
that more non-national museums might feel able to host meetings. This in
turn would make for a greater variety of venues. It would also help larger
museums who, although very generous in the past, may now have difficulty
justifying free use of commercially valuable facilities.
2. Funding of the newsletter photocopying costs - this would contribute to
1. above as currently hosts are asked to pay for photocopying and
distributing the newsletter. Putting the newsletter on the Web may be an
option in the future - but not, I feel, without first carrying out an
accurate assessment of the number of members able/willing to access it in
this way.
3. A more accurate list of members. This would result in less wasted time
and money mailing members no longer interested or mailing the wrong people
at the wrong addresses. Of course, a survey of members to update their
details can be included with meeting booking forms (and this has been done
on several occasions in the past). The problem is that only a small
percentage of members ever reply. An annual subscription would solve this
problem.
4. Where venues are limited in capacity 'paid-up' members could be given
priority or payment of a year's subscription made a condition of booking.
This would be especially important in limiting demand for places if smaller
museums hosted meetings.
Against these opportunities the following bureaucratic overheads must be
set:
1. A treasurer and auditor - volunteers please?
2. A constitution so that the groups business is (and is seen to be)
conducted correctly.
3. A committee elected by the members (see 2 above).
4. An annual general meeting (20 mins or so out of one meeting a year
should be sufficient).
Sue Gordon
MCG Chair
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