Three points in relation to the choices that face us:
a. associate membership has been mentioned as one way of remaining
involved in research groups. This is only open to those under 25.
The only choice available to anyone else is to withdraw from
membership and make their own arrangements with individual reseach
groups. Such individuals would obviously lose their journals and the
newsletter.
Obviously a few hundred withdrawals of this kind would substantially
wipe out Shell's contribution but it would have two other effects:
i. increase the workload for individual secretaries of research
groups, all of whom do their job with little recognition or reward;
ii. to the extent that it reduced the funding base of the
organisation it would make it harder to argue for an expansion of
(e.g.) resources for Transactions / Area, not least because of the
reduction in the size of their subscription base (it would have an
indirect effect on the budgets of these journals since these come out
of general society funds).
To some extent this smacks of cutting off noses to spite faces.
b. the presidency: Jellicoe will be replaced sooner or later and I
understand an appointments committee has been set up to find a
successor. While we should be wary of an argument that changing the
personnel will change the organisation, I think we need to know just
how this process will operate and how it can be influenced. We might
find it useful to put forward an academic stalking-horse (thanks to
Ron Johnston for this suggestion) who can be considered. Whether the
procedures followed by the appointment committee will lead to an
election is a question we should be asking as well.
c. at the risk of finding further excuses for inaction, I think
someone mentioned on this list that the putative financial benefits
of the merger for academics - e.g. the merger fund for research - had
not been delivered yet and that questions should be asked about this
as the financial picture was not as rosy as had been suggested. Since
this was proclaimed as a key benefit of the merger, I think we need
to know more about it, as if those benefits do not accrue, the
arguments for not continuing as members gather more force.
John Mohan
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