[H-ADMIN] Bank interest

[Russell Stuart]

I've looked into various options with bank accounts earning interest.
Recall the Commonwealth Bank wouldn't give us an interest bearing
account unless we had more than $10,000, which we don't.  Turns out it's
the same deal with Bank of Queensland, and looking at the other banks
web pages they are all the same.

However, they will pay us 5.4% interest or so if we put it into a term
deposit, and the lower limit for that is $5,000 which we do have.  The
term would be 12 months, and if we didn't tell them we needed the money
at the end of the 12 months it will just roll over into a new 12 month
term with whatever interest being was earned being added to the new term
deposit.  Other banks may pay us slightly more (to be honest I haven't
checked), but the convenience of staying with the Commonwealth seems too
good to pass up.

We currently have about $7000 in the bank.  Hiring a linode account for
a year (which is about the most expensive thing I can envisage us
needing) costs $250.  So my suggestion is we put $6,500 in a 12 month
term deposit.  That will earn us $350 for the year in interest.

To make all this happen I have to prepare a latter from Humbug saying
that is what we want to do.  The signatories have to sign it (ie all of
us), and then I scan it and email it to the guy I was just speaking to
at the bank.  That's it.

So Matt and Clinton, let me know if you are happy with this or want a
different amount or whatever.  Then I can draft up a suitable letter for
us to sign at this Saturday's Exec meeting, and it's a done deal.

Clinton: how are you going with getting access to the bank account?  I
see there are a few people who have direct deposited membership fees to
us, and we should really send them an acknowledgement.  It seems most of
them didn't drop a note to exec at humbug saying they did it, so you won't
know about it until you get access.