[H-ADMIN] meetup account

[Russell Stuart]

On Fri, 2015-07-24 at 17:49 +1000, Clinton Roy wrote:

> I've decided I can no longer financially support this meetup account,
> and will be stepping down as organiser fairly shortly.
> 
> 
> If someone knows if LA can pay for the meetup account, that would be
> smoothest transition.

For those of you who don't know, Clinton has been sponsoring an account
on meetup.com out of his own pocket for a while now.  I have no idea
what brought on this extraordinary act of generosity, but I'd like to
thank him for it - it was a excellent deal for Humbug while it lasted.

A single meetup account can run up to three meetups.  I gather the one
Clinton stepping away from is used by the following organisations:

  - humbug.org.au
  - LCA
  - LibrePlanet

I'm the president of Humbug, and thus my interest in this.

Meetup.com is charging around AUD$260/year for an account (depends on
USD to AUD exchange rate).  $260 is of the same order as Humbug receives
in income per year.  We spend that mostly on promoting ourselves - for
example have sponsored students to attend Pycon for the past couple of
years.  Meetup.com is another form of promotion for us, we don't use any
of its other functions.  While the meetup page says it has attracted 105
signups, I am not aware of Humbug getting any new financial members
because of it.  In other words I don't view it as an effective form of
promotion, and certainly not something Humbug should be spending $260/yr
on.

If someone was willing to pay for most of the $260 I'd be asking the
Humbug executive if Humbug was willing to contribute.  My own
recommendation would be "if under $20 definitely, if over $50 definitely
not", otherwise thinking is involved.



--
Regards,
Russell Stuart
Humbug President
+61 438 805 133