[H-GEN] Non cash payment - was Re: Constitutional changes I will be proposing at the AGM

[Robert Brockway]

On Wed, 25 Aug 2010, James Lever wrote:

> non-Australian members who do not have an Australian bank account will 
> not be able to economically perform a direct financial transfer due to

Most (all?) of the people who are outside Australia but want to be members 
are likely to have lived in Brisbane once and so still have an Aussie 
bank account (I do :) ).

> the hideous cost of international bank transfers (often fees can be 
> multiple times the cost of HUMBUG membership).  This is where it becomes

Minimum fee is usually around $25 from North America but yes it is a pain. 
Drawing a cheque on a foreign currency (AUD) normally costs a few bucks 
and is similarly a pain.

> worthwhile to have some form of proper eCommerce/online payment 
> mechanism that accepts major credit cards etc.  Some members may choose 
> to use this option for convenience rather than direct deposit transfers 
> also.

I'm all for that but have two thoughts:

(a) Who's going to code it?

(b) What sort of merchant fees are involved?

I'd also like to see multi-year sign ups allowed.  This offers both 
convenience and allows the member to join up at today's rate not a future 
rate.  The advantage to the club is more money now, at the expense of 
later.

Cheers,

Rob

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