The BAA and new BCS membership requirements

Thanks to all who came to our second APL Wiki working group meeting
today - for once, more people attended than we were expecting.

Again, some progress was made and good work done but as expected much
of the day was taken up discussing the future changes required by BCS
regarding membership. I had a meeting with Lynne Sturgess and she then
came back to the working group to answer specific questions. As
promised I will summarise the result of that meeting.

The key points are much as we expected;

>membership to any SIG can only made by members of the BCS.
>The minimum membership status is Afiliate which currently costs =A335 per
y=
ear
>Any BCS member at any grade may join up to 5 SIG's at no extra cost.
>The Afiliate category requires no sponsor and requires only a simple form
t=
o be filled.
>The first year's fee would be waived, thereafter a normal charge would be
m=
ade.
>The BCS would be prepared to extend the free membership period beyond 1st
A=
pril.
>Our Vector publication would (could) be charged for at an extra cost.
>Our membership lists might benefit/grow from other BCS SIG members who
are =
interested in us and what we do.

On the other side of the coin;

>We could not offer a Vector only subscription
>We could offer Vector (or component parts) as a free download over the
web
>We could offer Vector through, say, LULU at no charge other than that
from =
LULU itself.
>There is no lower cost memebrship status than Afiliate so some would see
a =
very much more
expensive membership cost.

Clearly there is a lot that the committee must consider before comming
back to the membership with recommendations and we do not have much
time. I suggest therefore that we undertake the following broad brush
approach;

>Request Position Papers from members which we can collate and review.
>Call a full commitee meeting to discuss our options and report back to
the =
members our recommendations.
>Send a suitable mail-out to all members
>Hold an EGM where such recommendations can be voted upon.
>execute the members wishes.

I will endevour to keep everyone updated with progress and to this end
will be duplicating this thread on COMP.LANG.APL to get a wide an
audience as possible. To be vender independant I may stop using
dyalogusers but not just yet.

In the meantime should anyone have any comments or a position they
would wish us to take please forward them to me and I will make sure
that anything put forward will be compiled and reviewed.

Many thanks to all