Re: Formal Member Registration

[G Gautam <gautamg@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

On May 22, Atul Chitnis wrote:
> 
> ILUG Bangalore will be involved in several big events in the coming
> months, so it is important that we get this done and get this done right
> ASAP.

I don't know how this sounds, but maybe we must start saying "This stall
is  manned by the `city` members of Linux India" rather than "This stall
is  manned by `city`-ilug". That way people will start to know, if they
don't already, that there is a national orgn. rather than just a citywide
movement. So maybe we could register LI as a non-profit orgn. and have a
common membership throughout the country. It may not be nice for a person
to join the citylug every time they migrate/move to another city. Maybe
the membership could be based on the first city, but valid throughout India. 

> 
> Since I would like to see uniformity across the country, I thought I'd
> kick off a discussion here to see what other people have to say about it.

Also, by this membership, we must encourage as many to contribute time &
expertise to the cause rather than money. It does sound utopian, but...
Maybe we could have one common treasure chest with contributions from all
the cities under the control of LI. One treasurer per city could
authorize expenditure for that city. We also could have schemes in which
strain on the purse could be reduced, in exchange for commitments like
talks to other orgns, telephone support, etc. But this is really not
enforcible, is it?

We could also organize contests, to encourage participation from curious
non-members, of course complete with (cash, membership, name on web site)
prizes.

Gautam