Re: [Fsfe-uk] Membership

[Andrew Savory]

Hi,

Hmm, ok, to recap:

* there was a suggestion for an "associate" membership that we could give
out freely to interested teachers / lecturers etc, which would swell our
numbers, making us a more viable campaigning body and giving us a bigger
voice when speaking to government, etc.

* there's also been mention of an AFFSED (AFFS education network) /
AFFSEdIG (AFFS education interest group), for people specifically
interested in the issues of Free Software in Education to interact
(possibly through separate mailing list, for example).

* there's also been mention of associating/partnering/allying with
schoolforge-uk, to avoid duplication of effort.

To be honest, I think we should go for all three --

- AFFS needs to be bigger (because there's too much work for the existing
active members, but more importantly, because people won't take an
association with 60-odd members as seriously as 60,000).

- AFFS needs to work on the education focus, and a SIG may help focus that
and reduce subject-specific traffic on the main list (kudos to the work
Richard Smedley has done so far, but all our campaigns need more work /
volunteers).

- We should build on our relationships with other organisations, but be
careful not to wind up with us all being members of all of them.
Partnering is the solution to this, I suspect.

Thoughts?

Andrew.

-- 
Andrew Savory                                Email: address@hidden
Managing Director                              Tel:  +44 (0)870 741 6658
Luminas Internet Applications                  Fax:  +44 (0)700 598 1135
This is not an official statement or order.    Web:    www.luminas.co.uk