[HCoop-Discuss] On organizing people to get work done

[Clinton Ebadi]

Adam Chlipala <adamc at hcoop.net> writes:

> Lauren McNees wrote:
>> Even if your $2000/month for 1/2 time work is a reasonable estimate, I 
>> think we're going to have a hard time selling a 100% increase to 
>> $10/month to hcoop members. My opinion is that its reasonable to set 
>> new member dues at $7-8, and recommend but not require that existing 
>> members upgrade to $7-8, and also do some more outreach/marketing to 
>> attract new members.
>
> Well, depending on how many members leave, we can still come out ahead 
> finances-wise if a dues increase prompts a semi-mass exodus.  If we 
> double dues and fewer than half of members leave, we still end up with 
> more income per month.  Of course, we'd rather keep as many members as 
> we can, but it's not like losing, say, 20 members would strike me as a 
> reason to avoid a dues hike.

Especially given that our flat dues rate is below the actual split costs
($7.something last I checked; we've only had two members join since
then).

>> Does anyone know what our membership growth rate is currently?
>
> I think it's about "a few new members a month, with about half that 
> amount leaving each month."
>
>> Another idea: what about starting with a quarter-time person?
>
> That and other lower-commitment/lower-cost options seem like very 
> reasonable ways to get started.

Agreed. If I am unable to get exim and such running on hopper in a
reasonable amount of time we may want to see about contracting a
sysadmin for the few hours (or couple of days perhaps; I imagine anyone
would have to spend a bit of time investigating our exim config and
such) of work required to get it going, and then see how things go from
there.

We seem to be doing ok for general support requests without any paid
staff at least.

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