I’ll try to answer this.
We are proposing removing affiliated societies as a category of membership. Thereafter they will not pay anything to the BAA, and will not receive the publications. However, we anticipate that many societies will still wish to be affiliated because they wish to be associated with the name of the BAA, and will view it as a mark of their standing or credibility. Council would only approve the affiliation of properly-constituted societies.
The members of affiliated societies would still be welcome at BAA meetings. For meetings where there is a ticket fee, it is possible we could continue to offer lower prices to affiliated society members than to the general public, but that will be decided on a case-by-case basis. We’d be free to offer other benefits to them not yet decided. I hope we would give affiliated societies publicity on our website and in the Journal. I think Section Directors would still be happy to give advice to members of affiliated societies (though speaking as Director of the E&T Section, it is my policy to give more time to people whom I know have subscribed to the BAA individually).
What Bill says about the Journal distributed through a local society is interesting. Most societies I know have abandoned maintaining a lending library, and, if affiliated, they don’t really know what to do with the Journal and Handbook, they are typically just kept by the Secretary. It would of course be possible for an official of the society to join in his or her own name, get refunded by the society, and donate the publications to the society – which is the same as happens now, but using different words.
David Arditti
President
