To reply to Duncan, in respect of the 2023 vote on membership rates, the Trustees voted to increase the young person’s membership, but the Council voted to keep it at the same level (but their vote was only advisory on the Trustees). On the same day, the membership plus Council members present at the SGM also voted to keep it unchanged, so that became the binding decision. The proposal in the SGM came from Council members. In other words, under the By-laws change proposed, which gives the final decision to Council, the result would have been the same (but achieved more quickly). We’re dealing with very small numbers of votes here. There were only a handful of people at the SGM who were not also on the Council.
I don’t see this proposal particularly as a response to any ‘large structural problems’ the BAA may face (if indeed it does). As I wrote in the December Journal, this is part of a package of changes designed to to achieve:
-An administratively simpler subscriptions structure;
-Fairness across the various age groups;
-No reduction in the Association’s income;
-An easy and recognised route for those who wish to contribute more to do so.
I still believe they do this.
The age profile of the BAA is a separate issue, and I wrote about this earlier on this thread, and on the thread about schools’ affiliation. Suffice it to say here that the SPA (mentioned in this thread by Alan Thomas) also now has a much older average age than it had in previous decades. I’m not sure that this means that either society is not sustainable in the long term. An older age profile than at a certain point in the past does not equal ‘dying out’.