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I read with sadness the decision to scrap honorary membership for those people with over 50 years continuous membership of the BAA. Last month we heard the BAA has over £1.5 Million in its bank accounts. Surely it can and should afford this small thank you for those people who have supported the BAA for such a long period of time ? Why can these decisions be made without asking for members opinions ?
Hi Tony,
The point of the consultation is to ask member opinions before a final decision is made.
While the BAA has good reserves, the annual expenditure is a bit over twice the income received in subscription revenue. The shortfall is made up from legacies and taking money out of the BAA’s investments and bank accounts. The value of the investments and bank reserves fell by just under 10% from 2022 to 2023, a little over the amount that was removed to cover the shortfall in operating costs.
To reach a target revenue from the membership subscriptions, the non-Honorary members have to pay a higher membership price. Around 10% of the membership are Honorary members.
The idea is to send members a certificate to commemorate the achievement of reaching 50 years of membership. Any existing Honorary members will remain as Honorary.
Best wishes,
AndyDoes the annual expenditure you refer to include the legal fees fighting for a bequeathment which the legal experts hired felt the BAA were very likely to win and, if successful, would increase BAA funds very significantly ?
These are from the total figures in the accounts available on the website.
https://britastro.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/BAA-2023-Financial-Statements.pdf
My point was we cannot entirely rely on the reserves. Some years they will go up and other years they go down.
The underlying goal here is to try to reach a fairer subscription level across the age groups.But the BAA published financial data showing they had an income of £132,000 last year in addition to having cash assets of £1.5M which attract annual interest, which even at 4% would have been £60,000 last year. If we paid the membership of everyone who has been a member continuously for over 50 years (n=250) the cost to the BAA would be around £12,500. So my point is that if the BAA was managing their income properly we should surely be able financially to continue to offer these honorary memberships to people who have been so loyal to the BAA for so many years.
In the year to 31st March 2023, the BAA spent £259,467, with an income of £132,632. The net reduction to the BAA cash and investments was £140,976, while I expect other years will see increases as long as we continue to receive legacies.
I see every indication the BAA takes great care of its finances. The reason the BAA spends so much is because it is a very busy Association. There are the Journal and Handbook, meetings and events of various kinds, the website, archives and a lot of smaller items on the accounts.
I should emphasize, the ending of new Honorary members is part of a proposal to rebalance how the subscription income is paid over time, not to change the total subscription revenue, which is reviewed by the Treasurer each year.
This is intended as a discussion, so maybe retaining Honorary members is the right thing. However, my opinion is it is a good idea to rebalance the membership structure. Related to this, only around 5% of BAA members are under 50.
In JBAA Dec. 2023, the president writes as a reason for canceling honorary memberships
The BAA currently has most of its membership in the Senior (over 65s) category
This is unfortunately clear when we see pictures from the various events. Apparently very few younger people participate.
I myself have had the honor of being named an honorary member. Over the years, I have benefited greatly from the membership, and both I and the membership would survive, even if this distinction did not exist. And I would think that only very few would give up membership if they had no prospect of this honour.
So a scrapping of honorary memberships is unlikely to reduce the membership significantly.
However, this does not solve the age problem.
The question is whether BAA has become an old-fashioned institution that fails to attract the new generations.
The competition is of course tough today with all kinds of offers on-line, and I could fear that the situation is the same for the local clubs.
Instead of deleting the associations from the membership list, perhaps BAA should create advantageous membership offers for club members, so that we could get more younger people into the organization that way.
Someone did actually make this suggestion before the proposals were put together. The problem is a gradually changing membership fee would be complex to implement.
Another factor behind this and other changes is the complexity of the existing BAA membership structure. There are currently 16 categories of membership, that split into 26 categories for administration purposes with the overseas rates. The configurations of these different membership types leads to a lot of behind the scenes complexity, both for staff and the IT systems. We get them working, but it has led to a variety of mistakes and complaints, as well as expense to get things fixed. This is not the primary reason behind this and other proposed changes, but the complexity of running the BAA is a consideration.
Lars makes very good points. The reasons behind the age demographic are likely complex and any change to membership structure won’t fix it, but it could be one small factor.
Lars makes an interesting suggestion on Affiliated Societies. I hope Lars won’t mind if I copy his wording and reply in the forum thread on Affiliated Societies.Concerning the ageing demographics (of which I am a member,though not an honorary one!) and taking a hard nosed approach I suggest the money saved by scrapping the honorary membership going forward (which lets face it few are likely to resign over the matter) and instead using the money to offer free trial (electronic) subscriptions to young members might be a good way to increase numbers and start redressing the age imbalance ?
Being only two years away from my 50 year membership of the BAA I am left feeling a little deflated by this anouncement of the scrapping of honorary membership by the Trustees. It is not the subscription money that I would have saved if my membership became honorary and therefore free, but it will be the lost feeling of pride and achievement that missing out on the award of an honorary membership by the Association that I have been proud to have belonged to for most of my adult life. Also I look back at the list of previous honorary members and I would have felt an extra pride that I would have joined their ranks. The sending of a certificate will not engender that same feeling of pride. I will not stop being a member of the BAA, my intention is to remain a member for the rest of my life. Now I suppose, looking forward, my main achievement may be to have an obituary published in the JBAA! I have been an active member of the BAA for almost 50 years and have participated in most of the BAA’S activities and contributed to its publications over those years. I was not asked about this decision before it was made,perhaps a rethink my be appropriate before it is sanctioned and ratified. Perhaps it is right that we recognise members who have been supportive of the BAA for so long. We are not a Association who are bereft of funds, both currently and going forward so why can’t we honour our long standing members in this way. I would be happy to send my membership fee to the BAA as a benefactor after being awarded an honorary membership.It is the recognition, by the Association, of long participation and continuous membership that is important to me not the free membership.
Denis BuczynskiThat was exactly my feeling Denis and the purpose of me starting this thread : it’s the gesture of being offered free membership to recognise your 50 year anniversary that has so much more impact than a PowerPoint certificate sent through the post, even if you decline the offer ! I’m sure it’s unlikely lots of members will resign if honorary memberships are scrapped but I still don’t quite understand why our organisation can’t afford to offer honorary memberships and is losing money each year unless it’s the cost of the current litigation we’re involved with. I would also love some creative initiatives to attract younger members.
I am some way off the ‘bus pass’ membership though it is a small future incentive when I have looked at options for my membership.
I’m not a member of a local society but many BAA members are. What strategies do they use for increasing younger/active participation?
The joining page doesn’t list 26 categories and I’m surprised there are so many. I propose maybe three payment rates even if many categories.
Why not let the ‘benefactor’ membership bed in for a year or so before making even more changes?I and a number of my contemporaries joined the BAA in our teenage years or our 20s, then as impoverished students our memberships lapsed until when in our 30s or later we had more spare time for our hobby and could afford the annual subscription. None of us are eligible for Honorary Membership and I guess that 50 continuous years will become a rarity.
Proposals to support younger members – and retain them – are welcomed.
Alex.
Concerning the ageing demographics, I note that this problem is not exclusive to the BAA or to astronomical societies, but it is visible in most membership societies operating on traditional models, across all activities and hobbies. The young generation is much less interested in joining societies than the immediate post-war generations were. They get their information and social interactions in different ways.
We have a Diversity Working Group which is looking at the whole issue of what the BAA should do to broaden its appeal – not just to young people, but (the bigger issue really) to women, and to minorities. It will report to Council shortly, and hopefully some suggestions will get taken forward and do some good.
Young persons’ membership rates are already less than half the full rates, and I’m not convinced offering free memberships would get us more participation from young people.
However we remain a democratic organisation, and if someone wished to propose (and someone else second) such a proposal at the SGM, it would be voted on, and the Trustees and Council would be bound by the result. Similarly, someone could propose that we continue to give the free membership to those with 50 years’ continuous membership, and, if the meeting so voted, we would.
David Arditti
PresidentA little off topic.
If you look at the published accounts from 2018 to 2023, then the cost of running the BAA has gone from £201,790 in 2018 to £259,468 in 2023, a 28.5% increase. This compares to very roughly 22-25% inflation from a calculator I found on the Bank of England website.
I do think the cost of running the BAA is slowly rising due to the difficulty in finding volunteers. There are tasks that were done by volunteers a decade or more ago, which we now pay people to do as volunteers could not be found.Sorry, inadvertently deleted my own message there. Reposting again:
Good to see the BAA actively reviewing it’s by-laws, membership structure and seeking to broaden it’s membership base whist maintaining prudent financial accounting practices.
It’s also great to see members actively involved and debating the measures – a sign of a healthy organisation.
As someone who is well away from achieving honorary status, it has always impressed me to see the names added to list each year.
I fully appreciate the accounting reasons for proposing such a change.
However, I note the points made above by Denis and Tony, which are quite valid.Two financial-related questions if you don’t mind please:
1) Does ‘Honorary’ imply free posted hard copy, or is it limited to digital subscription only?
2) Aside from a couple of very large well publicised financial bequeaths in recent years, does the BAA receive many smaller bequeaths? And on this note, has the BAA actively looked at the benevolence element of fund raising? I am sure many members would like to support the organisation on their passing, if their personal financial position allowed and they felt that their monies would leave a tangible legacy for many years to come. The reason I ask is that maintaining a close relation with the older generation of members may bring in more financial benefits than the cost savings this measure may provide in the short term.Regards & Thanks,
Michael.Michael,
I can answer some but not all of your questions.
1) Honorary means free paper subscription. Hard copies of the Journal and Handbook posted to the Honorary member.
2) This year we have added a page to the website about donations and legacies. We decided to keep it simple as we did not want to offer legal advice.
https://britastro.org/donations
We have also added some wording to encourage legacies to the renewal emails. Trying to be very delicate in how we approach this. The legacies do make a major contribution to the Association, basically meaning the subscription rate can be about half of what it takes to run the Association. We would either need to do a lot less, or otherwise have much higher subscriptions, without these generous donations.
I don’t have any hard figures as to the actual legacies received, though I think there is a small number each year, with a large legacy every few years.
I agree a debate like this is an excellent sign of a healthy Association. As indicated by David these are proposals. They have been through lots of internal discussions and by no means just the Trustees. They are not decisions until voted in, out or changed at the SGM. So Honorary membership at 50 years may continue indefinitely, or maybe leave it open for another 5 or 10 years, rather than a year and a half form now.
Best wishes,
Andy
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