🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <By0nux.MyH@compsci.liverpool.ac.uk> mdb@csc.liv.ac.uk (Martin
Beer) writes:

>Angus, as you well know, the resources available to support Branches have
>been extremely limited for a number of years.  This has not only affected 
>the amount of money available to support Branch activities, but has
>also meant that the administrative support available to HQ has been very
>much reduced.
[stuff removed]

The obvious question to ask is, "why"? Given that all the average member gets
for his subscription is the branches, the specialist groups and the journals,
why does the council devote such a tiny percentage of its income to these
services and such a huge proportion to running itself, both through
professional staff salaries and expenses for council and other board meetings?

What is needed is a total change of priorities at budget time.  The other main
society of which I am a member is the Royal Statistical Society.  It has only
4000 members but has branches and specialist groups and produces three
excellent journals and a monthly newsletter all for #37 p.a.  And it has only
half a dozen professional staff. 

In the early 1970s I was on a BCS "futures" committee to consider grumbles
such as the discussion now going on.  At that time Maurice Ashill, the
secretary general, took much of the flak.  I formed the impression that the
society, at that time at least, was run by an inner coterie for their own
benefit and amusement, rather than for the benefit of the members.  Over the
past twenty years people have come and gone but little has improved. 
David Muxworthy