Preparing for a contributing membership ping

As per 2009-11-04.jmd.1 (Contributing membership expiry) I'm preparing
to send out an initial ping to all contributing members who did not vote
in the last board election. That covers 378 individuals. In an ideal
world we'd have the SPI members app provide an "I'm still active" button
as a response, but for this first pass I think it's going to be easier
to script a bunch of mails and then process responses manually.

How about the following as the ping mail:

-----
Subject: SPI contributing membership ping

SPI membership ref: [n]

Hi.

As per SPI resolution 2009-11-04.jmd.1 (Contributing membership
expiry)[0] we are in the process of cleaning up the SPI active membership
list. Our records indicate that you did not vote in the SPI Board
Election held in July 2011. We use board election turnout as an
indicator of SPI activit. As a result if we do not hear otherwise from
you within 4 weeks of this mail being sent we will deem you inactive and
downgrade your SPI membership to non-contributing status.

Please note that any sure downgrade will not preclude you restoring your
contributing membership status at a later date.

[0] http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/2009/2009-11-04.jmd.1/
-----

I feel we probably want some extra fluff there, but I'm not entirely
sure what to provide. Is it worth mentioning we're hoping to do some
by-law changes so it's important to have an up to date membership list
perhaps?

J.

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On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 11:35 PM, Jonathan McDowell <noodles(at)earth(dot)li> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> As per SPI resolution 2009-11-04.jmd.1 (Contributing membership
> expiry)[0] we are in the process of cleaning up the SPI active membership
> list. Our records indicate that you did not vote in the SPI Board
> Election held in July 2011. We use board election turnout as an
> indicator of SPI activit. As a result if we do not hear otherwise from
> you within 4 weeks of this mail being sent we will deem you inactive and
> downgrade your SPI membership to non-contributing status.
>
> Please note that any sure downgrade will not preclude you restoring your
> contributing membership status at a later date.
>
> [0] http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/2009/2009-11-04.jmd.1/

I don't believe mentioning the vote is necessarily helpful right now
-- the draft for discussion isn't prepared yet and I'm on assignment
for six weeks so haven't finished it enough to put it up for comments
yet (but will endeavour to do so when I'm home at the end of march).

I'd suggest slightly different wording, for example:

Dear $name (if possible?),

Thank you for your past participation in Software in the Public Interest.

Our records indicate that you did not vote in the eleciton of July
2011. We use voter participation to determine activity for the purpose
of differentiating a contributing member from a non-contributing
member. Therefore, pursuant to SPI resolution 2009-11-04.jmd.1,
"Contributing Membership Expiry", your contributing membership will be
deemed to have expired if you do not respond within four (4) weeks.
Contributing members have a vote in our elections and plebiscites
while non-contributing members do not, however being a
non-contributing member will not exclude you from participating in
Software in the Public Interest's activities.

This action in no way precludes you from re-applying to become a
contributing member at any time in the future and we do encourage you
to do so once again when your time permits.

Thank you again for your past contributions and we look forward to
your future involvement.

Sincerely,

$signatories

D

On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 08:35:35PM -0800, Jonathan McDowell wrote:
> As per 2009-11-04.jmd.1 (Contributing membership expiry) I'm preparing
> to send out an initial ping to all contributing members who did not vote
> in the last board election. That covers 378 individuals. In an ideal
Perhaps an explanation of where the reply goes. Not all email clients
"do the right thing". I know the Debian vote email gives instructions
and then something along the lines of 'most email clients, hitting reply
will do it'

- Craig
--
Craig Small VK2XLZ http://enc.com.au/ csmall at : enc.com.au
Debian GNU/Linux http://www.debian.org/ csmall at : debian.org
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