British Astronomical Association - 2024 April
Text of the letter follows :-
Dear Colleague,
I am writing to you as Chair, Secretary, or other representative of one of the BAA's Affiliated Societies.
The BAA greatly values our relationship with Affiliated Societies like yours. However, following amendments to the BAA's By-laws that we made in January this year, we are changing how we relate to your society.
We will no longer treat Affiliated Societies like individual members of the BAA, levied an annual subscription and provided with copies of the Journal and Handbook. When your current subscription expires (most expire on 31 July) there will be no option to renew. But this does not mean your society will cease to be affiliated to the BAA.
Henceforth, affiliation will be free of charge, and there will be no publications sent to you as a society. Those members of your society who would like to continue to read these will need to take out individual subscriptions, either the standard subscription to receive the paper copies, or the cheaper digital subscription to receive the publications as a download. (Alternatively, your society could take our a Library Subscription to receive single paper copies of the publications to lend out, but this is more expensive than individual membership.)
Members of affiliated societies will continue to be offered reduced-rate entry to some BAA meetings, and we will link to Affiliated Societies on our website, and hope to publicise their activities in our Journal (which we recently expanded). There may be other benefits offered to Affiliated Societies or their members in the future. We would particularly like to support Affiliated Societies in their public outreach efforts. We would hope that Affiliated Societies will also promote membership of the BAA. Members of affiliated societies remain very much encouraged to submit their observations to the BAA Observing Sections.
We hope new societies can be encouraged to affiliate; the BAA Council will consider all new applications, for which evidence of being a properly-constituted society (e.g. with a committee or constitution) will be requested.
We hope that the existing Affiliated Societies will be happy to remain affiliated under the new rules, and | hope indeed that the new system will lead to a closer relationship than has been the case in the past, when societies were treated just like individual members. Though you will not need to renew a subscription, we will need to contact you periodically to ensure that our contact and website records remain up-to-date.
I hope all this is clear; do contact me at president@britastro.ora if you have queries, or indeed suggestions.
I wish you success and clear skies.
Yours,
Dr David Arditti President
British Astronomical Association PO Box 702, Tonbridge, TN9 9TX
Email: office@britastro.org Website: britastro.org Telephone: 0207 734 4145
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