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There are a lot of reasons why not to make activity a requirement of membership in Artemis Society International. We want our membership organization to accommodate all the types of members. Here are the basic ideas behind it all:
Only one kind of membership. There isn't a separate membership for ASI and the local chapters. To be a member of the local chapter, you must be a member of ASI. We hope to avoid a two-tiered membership with only a small portion of the local membership belonging to the international organization.
Chapter membership is voluntary. A member of ASI need never join a local chapter. If members want to join ASI just to belong, then that is what we want them to do. There is nothing wrong with that style of membership, and the people who adopt it are important to ASI for many reasons.
Chapters with a focus. When enough members in a local area get the fever to do something to help get us to the moon, then we would encourage them to form a local chapter to focus their efforts. People in the area who want to be active participants could join the group (or start their own, with some other focus in mind) to participate.
It seems that the most successful local chapters of organizations like the National Space Society are organized around a specific project or goal. (Oregon L5 studies and promotes lava tubes for lunar bases. Huntsville, Alabama L5 is building a balloon-launched sub-orbital rocket). We'd like to add a little focus to the local ASI activists' efforts, and encourage the adoption of a project for local chapters.
Focus of a Chapter. Not every local chapter has to design rockets or moonbases. ASI-Milwaukee has adopted the publication of MMM-Pleiades. Some chapters may want to recruit new members, handle organizational chores, organize conferences, do publicity, make displays, or even form indepdent companies to design and produce merchandise for the Artemis Project. Whatever reason they had for getting "active" will do.
So, is this approach reasonable? Will it help us to appeal to all types of members? We hope we can drive out any concerns or problems with the chapter structure now, so we can start out with the best base possible.
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