Membership
From SecularPortal
It is generally considered important to maintain a membership list for a society. This generally includes people's names, contact details and student IDs.
Membership fees
Membership fees can vary greatly from one society to another. It is worth remembering though that students aren't poor. They actually have plenty of money when they they want to spend it, despite how much we all moan about being broke.
The value of your society is often judged by how much the membership fees are, and so while undercutting other societies can sometimes be advantageous, it can also reflect poorly on the quality of your society. A good example of this is Leeds Atheist Society, which had more members sign up in 2007/2008 when charging £5 membership for the year than it did in 2006/2007 when charging £2 membership.
The best guide for setting your membership fees are looking at what you want to do with the money. If you are going to be a very active society with lots of events you need to fund then a high membership fee is justified. If you do not have many events or much expenditure then it isn't.
It can also be worth bearing in mind what other societies generally charge, although your fundamental principle should be only gathering as much money as is necessary. Sometimes there is an unofficial standard rate.
The case against membership
To balance the discussion out, it is worth mentioning that not all societies maintain a formal membership system. At Leeds Metropolitan University Union's Christian Union the society was run without formal membership given that their society events were open to anyone anyway and this worked extremely well for them.
Demographics
Some free thinking societies find that their member demographics tend to be towards older members such as postgraduates rather than undergraduates. This is not a problem in itself, although ideally it is good to have a good mix, as that way you get the voice of experience as well as young undergraduates with plenty of free time and who can take over the running of the society at a later date.
Often the demographics of the society are based on how you attract people. For example if you have undergraduates promoting the society you will attract undergraduates and if you have women on your stall you will encourage women to join. It's always worth roping your friends and housemates into coming to stand on the stall to create a bigger range of people.
