THIS IS NOT AN EVENT: Finance Discussion of this Meetup Group

Hi all,
As you may be aware, this Melbourne Classical Music Lovers Meetup group is currently a free group. But Meetup has been increasing their organiser fees - and until now the Main Organiser "Learner" has very very generously helped fund this group and kept it going.

This Meetup Event is to bring up the topic of finances to keep this group running - as it's not sustainable at the moment.. 😅

Enoch notes (Oct):
I've not used the inbuilt Meetup Paid membership functionalities yet - so the actual execution of this - is yet to be finalised.
Nor do I know how other paid meetup groups do it - if you have any insight / suggestions - please comment below 🙏

Learner notes & suggestions:
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Option 1:
Gold coin donation at events
What I've seen other groups do - they do $2 gold coin donation every event, and paid directly to organiser (they've set up their own Meetup PayID)...

Con: But given the infrequency / nascency of this group's events, and the low numbers that do attend... that may not generate sufficient revenue, and it'll be down to a member's goodwill to pay it - as we don't always see each other on the day, and won't know who did or didn't come.

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Option 2:
Paid Membership - ? $5.50 a month / member. (paid $16.50 quarterly)
The number of actual regular members in this group isn't particularly high. Majority of the members are infrequent (also because maybe the events we've been posting aren't to their liking / schedule anyway)

Pros: more engagement and participation. (people generally value that which costs them something) - so perhaps more members will have a vested interest in attending, submitting / suggesting events?

Cons: will lose a lot of the members at the onset. but those people weren't regulars to begin with...

? Implementation Notes
Include: a trial period of 1-3 months free
As the paid membership audit will occur ever quarter. So any new members that join mid quarter -> free until next audit cycle.

Why 3 monthly?
Because to do a membership audit every month is too much hassle - unless someone knows of a nifty smooth mechanic / function to do so.

(I am still figuring out how this could work out practically - so if you've any suggestions, please comment below
- The inbuilt membership function on Meetup takes away 7.5% + $0.50 per transaction 😵

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Option 3:
Open to suggestions 🙂

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Other questions:
What happens to the extra if we're profitable?
I think we'll cross the bridge when we get there haha. Currently we're still trying to break even 😵