MaUsE does many things to promote itself to the general public. We welcome anyone to attend our meetings or to download copies of DoubleClick from our web site, without requiring that they first become paid-up members of the club. This leads to the question of what benefits they receive as a member of MaUsE that they could not get as a non-member. Following is a summary of such benefits.
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Many of the software and hardware companies that support MaUsE do so by providing us with wonderful NFR (Not For Resale) raffle prizes. In order to make these NFR items available to the Membership, free raffle tickets will be given out at the mid-meeting break on the basis of one ticket per paid-up membership card. Members must attend the meetings in person and show a valid MaUsE membership card in order to participate in the raffles.
We have a free email list (mause@topica.com) which allows members to leave email messages asking questions or for requesting support which will then be forwarded to all other club members who have registered themselves on this service. Through this mechanism, people get to solicit the advice from over 40 club members at one time rather than sending an email or phone call to just one person at a time. This service is only available to paid up members of the club.
A primary service of MaUsE is to provide one-on-one support to people who have problems or questions related to their Mac. This can be accomplished in a number of ways, such as telephone calls, personal visits, or meeting discussions. This is a wide ranging topic but the point is simply that members of MaUsE are willing to go quite a bit farther to assist a fellow club member than they might be to assist a member of the general public. We do not provide training because this is available from Apple and on the internet.
Club members are allowed to post business card sized advertisements in DoubleClick at no charge.
We do not bar members of the general public from attending our monthly member meetings, nor do we charge such people for attending. Nevertheless, there is a real and substantial financial cost involved in putting on these meetings. This expense represents a significant portion of each member's annual dues. In general, the number of non-members in attendance at any given monthly member meeting is quite small and is viewed as an opportunity for MaUsE to prove its value to a potential new member, NOT as giving away for free what members have to pay for. If and when the club Executives notice someone who is not a club member coming to meetings on a frequent basis, we do take steps to discuss this one on one with the individual in hopes of persuading them to sign up as a member. In all my years of attending meetings, this has occurred on only a very few occasions. With all this in mind, we believe people should view the monthly meetings as a tangible benefit of belonging to the club.
The vast majority of people who read DoubleClick each month do so by downloading a copy from the MaUsE web site. There is no attempt to restrict delivery of DoubleClick only to MaUsE members. Club members also have the opportunity to influence the content of DoubleClick each month, whereas non-members have virtually no input or say in the content and editorial direction of DoubleClick.
A fact unknown to many people is that, once you join a Macintosh User Group in one locality, your membership card will make you welcome at any other Mac User Group event in other locales. Some other User Groups charge members of the general public to attend their meetings, but virtually all will welcome free of charge someone who is a member of a Mac User Group elsewhere, just by having them show their MaUsE membership card as they enter.
