I could not agree more with this strategy and it is in fact what I have thought to be the best way forward from the begining. This in my opinon should be the way to go for maximum efficiency in terms of forum operation. We are talking about a small forum after all, not a major corporation with hundreds or thousands of people running it where a more permanent structure is required else nothing works. The simpler and more informal the structure is, the easier and more flexible it is to manage. It has worked so far. I administer a forum myself. We have 9 moderators with 65+k members. It's all sorted out without the need of a committee and complex statuses. A mod wants to leave, then be it, we can replace him/her in a matter of days.I've run big forum, bigger than this and seen societies set up and down. My (unasked for) advice is that although setting up societies and committees sounds like a great way to safe guard things, actually it's really difficult to get enough people to committ consistantly to the formal structures that comes with all that. You need AGMs, chairpeople, treasurer, minutes, account etc. etc. as soon as you go formal, you get complicated.
I never assumed that society in the title meant the forum was set up in a formal manner. I assumed, like the majority of forums based on a shared passion, there was someone(s) that had put the time in to set it up and from there mods volunteer time to help running and people offer help towards the costs of servers and software.
I agree a seperate bank account is a helpful thing - I don't know if that was in place or not, that's how I always did mine money going in/out of that. If only for the person running things to keep on top of whether there is enough to cash to keep things going. I frequently topped mine up with my personal funds when the money from sponsor/advertising/donations were enough - which is more the direction these things go that making a fortune. Honestly I'd be impressed with anyone making enough money from a forum these days to in any way compensate for the time spent on it.
The only part of the situation I agree with is that if a mod raised a concern to me I'd be happy to show the costs/income, but I can also understand being upset about someone questioning your intergrity, which is how it would feel no matter how well intentioned. Tracking cash flow seems like the only big complaint and I would tend to look at solutions that just targetted that.
This is a rather long way around to say, my advice would be pick an admin, pick some mods (if you need more than you have), use a seperate bank account and keep the mods updated on the cash flow situation as needed e.g. are there enough funds to cover expenses and otherwise let things tick over. I would predict that if you start getting formal you'll struggle to maintain it - for something this size it just adds more work than it has benefit.
Finally, I know how much work moderating a forum is behind the scenes, all have you that have or are doing it have done an excellent job. I would say this is one of the best moderated forums (from a user perspective) I'd come across.
However there is a small but important issue to resolve under this scenario for it to work as intended. A head. One person who manages the forum’s money and under whose name the bank account/paypal should be since UKAPS is not a legal entity. This is the most critical part as people should have full trust on the person managing that account. In my opinon, the only way this can move forward under the above setting is if a list of candidates willing to be that person is set up and a vote made among mermbers. Since @Dan Crawford is the one currently holding the remaining money in paypal and a bank account he would need to agree to this as well.
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