The Commutation of Annual Subscriptions

Abstract

I WAS interested in Dr. David Heron's letter in Nature of September 23, p. 400. The Royal Aeronautical Society allows compounding of annual subscriptions after payment of the entrance fee and first annual subscription, as follows: fellows, 12 years subscriptions; associate fellows and other grades, 15 years subscriptions. The amounts are reduced by one guinea a year for each year of membership after five years. The minimum ages for fellows is twenty-eight and associate fellows twenty-five. An additional compounding fee is payable on transference from associate fellow to fellow if the former has already compounded his subscriptions, on a pro rata basis of annual subscriptions. The whole of the entrance fees and life compositions are invested in an endowment fund, the interest only of which is available to the Society's funds. It will be noticed that the composition fee is irrespective of age. An associate fellow elected at twenty-five can compound for fifteen years subscription, while one elected at thirty-five will still have to pay the same composition fee. The fees were adopted on the advice of the Society's honorary accountant.