Is this reasonable or am I right to feel it's not? Membership question

[BadPoet]

I work on a freelance contract for a not-for-profit membership organisation. It supports people who work in a very specific profession - I don't, and never will work in this profession. It has a small staff, all of whom are freelance and work from home.

At our last meeting the boss said he wants - in fact he insists - on us all joining the organisation as members. Now every time I log in to the website a message pops up basically asking me for money. As far as I can see I can still access all the parts of the site I need to do my work but at some point I need to address this.

Am I right to feel a bit annoyed about this? The membership benefits don't benefit me at all, and right now I don't really have the spare money as we are budgeting quite tightly until Christmas. In fact I have been reviewing my membership of the two professional bodies that are relevant to me and questioning whether I get enough from them to justify the subscription fee - with the result that I am thinking about suspending those.

Do I have a point and if I do, any tips on how to raise it?

He insists you join or what? What will happen if you don't?

Have you asked your boss why he feels it's important for you to join, explained that the membership benefits are not relevant to you? What did he say?

He hasn't said what will happen if we don't join and he wants us to join because he thinks it looks better if we are on the member list - he just thinks we 'should' all be members. It seems to be logical to him in a way that it isn't to me.

We only see each other for meetings 4x per year and the rest of the time it's an occasional quick phone call & lots of email. His announcement was thrown into the middle of a long meeting with all staff and it wasn't appropriate to discuss my individual situation at the time. That was last week and I have been reflecting since - I will have to call/email specifically to discuss it. I just wanted to get a sense of whether others thought it was reasonable to question it before I did so.

Definitely reasonable to question it, and I would suggest if he feels it's important that you are seen to be a member, he funds your membership costs.

Thanks flowerybeanbag, it's good to know that it's not just me!

What flowerybeanbag said. If he 'runs' the organisation can he not just make you a member so that you appear on the list? If it is of no benefit to you, why should you use your own money?

The organisation should definitely pay by way of reimbursing your fees.

I do some work for a membership organisation, and they've made me a lifetime member for free, even though membership is of direct benefit to me.

How is anyone going ot know if you are or are not a member though? Is the list published? Who would make the connection between someone who is employed by the organisation and who is a member? Why is it so important to the boss?

Thanks all, it is really good to hear objective views.

ShrinkingViolet - the list is online. I can't really imagine anyone going through it and checking!

I don't know why it's so important - I suppose I should ask. I will definitely raise this now, thank you.