Hi Terence, What is professionalism? How well we code? It's a bit of it. Members of professional societies (accountants, lawyers, doctors, BCS members) "agree to meet certain duties and responsibilities towards the public, the profession, employers and customers". They have some formal codes which cover behaviour, ethics, standards etc. The BCS has these. BCS members undertake to comply. Publicity. I entirely agree, and there are movements towards making BCS more visible, BCS making more comment, offering more opinion - directly and through its members. There is a Policy & Public Affairs Board charged with achieving this. All part of the change. I have been very critical - and as a member I've been heard. BCS had a standpoint of being silent, non-controvertial, impartial, non-partisan, non-aligned. We are changing this. BCS has to find its voice, express the wisdom & knowledge of its members. Member-only events & groups. Yep, there are some, and very, very good, but... BCS is a charity, with charitable objectives to inform and benefit the public. Can we do this behind closed doors? Nope, we need the public to come in. Yes, many events are free and open to the public. Why should you join? These events won't happen without your sub. £95 quid, and you get into all the events you want, join Specialist Groups of peers working on the development of particular topics - Datacentre design & operation, Cloud Computing, Fortran (yep, it's still alive), you name it. Opportunity to liaise with and learn from your peers, leading thinkers from industry and academia etc. £95 quid won't even get you thru the door of most worthwhile commercially organised seminars. Working with other organisations - yep, BCS does that. Many organisations. Particularly in education, policy, standards development etc. Look wider and you'll find senior BCS members scattered around. I'm a Chartered Fellow, I see another Chartered Fellow is on the Advisory Board of ORG. You mention W3C - BCS is not a web development organisation, but Tim Berners-Lee has spoken at BCS events and is a Distinguished Fellow of BCS - he's involved and participates. BCS is simple, are you in, making a contribution, however small, or outside as a bystander. It's imperfect, it's flawed, it's a charity not a self-help organisation, it's also the only IT-centric organisation with a Royal Charter and the "official" cred that goes with that, Government consults BCS regularly - it may not listen but it consults. As a member you can be part, make it live, give it purpose, and help direct it. As a non-member you can't, you're an observer. I'm an "ordinary" member. I pay my subs, I try to make my voice heard, I organise things for people (members, public) to come along to etc. Because I do this other people in BCS have asked "would you join this committee, or that board", and I've said yes. Suddenly I have a voice, I'm one of the people pushing the BCS, slowly, clumsily, 70,000 separate opinions and views, in directions where I want it to be more active. Actually, if you use the benefits, discounts, access to consultancy reports etc. you probably get your £95 back easily without ever attending a meeting or contributing. I don't use those benefits much, my benefit is in interacting with and learning from my peers, and to me that's priceless. In short, the BCS is flawed, frustrating, infuriating... and infinitely better than the alternative of no BCS. One thing is for sure, anyone joining the BCS asking "what's in it for me?" is going to get less out of it that someone asking "what can I do?". We can't all join everything, there are hundreds of worthy organisations and groups that I'm not a member of, not enough time etc. For some people in IT & Computing the BCS is the right choice. If you're one you'll join, if not, join something else! BCS has no monopoly, but join, collaborate, share, participate in something, make it happen, enjoy it and grow from it. HTH. Thanks for the conversation. Cheers, Steve