I don't think friends count as actual members.
Not that we should necessarily be influenced by that, but on the old site, "Friends of the Flat Earth" are the people who paid for their membership packs, while "Associate Members" are the ones who got on the roster free of charge, needing to only send a postcard. (Last I checked, the count of associate members was 5)
I agree that a membership register should be opt-in, but otherwise, I'd be happy to accommodate it from a technical side.
The T-shirt idea comes up every now and then. When we last discussed it, everyone seemed to think it's a good idea. The main reason we're somewhat reluctant is that, frankly, we don't want people to think we're doing this for money, and the easiest way to guarantee we never get this accusation is by not having anything that costs money. But maybe it's time to give those a trial run? I have some friends at
TeeGlobe - one of those companies that offer a new t-shirt every day for a period of 48 hours, they're dirt cheap, and they deliver worldwide. I could get in touch with them and see if they'd be willing to put up a design of ours. That way we could at least partially satisfy the initial need for tees among members and potentially get a little bit more attention from the outside world, and depending on how that goes, we could then decide whether or not we want to set up something long-term.
What do people think?