<div>Klaus ++1, and "Like"!</div><div><br></div><div>You hit several nails squarely on the head. Let me elaborate.</div><div><br></div><div>I have not read the LoA or reviewed the slides. It is enough of a challenge for me trying to build the DC chapter up from death to becoming a vibrant and influential organization that will have a real impact in DC, while running my own company. My colleague, our treasurer and attorney, John More, read the draft and advised us that in its present form he could not let the chapter sign it. The point is that it is a real challenge for professionals who are volunteers to find time to do these things that ISOC expects the chapters do to as enthusiastic members fighting for a noble cause. And this I think is where the bubble is.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I will stay out of the organizational argument and leave that to others for now, but the real issue is to what extent ISOC wants to be a "chapter driven" organization and to what ends? To this end, I wish that I could require everyone involved in Chapter affairs to learn "The Logic of Collective Action" <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action</a></div>
<div>I would gladly provide the seminar.</div><div><br></div><div>I was going to open this email with a joke: "oh you meant <span style>büros, not burros!" because the point that Klaus makes so well is that chapters need resources not directives. The Chapters are ISOC's connection to the public and to Internet communities regionally. While ISOC does work essential to the future of the Internet, few know about it. The Chapters are the only way that ISOC will generate engagement and awareness and build constituencies. A large amount of the distrust growing between chapters towards HQ is because of the feeling that HQ views chapters as burros and not partners. Obviously there needs to be an updated, living institutional framework to optimize this relationship, and that framework should be geared towards the organization's objectives, and outcomes.</span></div>
<div><span style><br></span></div><div><span style>There are no real tangible incentives for people to become members, more so, to become active members. In our chapter, although we have about 1,400 "members" 5 people do 100% of the work, and the number of active members is debatable. The AMS to us is just an extra work step. MailChimp pretty much does everything we need within our current context for free, and it is much more robust and easy to use. The free membership for your email does provide some additional draw, but there are so many better ways to do it.</span></div>
<div><span style><br></span></div><div><span style>Yet even with these limitations we have been able to do some impressive things, </span><span style>but without a real partnership and resources of the type Klaus describes, there is only so much we can do.</span></div>
<div><span style><br></span></div><div><span style>John More, Michael Nelson and I are available and eager be part of this process. We offer a viewpoint from the trenches which we believe will help a lot.</span></div><div>
<span style><br></span></div><div><span style>David Vyorst</span></div><div><span style>Co-Convener</span></div><div><span style>DC Chapter</span></div><div><span style><br></span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>
<br></div><span style>And why don't ISOC provide a substantial</span><br style><span style>> share of the local corporate members fee to chapters who work</span><br style><span style>> in their region - covering their Internet concerns too? Why don't we</span><br style>
<span style>> even get a database excerpt for corporate members in our region?</span><br style><span style>> Who represents the company to ISOC? Would be very helpful in</span><br style><span style>> acquiring sponsoring means. IS there a need to protect corporate</span><br style>
<span style>> members from their chapters?</span><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 9:39 AM, President ISOC-KH <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:president@isoc-kh.org">president@isoc-kh.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Thanks a lot, Klaus and Veni, Borka and Ed, for your analysis and proposals.<br>
<br>
When I started to plan for a Cambodia Chapter of ISOC, I still had the image of ISOC as I knew it from the support we had received from the Internet Society, provided through the Montreal INET in 1996 for persons from “countries in the early stages of internetworking” – and it was only during the last years that I became aware that ISOC had changed in its setup.<br>
<br>
Your wording, Klaus - “Chapters are subgroups of members. They are not an unpaid extension of the staff” - and that is paid ISOC staff. This points to a fundamental problem with which we struggle in our Cambodian environment since the beginning. There is support for projects, but not for building up a chapter and support its growth. We started with 25 members in September 2010, we steadily grew to 98 at present. But we have not yet any solution for the future in view of my intended resignation after two years in leadership – to replace a foreigner by a national - as I do also most of the ongoing secretarial and relationship building work. – Nobody is around yet who is in a position and prepared to do what I did unpaid (while I - not any company or organization - provide office equipment and pay for operations, Internet access costs, local travel – plus my time). And I cannot blame anybody for not jumping in to do the same. Membership fees? In a distant future they may cover such costs.<br>
<br>
This is just to point out some implications of the present model.<br>
<br>
Norbert Klein<br>
President<br>
ISOC Cambodia Chapter<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.isoc-kh.org" target="_blank">http://www.isoc-kh.org</a><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
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