[chapter-delegates] New Membership Level

[Carlos Vera]

Dear Jacek, I see the problem not in the fee by itself.

But:

1. Next step is to stablish a relation between voting and membership. (more 
members more voting or in other words more USD $$ means more representation)

2. Paid membership means I get something for my money. ISOC is volunteer 
working to support an Idea: Internet is for everyone. Why I should pay even 
1$ to volunteer?

3. There are ways to be creative and make a real chapter development inside 
ISOC using income from projects like PIR.

There are lot of examples where such type of income is used to cover 
administrative expenses, luxury hotels and first class travel... and finally 
what drop from table is used for real work.

Carlos Vera Quintana
ISOC Ecuador
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jacek Gajewski" <gajewski at ceenet.org>
To: "Carlos Vera" <cvera at interactive.net.ec>; 
<chapter-delegates at lists.isoc.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 8:49 AM
Subject: Re: [chapter-delegates] New Membership Level


> Dear Carlos,
>
> Carlos Vera wrote:
>
>> Impossible to pay USD 75... this is only another way to say digital 
>> exclusion and Internet only for those who can pay and live in countries 
>> that can afford such expenses.
>
>
> Thank You for a clear indication of what the new level really means to 
> most of the world.
>
> It seems we had the same discussion 5-6 years ago, when we have found
> that even $35/year is prohibitive for most of the developing world. The
> introduction of free membership gave a lot of momentum and fresh blood
> to ISOC. With the .org being by far the major source of revenue for
> ISOC it looks that we risk loosing of substantial percent of our
> constituency for a negligible percentage of ISOC budget. Moreover the
> spectrum of those few who will remain will be strongly biased.
>
> Since these fees are not a significant source of ISOC income, but have
> rather symbolic meaning, we can still discuss some non-zero fee, but
> this should be strictly related to the level of income (or GDP) in a
> given country and kept at the level which will not discriminate
> countries like eg. Equador.
>
> Dear David - can you tell us how the sum $75/year has been
> calculated/estimated and is there any rationale, why this should be
> a fixed sum same for the whole world?
>
> Best regards,
> Jacek Gajewski
> ISOC-PL
>
>
>
>
>
> 


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