[chapter-delegates] New Membership Level

[Vittorio Bertola]

Il giorno mar, 01-03-2005 alle 15:30 +0200, Veni Markovski ha scritto:
> >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.
> 
> Carlos,
> I think we should be looking into finding a solution to the problem, and 
> not creating a new one.

Perhaps there should be differentiated membership fees according to the
country of residence of the member.

Also, I think that there should be some solution to avoid that ISOC-HQ
and Chapters start to compete for membership fees (as I see it quite
hard to convince someone to pay, say, 50 Euros to the Italian chapter -
that's what we ask - and then 75 dollars to the HQ). Perhaps individuals
who are already members of the Chapters could get, say, a X% discount on
the HQ membership fee? After all, thanks to .org ISOC-HQ does not have
financial problems any more, and I think that in the end the actual
revenues for the HQ would be higher - as most people would not pay
additional 75 dollars, but would maybe pay 25 or 40.

At the same time, if this effort only resolves in an HQ membership roll
almost completely composed by developed countries professionals, that
would possibly mark the perception that people have of ISOC. I must say
that among civil society (and even not only civil society) groups in the
global Internet governance debate, ISOC is often seen as a sort of
"Internet industry trade association", closely associated with other
private sector trade associations and with the views of the US
Government; its dimension as a collector of active individual users -
which is at the roots of most Chapters - is basically lost.

I'm not saying that this is the real case, but this is definitely how it
looks when observed from the outside, especially by other activist
groups.
-- 
vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...


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