[chapter-delegates] New Membership Level

[Gene Gaines]

I woke up this cold morning having decided what I was
going to say in response to James Galvin's email (below).
I was sad because my words were not going to be happy.

Now I am feeling better because my thoughts have been
expressed in the last several hours by several other ISOC
people -- Jacek Gajewsk ISOC-PL, Alan Levin ISOC-ZA,
Franck Martin ISOC-SOPAC.

I will not pay the $75.  I will contribute that money
to another ISOC chapter.

The reasons for my feelings should be obvious.

I consider the people of ISOC my brothers and sisters.

It is so very important that we be willing to share
together.  You are welcome to eat at my table, and I
hope that I am welcome to eat at yours.  To share, we
must be on an equal footing, and have an equal voice.
If no voice, then sharing is not true.

I learned this from a man named George Washington
in my country, who would never permit himself to be
raised above other people.

Gene
gene.gaines at gainesgroup.com

On Tuesday, March 1, 2005, 5:32:48 PM, James wrote:

> I've been watching this discussion unfold today.  There are many valid
> points of view and I do not want to discourage people from discussing
> those views.  What I do want to do is add some context to the discussion
> to explain how the new membership level came to be.  This note is long,
> and I apologize for that, but I wanted to be complete.

> I accepted the position of VP of Chapters 3 years, just after the Board
> had decided to restructure itself.  A component of the ISOC strategy that
> emerged from that restructuring was to set aside temporarily paying
> membership and instead create a new membership that was free.  One of the
> responsibilities I had was to create a new membership program that
> included both free membership and paying membership.

> The fact is ISOC members want a paying membership.  We know this from a
> survey we took more than 2 years ago.  Perhaps some of you participated
> in that survey, although the discussions would suggest that many of you
> either did not participate or do not remember doing so.  We also surveyed
> Chapters (through this list) on what they wanted from a membership system.

> The results from both of these surveys were used as input (among other
> inputs) to create the RFP that was used to solicit for a membership
> system.  I will point out only for completeness here that several open
> source solutions were considered at that time.  None of them even came
> close (order of magnitude difference at least) to what was offered by the
> top 3 choices, from which we ultimately selected Go's Q system.

> The member survey mentioned above also served as input to developing a
> membership program.

> Several people have commented that $75 is too much money.  We discussed
> this issue at length for many hours.  There are several points worth
> noting from those discussions.

> ISOC is not competing with its Chapters for members.  We will continue to
> encourage people to create and join Chapters.  But for those that want to
> contribute directly to ISOC, and there are people for whom this is
> desired, we are offering an appropriate membership level.

> The $75 fee was derived from two principle sources.  First, a principle
> reason the paying membership was tabled 3 years ago was because it was
> not cost effective.  The problem was made worse by the fact that it was
> impossible to come up with a few schedule that met the needs of everyone
> everywhere.  ISOC had tried various methods of doing this over the years
> and none were successful.

> The answer to the fee schedule problem was to use Chapters. Chapters
> really are the principal means by which members contribute to ISOC.
> Chapters can set fee schedules (or not) according to their own needs and
> what is possible in their community of interest (which is usually a
> geographic region).  This matched well with the Board's restructuring
> since Chapters could now elect up to 3 members of the Board directly.

> So, rather than trying to find a paying membership level that meets the
> needs of everyone everywhere, we are promoting Chapters to do that.
> Instead, we will focus on a membership level that we can provide, with
> benefits based on what members have requested.  Of course, since we want
> the program to be self-supporting, the second source of the $75 fee is
> based on a budget of what we believe we can provide for 1,000 members,
> which compared to other membership based organizations is a bargain.
> Note that we are not projecting tens of thousands of members.  Those
> members are for the Chapters to get.  We are just projecting a few
> thousand members over the next several years.

> For those who want to be recognized by ISOC directly, not just through
> their Chapter, we still have the donor program.  You can contribute any
> amount of money to ISOC directly and you will be recognized for it.  The
> donations levels are named Contributor, Supporter, Benefactor, and
> Patron.  Any USD dollar amount under $125 is a Contributor. So, you can
> give whatever you can and your name will be listed on the web site under
> Contributor.

> Someone suggested that ISOC let the Chapters charge fees and then ISOC
> should take a percentage.  We thought about that.  We considered it quite
> seriously.  There are several concerns with that model.  First, some
> Chapters do not charge membership fees and do not want to charge a fee.
> If we do not require everyone to charge a fee than the disparity between
> those who pay and those who do not will continue to exist.  Second,
> suppose the Chapter charged the equivalent of $1 USD for membership.
> That dollar amount might be entirely appropriate for the Chapter.  Do we
> really want to take 5, 10, or 25 percent of that membership fee away from
> a Chapter that probably needs the money more than we do?  Finally, other
> organizations comparable to ISOC do not take money from their Chapters.
> This does not seem like a good way to distinguish ourselves from them.

> And finally, the fact that ISOC Members (as compared to ISOC Associate
> Members) will get to vote directly for a Trustee is an easy target for
> discussion.  Many people are very passionate about this point, on both
> sides.

> The new membership level was not created to support voting. The fact
> that voting is permitted is completely incidental.  It is a "pro forma"
> benefit for all member organizations that take fees from their members.

> Keep in mind that ISOC Members (as compared to ISOC Associate Members) do
> not get any more of a voice on the Board of Trustees than Chapters.
> Chapters get to select 3 trustees and Members get to select 3 trustees.
> And, Members are further constrained by the fact that there have to be at
> least 1,000 of them with at least 500 of them actually paying.  (Note
> that organizational members get complimentary memberships.) We do have
> as a goal to attract at least the 500 paying members needed during this
> first year, but if we do not meet that goal then Members will not vote.
> In contrast, Chapters always get to vote and members always get to vote
> within their Chapter.

> I have tried to say something about all the questions that have been
> raised so far.  If there are more questions I will say more, but we also
> need to move forward with the decisions that have been made.  Many things
> have taken quite a long time to come together, and they are finally doing
> that.  We really do have many positive changes and benefits to bring to
> you this year.  This new membership level is intended to be a positive
> benefit change.  If it does not work out then we will certainly change it
> but, like the membership models that have been tried in the past, we need
> to try this one too.

> Jim


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