[chapter-delegates] New Membership Level

[Richard StClair]

> I think with the paid membership ($75 fee) we will definitely move 
> three
> years backwards!

I know for certain with a $75 fee, the Pacific Chapter of ISOC would 
stop being an ISOC chapter altogether and start being a giant computer 
club instead.

I don't know of anyone in the chapter who would pay $75 for membership 
including myself.

Our chapter covers 23 countries, a giant chunk of our planet that we 
refer to here as the liquid continent. There are more than 1200 
languages spoken in the region within hundreds of diverse cultures. The 
Internet is for Everyone means that all of these people have the right 
to be ISOC members. Any kind of membership fee, even if it was only one 
dollar, would cut this entire region off from ISOC. Then ISOC would 
have to change it's slogan to "The Internet is for anyone who has a 
credit card to pay the membership fee".

I'm sitting here looking out my window, and through the dense jungle I 
can just barely see my neighbor's house through the Kafika trees, and 
can just barely make out the little wifi antenna that's pointed to our 
Alofi repeater two miles away. And somebody in that house is sitting 
there surfing the web or checking their email. (I know this because I'm 
the ISP here and I can see that they're online).

Now here's a person who makes around $3500 US dollars a year (more than 
a lot of Pacific Islanders), and somehow they've managed to get a 
computer and still have enough money left over to keep food on their 
table because they wanted communications so badly that they did what 
they had to do to get online. The Internet is free in Niue but they 
still have to buy their own computer. And when somebody on such a small 
income does that, it shows how dedicated they are to wanting the 
Internet.

Now, tell me how I'm going to ask that person for $75 US dollars, and 
tell me what they're going to get from ISOC for their $75. Because that 
person that I'm looking at right now, IS the "Everyone" in ISOC's 
"Internet is for everyone" slogan.

Asking people like that to pay to be a member of ISOC simply means they 
aren't going to be a member of ISOC.

And then "The Internet is for Everyone" needs to be changed to "The 
Internet is for Everyone, but ISOC is not". ;-)

> 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

I actually don't even remember this survey, but if I took it (and if it 
was presented to me I would have), then I said NO to membership fees, 
and I know that if any of our Pacific Chapter ISOC members were 
surveyed then we would have had a couple hundred members say NO. If 
this survey was repeated now, the three hundred plus members that we 
have now would say NO to membership fees.

I think other chapters around the world would reflect the same.

ISOC needs to work on building an infrastructure that doesn't need 
paying membership.

Otherwise, I suspect there will be local ISOC chapters all over the 
world that will suddenly become local computer club associations 
instead.

-- 
Regards,
Richard St Clair,
Co-Founder & Internet Evangelist,
Internet Users Society Niue
PICISOC Chairman, APTLD Board Member
--------------------------------------------
stclair at niue.nu www.niue.nu Fax 683-4624
Niue Island, South Pacific 169 West 19 South
--------------------------------------------
IT Policy: "Leave the geeks alone and everything will be fine".



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