[chapter-delegates] New Membership Level

[Jacek Gajewski]

Dear Bill,

William F. Slater, III wrote:

>I contribute at the $125/year level, and I basically do it because 1) I can
>afford it for the time being; 2) I believe strongly in the history and the
>purposes of ISOC; and 3) because I am old fashioned and believe that ISOC is
>one of the few organizations that I can, in good conscience, contribute
>money to.
>
>  
>
Thank You for your frank answer, which well corresponds to my own attitude.
Personally I am much more likely to pay $125 as my independent decision 
(based on arguments similar to yours)
 then to pay $75 just because  (the only two arguments we have heard 
sofar from ISOC HQ, see below, are not convincing):
1.  there is some group of people who want to pay $75 and do not want 
(or cannot?)  pay $125 on voluntary basis
    (funny enough we have not seen in this discussion any representative 
of this group....), or
2. a survey from two years ago obliges ISOC HQ to introduce $75 level
    (we have not seen in this discussion neither how the question was 
formulated two years ago
      nor what was the numeric result of this survey).
 
Myself I could imagine the following rationale for paying the non-zero 
membership fee:
- Membership management system from GO needs constant influx of money to 
maintain it
- .org money should not be used for this purpose, since they are 
dedicated to ISOC projects
    (let us not discuss here that they are often used for other  
purposes than ISOC projects...)
- ISOC Bylaws foresee such possibility [but not the necessity!]

If the above is a true case, then it would be reasonable:
- that the cost  of maintaining  the mebership system is covered by 
those chapters only, who really use it
- that this cost is minimized (eg. by deploying the system to the 
country, where manpower costs
   are significantly lower) via an open tender to the chapters for 
hosting this system

>By the way, because I am adopted into my lovely wife's family, I feel like I
>am "Honorary Polish." 
>
You are always welcome in my country, in our ISOC-PL family and at our 
table.




>We certainly have much bigger fish to fry than to argue endlessly about
>membership issues.
>
>Let's get busy and start solving the REAL problems of the Internet.  After
>all, we are THE Internet Society.
>  
>
Yes,  ISOC certainly has  a plentiful  of  tasks to discuss and solve, 
which are much more important
then discussing  how to collect and manage fees, which (compared to .org 
money) are practically not needed at all.

But to solve those real problems ISOC needs plentiful of skilled and 
passionate members - that is why we cannot
understand why ISOC HQ:
- has deeply offended  the majority of its membership by naming them  
'associate' members
- has created a clear divide between the rich and the poor ISOC members.

With best regards,
Jacek Gajewski
ISOC-PL

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