[chapter-delegates] new membership system

[Hans Peter Dittler]

Hello all,

some thoughts about the new membership system from ISOC.DE's perspective:

Our chapter members contribute 70 EUR/yr, which is roughly comparable to
75 USD. ISOC.DE being, of course, a not-for-profit association the money is
used to support some central functions (e.g. a web server, an annual meeting
and a secretariat).  Also part of the budget is spent on working with the
government(s), the press and other groups and bodies for "educational"
purposes
(mostly travel expenses). Virtually all of the work is done on a volunteer
base, no member receives compensation for working time or effort.

That said, we are not opposed to membership fees in general, as they
may help to keep things running.

However, given ISOC's financial situation we would still like to learn
what the gain is with membership fees. We understand that they would
contribute to the budget only a little, while at the same time generating
additional administrative expenses, leading to an even lesser net benefit.

Supposed now that increasing the budget is not the issue, we can imagine
that
both proof of existence and proof of commitment of the members are. Now
that is where the chapters could be of help. We are (physically) close
to our constituency, some of us collect fees anyway and we know many, if not
all, of our (as in: chapters') members. So we would like to suggest some
consideration be given to a model where members are ISOC members through
chapters, where chapters charge a fee (or otherwise apply an appropriate
metric to "commitment"). The fees would be defined by and stay with the
chapters, which would regularly report to or verify with ISOC the current
member lists. Members then would be eligible to vote. Since the new
membership scheme seems to be cost neutral, so would this modified scheme.

Paying seems to be a barrier unless visual benefits are presented. We have
been
thinking about this in our chapter for several years now. We do not
expect many of our members to pay 75 USD additionally to ISOC just
to have one more member in the BOT on their voting sheet. If payment is one
form of binding, they can and will do it with their payment to the local
chapter.

ISOC and ISOC chapters should not enter a competition for members. Both
need more people to get involved, not for increased income, but for a
stronger voice to be heard, for more ideas to come in and for more brains
and hands to share the work.

Peter Koch
(ISOC.DE Chair)
Hans Peter Dittler
(ISOC.DE member of the board)