Re: [atlarge-discuss] Membership fees

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Richard and all fellow members,

  I agree with  you here almost entirely.  But, we cannot expect
to be taken seriously unless we as an organization have some
skin in the game so to speak.  This means that some amount
of membership fee must be required and collected.

  Your right that there is no need for any member here to attend
ICANN meetings as it is pretty well known that the actual
decisions of these meetings are made long before the
actual meeting is held.  I have never physically attended
a single ICANN meeting but have did participate remotely
when that was done as part of the ICANN meetings. I have
however registered for the Next ICANN meeting in Montreal.
A number of our INEGroup members and officers have attended
a number of ICANN meetings and found them lacking significantly and
in many well publicized respects. I also have however physically
attended other DOC/NTIA conferences, FCC meetings, FTC
meetings, SANS.ORG, and other Internet related
meetings and events many times.  I am sure I will be attending
more of them in the near future as well.  I hope I have the
opportunity of meeting you at one of them sometime.  >:)

Richard Henderson wrote:

> Either we want to promote a small organisation of relatively wealthy
> specialists, in which case they can pay $25 to $50 a year, and operate just
> another group, run in the same way, and lumped together with various other
> groups by ICANN. It will be informed, it will have a few smart meetings a
> year, it will be a club
>
> or...
>
> We are simply the internet users of the world, anyone who wants to join, no
> fees, no barriers, no smart and fancy meetings, but simply an ideal... a
> bottom up democratic movement, claiming what nearly everyone feels
> emotionally... that this world shouldn't belong to the wealthy few and the
> corporate elite... and that the Internet belongs to every single individual
> who uses it... and our very openness, our cost-free openness, run on a
> shoestring of voluntary contributions, becomes part of the cult...
>
> because...
>
> The key isn't the refined informed contained project... but the key is
> *imagination* and *feeling*... to capture the imagination of internet users
> all over the world, even though we are poor, even though we start with a
> website and a message... and yet without the financial stumbling block...
> the door is open and no-one feels estranged... we are identifying with the
> poor and the ordinary and regular people
>
> and we aim...
>
> To get an "Our Internet" banner in the top corner of more and more websites,
> and we communicate the people's net... and we aim not for a small informed
> inclusive club, but a romantic movement... so easy to join... and easy to
> understand... and a noble thing which people can embrace...
>
> money...
>
> is the language of USG and ICANN and it is the paradigm of power... but you
> see, we don't even need to attend ICANN's meetings (though some of us
> may)... because we should aim instead to build an alternative... a different
> polarity... a stakeholders movement... on our own ground, and on our own
> terms... until the media notices, and governments outside US notice, and
> academics notice...
>
> it's them and us...
>
> it's not about negotiating a Director or three on a stacked Board... it's
> not about ALAC... it's about building something separate and apart, as a
> platform for informed assertion and a vision for the net... and if we fall
> into the trap of charging membership fees and doing everything respectfully
> and predictably, then we may just become like them... but we are trying to
> demonstrate a more open, and fairer model...
>
> a network of communities and individuals... in an alliance... with power not
> based on money but on conviction... using technology to define and determine
> our own future internet... defining it bottom up through the will of every
> single individual - one member one vote - and demonstrating the legitmacy of
> that ideal... an exercise of authority for which there is no entrance fee,
> no exams to pass, and no Nominating Committee or Delegates ... but open to
> all, and run from the poorest individual up
>
> and the future...
>
> I know people will say, we will have bills to pay... we will not be taken
> seriously... but I say: the contributions will come, and people will take us
> seriously, *if* we capture the imagination, if we are idealistic all the
> way, and if we identify from the start with the poorest people on the face
> of this earth, the digitally divided, and next the small village communities
> who maybe share one computer between ten villages, and the single mums on
> welfare who can't afford the next meal let alone $50 membership, and the
> ordinary of this planet (who are mostly dispossessed)... and the poorer
> countries too, who don't need to go and do homage and bow down to the
> rich... and if we are just open and let this ideal become a virus... is
> it...
>
> is it...?
>
> ...just possible that the foolish thing will happen, not the safe
> respectable club, but the shared humanity of one individual and another and
> thirty of us here and ten more there and more individuals and more
> individuals and more individuals... until we make ICANN and its preposterous
> arrogance seem the foolish thing and the despised thing... the arrogance
> that assumes the clique can self-perpetuate and "possess" the earth (or the
> digital empire it envisages upon it)... and excludes the Users who are in
> their millions, doing humanity everyday over this great net of networks...
> for education, for trade, for compassion, for freedom, for information, for
> health, for...
>
> communication...
>
> ...isn't it strange, how in the birth pangs of this organisation, we have
> struggled so much with communication, enough to scare each other off a dozen
> times... and yet... we have something bigger in common... however hard it is
> to communicate... we keep communicating... because we see in this technology
> the power and the potential not just for us, but for the human race... and
> somehow, though we often wish we could, we cannot shake off this vision...
> that ordinary people should be able to communicate... the coming together of
> nations, and communities, and individuals... without political control or
> interference... without the corporations taking control... the right of
> people to own their own networks... and communicate
>
> I don't favour membership fees because then we start to close the doors, we
> start to become the cognoscenti and the insiders, we start to diminish the
> vision...
>
> which needs to be demonstrated in the reality of what it is, even if it
> seems like an affront at Hearndon, even if it seems like we're nobodies...
> *that's* their possible mistake... to think you can marginalise the whole of
> the world... when the whole of the world *is* what the net is about, who we
> are about, and who we are open to
>
> Richard H
>
> PS: Some will say, "We need money to incorporate"... I say, "Then we
> incorporate when we have that money"... I'm not wealthy, I'm not grand, I've
> kids to feed, but I'd give $50 and maybe ten others can match it, and then
> we have the first $500, and that's not much, but at least we get to verify
> ourselves through Paypal :) ... and some people may be rich enough to
> contribute a little more, maybe I can save up more for the autumn, and new
> members will volunteer I'm sure... and those of you who are really poor and
> it's a duty *not* to pay (because who feeds your kids) then it's free, the
> door is open, welcome, you are still equal among equal, and nobody gets
> judged here by the size of their bank account... maybe I'm just stupid, but
> we're a not for profit, we're in the people business, and its people we
> want, the money - well, we just spend what we get... if we get... when we
> get. We will get. The more people, the more money. Entrance free, pay later
> if you want. More people, because we're not taking their money. Entrance
> fee, less people, or just the club. Friends, if you try to be normal, I'm
> sorry but this org is just never going to get lift off, because we're trying
> to achieve something which is a little more than normal, and it's the
> feeling (not the logic) which needs to prevail. When people *feel* strongly,
> they'll give. Their money or their time or their support. Let them
> participate. Don't just govern them. A growing river of people, with a
> vision, intent on determining the direction the net should take, intent on
> defining the way it should be run, joining in, involved, defiant!
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Gilbert Estillore Lumantao <gilbert.lumantao@lycos.com>
> To: <DannyYounger@cs.com>; <atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de>; James S. Tyre
> <jstyre@jstyre.com>
> Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 11:01 PM
> Subject: Re: [atlarge-discuss] Membership fees
>
> > From: "James S. Tyre" <jstyre@jstyre.com>
> > To: DannyYounger@cs.com, atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de
> > Cc:
> > >Danny, with respect, you are comparing apples and rutabagas.
> > >At the bottom, you say "you get what you pay for," but what do you get
> back
> > >from belonging to any of these three organizations, or hundreds of
> similar
> > >ones?  Obviously it varies some from org to org,
> >
> > i agree. this boils down to what kind of organization are we building.
> isn't it enough that people are using the net to be allowed to join @large?
> >
> > 1$ is around 52 pesos in the philippines. that would be around the price
> of one meal. with that, i hope you can understand that 25$ or more can
> easily be a barrier of participation, at least in the philippines. and isn't
> participation what @large is?
> >
> > i would rather that we screen non-serious members through a minimum
> requirement of participation (like voting) instead of requiring them to pay
> unreasonable membership fees.
> >
> > gilbert
> > ---
> > Gilbert E. Lumantao
> > 200 Commonwealth Avenue
> > Quezon City 1101 Philippines
> > Mobile No. 63-918-9387793
> > Email Address: gilbert.lumantao@mailcity.com
> > Website: http://www.batasayti.freeservers.com
> > ---
> >
> > "Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is
> small. The most difficult things in the world must be done while they are
> still easy, the greatest things in the world must be done while they are
> still small. For this reason sages never do what is great, and this is why
> they can achieve that greatness." - Attributed by Sun Tzu to warriors of
> ancient times.
> >
>
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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 131k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Be precise in the use of words and expect precision from others" -
    Pierre Abelard
================================================================
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number: 214-244-4827 or 214-244-3801



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