[iaoa-advisor] Your advice on the Proposed Elimination of Membership Fees for IAOA

[Laure Vieu]

Dear Anthony and Maria, dear all,

We have already thoroughly examined the two grades of membership 
solution within the EC. It has many drawbacks, among which, importantly, 
requiring to change our statutes which do not right now allow for two 
classes of members and, obviously, creating a division among the members 
in a more conspicuous and official way than the original proposal to 
grant access to those who donate enough, which has been criticized 
already during the public discussion for creating second-class citizens.

For the future funding scheme, as Fabian explained, we do not currently 
have high regular expenses (of course, buying a large package access to 
IOS Press could change this, this is why a special fund is an 
interesting idea), and in the past, the bulk of the money gathered has 
been essentially from conferences surpluses.
We will continue to enforce the policy that IAOA conferences should run 
in a fully autonomous financial mode, covering also student grants etc, 
and that IAOA contributes with advance money and as insurance against 
major events. Hopefully, surpluses will continue to come in once in a 
while. And hopefully, we will improve our ability to raise donations. 
Note that since institutions can still join for a fee, those who are in 
position to use institutional funds may join as institution instead of 
giving a donation (which often is more problematic institutionally).

Finally, we plan to assess regularly the sustainability of the new 
model, and might propose to change it again.

Best,

Laure


Le 15/04/2021 à 09:25, Maria Keet a écrit :
> Hi Anthony,
>
> On 14/04/2021 20:02, Galton, Antony wrote:
>> We could have two grades of membership - full membership which 
>> requires a fee but gives free access to the IOS publications as at 
>> present, and something like associate membership which has no fee as 
>> per the current proposal. Or would this stigmatize the latter as 
>> second-class citizens?
>>
>> The main problem with abolishing membership fees entirely, as I see 
>> it, is: How will IAOA be funded in future? Is there sufficient income 
>> from sources other than membership fees to sustain the activities of 
>> the organisation? It would be very risky to rely on donations to make 
>> up any shortfall.
> there's a huge amount of money in the account to last for a while (and 
> weather a major event disaster), and surplusses of IAOA's main events 
> go to the IAOA account, so it'd be basically 'giving back' to the 
> community in kind what we've all contributed over a while already.
>
> Regards,
> Maria
>>
>> Antony
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Laure Vieu <vieu at irit.fr>
>> Sent: 13 April 2021 19:01
>> To: Nicola Guarino; 'João Paulo Almeida'; John Bateman; Stefano 
>> Borgo; Cohn; Galton, Antony; Giancarlo Guizzardi; Janna Hastings; 
>> Heinrich Herre; Werner Kuhn; Riichiro Mizoguchi; Mark Musen; Leo 
>> Obrst; Barry Smith; Wood, Zena; Roberta Ferrario; Michael Gruninger; 
>> Maria Keet; thomas.studer at inf.unibe.ch
>> Cc: IAOA Executive Council
>> Subject: Your advice on the Proposed Elimination of Membership Fees 
>> for IAOA
>>
>> CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organisation. Do 
>> not click links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender 
>> and know the content is safe.
>>
>>
>> Dear IAOA Advisory Board members,
>>
>> We highly value your advisory role on important matters regarding our 
>> association.
>>
>> As you probably have noticed, a discussion on a proposal made by the 
>> Executive Council (EC) is currently going on the IAOA-member mailing 
>> list, taking advantage of the Assembly period. (See below the 
>> original message with the proposal.)
>> We believe this proposal, the complete elimination of membership 
>> fees, has the potential to bring an important change in our 
>> association. It is a proposal, not a decision, and if adopted, it 
>> still needs to be refined or altered in various ways. Several ideas 
>> in this respect have already been put forward during the discussion.
>>
>> Therefore, in the name of the whole EC, I would like to warmly 
>> encourage you to share your views, taking part to the public 
>> discussion going on IAOA-member mailing list 
>> (iaoa-member at ovgu.de<mailto:iaoa-member at ovgu.de>), and help us 
>> reaching the best decision.  Some of you have already contributed to 
>> this discussion, for which we are very grateful.
>> Alternatively, you may send me a message that I will share with the 
>> whole EC.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Laure Vieu
>> IAOA president
>>
>>
>> -------- Message transféré --------
>> Sujet :         [iaoa-member] Proposed Elimination of Membership Fees 
>> -- To be discussed during the current Assembly, till April 30
>> Date :  Tue, 6 Apr 2021 18:46:45 +0200
>> De :    Laure Vieu <vieu at irit.fr><mailto:vieu at irit.fr>
>> Répondre à :    [IAOA-member] 
>> <iaoa-member at ovgu.de><mailto:iaoa-member at ovgu.de>
>> Pour :  iaoa-member at ovgu.de<mailto:iaoa-member at ovgu.de> 
>> <iaoa-member at ovgu.de><mailto:iaoa-member at ovgu.de>
>>
>>
>> Dear IAOA member,
>>
>> We would like to take advantage of this year’s assembly to share a 
>> proposal by the Executive Council to eliminate all required 
>> membership fees, for your discussion and feedback. The motivation 
>> behind this is to decrease any financial barriers to membership, and 
>> so make the association more open and accessible to a wider ontology 
>> community. This move will also remove any inconvenience associated 
>> with annual membership renewals -- once registered under the new 
>> framework, members will remain so unless they choose to close their 
>> membership. That said, we are hoping for donations from members to 
>> fund IAOA activities in the future.
>>
>> Under this new scheme, IAOA members will no longer automatically 
>> receive free access to those IOS Press publications that currently 
>> are open to IAOA members. It’s been suggested that any donation above 
>> a certain amount may receive free access to IOS Press publications 
>> for one calendar year after the date of the donation, however the 
>> details of this remain to be determined. Regardless, all current, 
>> paid members would continue to receive access to IOS Press 
>> publications until the date of their (paid) membership expiry.
>>
>> We are proposing the adoption of this approach on a trial basis. If 
>> implemented, the idea would be to monitor the impact for any 
>> unforeseen consequences, modifying the approach or reverting to the 
>> original fees scheme if problems do arise. That said, we do not 
>> anticipate that this change will impact the regular activities of the 
>> IAOA.
>>
>> Please let us, and all, know what you think of the idea.
>> The discussion on this topic is open till the end of the current 
>> assembly, on April 30, through this mailing list.
>>
>> Laure Vieu, IAOA President, and the whole IAOA Executive Council
>>
>>
>>
>