Re: Review of DASC membership fees

At 01:47 PM 11/13/04, Peter Ashenden wrote:
>Dear colleagues,
>
>The DASC Steering Committee reviewed the membership fees at its meeting on
>12 November (see http://www.dasc.org/meetings/2004-11/.). This message is
>to ask you to review the recommendation and vote to approve the revised fee.
>There are two recommendations to review (see below). Would you please reply
>to me by email with your vote on each one. Since a 50% return is required,
>would you please vote even if only to abstain.
>
>The DASC-SC arrived at its recommendation by reviewing its operating
>expenses and other potential sources of revenue. Currently, the IEEE
>Computer Society funds our operating deficit to a reasonable amount. The
>DASC-SC considers this to be a revenue contribution. The DASC-SC will also
>seek contributions from other sources, including IEEE-SA and external bodies
>with an interest in DASC activities. The recommended membership fees seek
>to match these contributions.
>
>Would DASC members please vote on the following:
>
>1. That the fee for individual members be $US100 from 2005 onwards.
>
> ____ Affirmative (comments optional)
>
> ____ Negative (no comment)
>
> __X__ Negative (with comments...)
>
> ____ Abstain
>
> Comments: ...
>
>2. That:
> - DASC entity membership be extended to IEEE-SA Corporate members, and
> - entities be allowed DASC membership at the same fee structure used
> for IEEE-SA corporate membership and with a number of DASC individual
> memberships equal to the number of SA individual memberships granted
> to SA corporate members
> (see http://standards.ieee.org/sa-mem/corporate.html), and
> - the DASC request IEEE-SA to mutually extend membership to DASC entity
> members.
>
> ____ Affirmative (comments optional)
>
> ____ Negative (no comment)
>
> _X___ Negative (with comments...)
>
> ____ Abstain
>
> Comments: ...

The membership fee issue cannot be resolved by individual IEEE Standards
Committees, of which there are more than one. It is a centralized issue
(one for the IEEE SA). I have already suggested to IEEE staff that the SA
fee structure used for the IEEE-SA corporate membership should take into
account the needs of the various IEEE Standards groups. Thus, if the fee
structure for SA corporate membership is adjusted (upwards) to allow an
apportionment to be provided to the various IEEE standards groups (by some
formula based on standards developed) then much of the DASC problem could
be solved. I think IEEE is derelict in its responsibilities if it takes
all and gives nothing. I agree, an additional fee should be charged to
DASC members (other standards groups could decide on additional fees
independently). That fee should be based on the SC needs and SC stipend
from IEEE. We must work with IEEE SA to resolve this problem. Otherwise,
we will never solve the problem. It may take a joint meeting of Standards
Groups chairs to get something going.

Ron Waxman

Ronald Waxman r.waxman@computer.org
EDA Standards Consulting voice and fax: (+1)(703) 620-2117
Principal Scientist at UVa, retired mobile: (+1) (703) 867-8075
2369 Paddock Lane
Reston, VA 20191-2607
======================
"We cannot solve the problems that we have created with the same thinking
that created them."
Albert Einstein
Received on Mon Nov 22 19:22:10 2004