[SSC] Membership types and contributions

[Joss Winn]

On 27/02/11 19:57, Terry Wassall wrote:
> Dear All
> 
> Thanks Joss for sending round the notes etc. so quickly. As I said
> before, I am very sorry I was not able to come to the meeting. Sounds
> like you had a really interesting discussion. I have just got back
> from a weekend in an internet free part of Scotland, practically
> mobile phone network free as well. I will try to respond to the
> emails in reverse order over the next day or so startng with the
> first about membershipd fees/contributions.
> 
> There is quite a broad band of professorial salaries, starting not
> much above the senior lecture salary. Some profs. also have
> additional incomes related to their professorial work. If the prof
> rate is used as a benchmark then presumably lecturers A, B, Senior
> etc. will be proportionate, say £80, £160, £240 and £300+.  Some more
> junior academic staff may be on part-time of fixed term contracts,
> and so the a varity of circumstances will need to be considerd and
> allowed for. Then at any one time there will be different numbers of
> students with varying numbers of them able to pay anything. A general
> quesion is whether the 'fee's model is likely to be adeqate and
> equitable.
> 
> Many academics might be willing to contribute, their subject
> expertises, their materials, their experience of being learners and
> researchers, their ability to be facilitators of discussion etc.,
> maybe even their travel expenses to attend face-to-face sessions.
> They may not be willing to pay a fee to do so. One answer to this
> would be, of course, if they are not commited enough to the idea and
> the ethos, then the Centre doesn't want them.  There could be
> differeing views on this.

Hi Terry,

I would agree with your latter point. As a non-hierarchical
organisation, we're all contributing time/effort *and* money relative to
what we earn elsewhere according to what is likely to be equitable and
affordable.

Let's think of it this way:

An academic on grade 10, at the top of the pay scale is earning about
£56K (I guess a lot of Profs. negotiate their own salaries off of the
formal pay scale??)

So someone on £56K, might be expected to pay a membership fee of
£300/year. That person is *taking home* a net pay of around £142/day or
£712/week or £19/hr. We're suggesting that they work just over one hour
a month in order to earn the suggested £25/month membership fee.

The bottom of Grade 9 is £46K and a take home wage of £120/day or
£603/week or £16/hr. So a suggested membership fee at this level might
be £18/month, again, just over one hour's net salary.

If I take my own salary of about £32K, I take home about £428/month or
£12/hour, so my contribution might be £15. My own salary happens to also
be our total household income at the moment, but I know I can afford
this kind of contribution.

These are rough calculations, but you get my point. We can aim to ask
people to contribute at least one hour of their monthly take home salary
to the SSC. Shift the focus away from the £££ and to the actual time
they work elsewhere in order to keep the SSC running. I'd work for an
hour a month and give that income to the SSC. I think others would, too.

I'll come up with a more accurate suggested scale of salary vs.
contribution based on this idea in the next day or so.

Joss


> 
> I agree with Richard's comments about the need to have some sort of
> costing and projections. I guess you could call this, between gritted
> teeth, a business plan. This would need some sort of consideration
> about sustainability, in terms of finances and objectives, and any
> obvious risk factors (for instance, under recruitment of paying
> students). Have a realistic idea of what the costs would actually be
> is another way of estimating contributions as these could be divided,
> suitably weighted by income, across the membership.
> 
> As far as 'profit' or a surplus is concerned, I think there may be 2
> main reasons for needing this - the financial sustainability of the
> Centre for at least 3 to 5 years (to do right by the students who
> enrol and to give the project the time to develop and solve the
> problems and issues that will arise) and to fund the further
> development of the Centre. This may not only be in terms of social
> science activity. I understand there has been some discussion of
> embarking upon other sorts of activities and services in the Centre
> that may raise money.
> 
> Best wishes
> 
> Terry
> 
> 
> Dr. Terry Wassall Principal Teaching Fellow School of Sociology and
> Social Policy University of Leeds 
> ________________________________________ From:
> ssc-bounces at lists.aktivix.org [ssc-bounces at lists.aktivix.org] On
> Behalf Of Joss Winn [joss at josswinn.org] Sent: 27 February 2011 12:19 
> To: ssc at lists.aktivix.org Subject: [SSC] Membership types and
> contributions
> 
> One of the things we discussed for some time in the pub after the 
> meeting on Thursday is the need to decide what types of membership
> there will be at the SSC and how much we hope/expect people to
> contribute.
> 
> Let's use this discussion thread to work that out. One question that
> I think Mike raised was that we might first ask what do we need the
> money for?
> 
> As for membership types, these might be academic, student, general 
> supporter, etc. or we might not distinguish between these at all.
> 
> As for the amount of contribution, Mike (a Professor), thought it 
> reasonable to ask that other Profs. contribute between £300-£500/year
> or roughly £30+ /month.
> 
> I think the general agreement at the pub (outside of the formal
> meeting when some people were no longer present) was that people
> should self-assess their income and pay a fee that was matched to an
> income category roughly in line with what Profs. Snr. Lecturers and
> Lecturers (and possibly one more level) are earning. Low wage and
> unemployed would pay nothing.
> 
> So, what do you think about all of this? Please send your ideas to
> this thread so we can come to a decision on this.
> 
> Thanks very much Joss
> 
> 
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