[SSC] Membership types and contributions

[Joss Winn]

Regarding my suggestion below that self-assessed membership
contributions are the equivalent of *one hour of an individual's net
salary per month*, here's a list of suggested contributions:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AnDuUd71vXr4dFdoWHV6dUFfZUxxUGMyY3J0LUw3anc&hl=en_GB&authkey=CLa0maoN

Any thoughts?

Thanks
Joss

On 28/02/11 23:56, Joss Winn wrote:
> 
> 
> 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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