On 09/09/2016 12:14 AM, David Farmer wrote:
I added paying member dues in addition to being attached as a membership requirement for two reasons ...
I agree with this point 100%. I believe any solution should have this as a component. I am very opposed to the rest of proposal. I highly doubt that the slightly increased recognition that comes from established sponsorship levels will increase donations in any significant way. I see how donations equal priority access to ports, but I'm very concerned about the "enforcement" of that. If we have a non-trivial number of non-member participants, who gets kicked off when a member needs the last available port? Do we kick off the participant with the lowest amount of traffic, which gives big players an advantage? Do we kick off the participant who connected last, entrenching older participants? Do we make the board decide, putting them in a complicated and conflict-prone position? If we don't kick anybody off, which seems like the most likely outcome, then priority access isn't very meaningful, and thus disappears as an incentive. More importantly, the "MPR model" does nothing to address the fact that invoices and donations are handled very differently in organizations. Ironically, I don't think this even works for the University of Minnesota. I believe it was your position that you needed an invoice, as "the University doesn't give donations; it accepts them". -- Richard