[members-discuss] {Spam?} RE: Surprise on renew fees

Jon, a very sensible comment amongst a lot of trash.
I agree the charging scheme and budget are not directly related - other than the total income and expenditure over a period should balance in a Not for Profit Organisation. The schema is just about how it is recovered - who pays what - not about how much is spent by the NPO.
The board should note that this is a protest also over costs not necessarily just the charging for IP and in particular the practice of sub assigning IP addresses to customers and avoiding the charging scheme.
However I have to say certainly the new Schema had been well debated over a long time and I personally feel vested interests stopped this when the majority were supportive or ambivalent.
I have been a voluntary board member for many NPO organisations and the board should have avoided this.
Most boards I have worked on do not necessarily ask for the budget to be voted on rather the work program (with costs) and the recovery, there being a trade off. In austerity days emphasis should always be about controlling costs - something RIPE are not good at. As long as charges are not going up people are happy. Our problem is the workload is increasing and the income is not keeping pace. Also by LAW people in Belgium have to receive a wage increase every 3 months in line with the Gezondheidsindex so we have to pay  staff more.

If people are not happy either change the board (again the vested interests always win because the little guys don’t get organised) or support them in that they are doing a difficult job unpaid for little thanks. Everyone can do a better job than them see all the e-mails (joke).
I personally feel that while more could be done on cost control the Schema makes sense and the Board has done a good job. It's a pity the vested interests have delayed the control on the IP space another year so they can continue to profit.
Phil Barton 
HITRAIL


-----Original Message-----
From: members-discuss-bounces at ripe.net [mailto:members-discuss-bounces at ripe.net] On Behalf Of Jon Morby
Sent: 14 December 2011 19:12
To: Carlos Friacas
Cc: Nigel Titley; members-discuss at ripe.net
Subject: Re: [members-discuss] Surprise on renew fees

My understanding is that whilst we were voting on the charging scheme, most people were objecting to the budget and that's why it failed. 

The problem was that we couldnt vote on these individually .. And the down side is that the spending will continue regardless. 

On the day there were comments about just spending from reserves and that's what they were there for ... With an after thought mention of "we'll see if there is anywhere we can trim some fat"

I specifically raised a budgetary question at the AGM re RPKI which was deflected and dropped before the vote so no-one had the information requested in advance of the vote (€1.6m spent to date on RPKI and more to come as it was voted through) etc. 

When quizzed on the budgets and why we had no costs we were told that the costs should  have been included over the last few years but were omitted and a promise that they would be detailed for next year. 

I'm still not sure how/where we get to review these other than to reject another charging scheme and so on until reserves are spent. (which would be pointless). Hopefully someone will advise me. In other organisations I am a member of the budget is always voted on at the AGM. If it fails then the previous years budget prevails until a consensus and EGM (or next AGM) agree the new budget. 

Staffing costs are of course the highest .. There were also flippant remarks about not needing approval for choosing the brand of coffee used in house but tbh that just shows in my mind how little consideration there is for our thoughts on the budget / etc (I don't care which brand of coffee they use, I do care how they spend our money overall however). 

The membership fees are small and almost irrelevant, the principal however is not .. And the additional resource fees add up to potentially a hell of a lot more both in ripe cost and the real cost of admin and compliance.... All at a time when our euro buys less and less .. Or in other words our costs are increasing and our profits being eroded. 

--
Jon Morby
fido.net - the internet made simple!
tel: 0845 004 3050
fax: 0845 004 3051

On 14 Dec 2011, at 18:58, "Carlos Friacas" <cfriacas at fccn.pt> wrote:

> 
> On Wed, 14 Dec 2011, Nigel Titley wrote:
> 
>>> Which is the reason? There was a public vote with a public result?
>> 
>> Yes. The charging scheme is always voted on by the membership, every 
>> year.
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I've been a bit far from these issues, but as far as i understood, the 
> charging scheme wasn't directly voted upon by members, right?
> Members voted on the Yearly Budget, and the charging scheme is just a 
> subset of that, correct?
> It was not possible to approve the charging scheme, and at the same 
> time (with a different cast of votes) reject the Budget, right?
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Carlos
> 
> 
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