Those documents are written in the best EU-bureaucrating-English that money can't sell. Most stuff I see go past as announcements has me asleep before the first paragraph. I have tried to (quickly) read the 2003 budget statement. Makes no sense as there is not enough information there for anyone to make a value judgement. The document says 'X' and not 'X because'.
Note to self; learn to type better. You got what I meant though ?
What I cannot understand - sorry, it makes no sense - is why the budget requires new members ? Why is the budget not growth/shrinkage neutral ? New members should pay for their own 'new' requirements through the set-up fee. Again, sorry to make accusations, but whoever created a non-growth neutral budget is NOT doing their job right.
To follow this up:
... Registration budget 2003 4,422,000 Euros ... "The number of tickets received by the RIPE NCC is expected to continue to increase from 30,000 in 2002 to 35,000 in 2003." 4,422,000 / 35,000 ~= 126 Euros/ticket. 126 Euros per ticket ? Thats about 2 hours of average/cheap contacting fees. Mad. While I understand as well as anyone that the costs of running an organisation include many many overheads, the bottom line is that the NCC charge 126 Euros per ticket - which as I see it is the primary activity. Wow. I would *love* a piece of that business on a commercial basis. So would quite a lot of companies I expect. When you get that down to approx. 1 hour of average/cheap contracting fees (50 Euros maybe), I will say you are merely expensive for what we get. Peter