Hi, On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 08:01:44AM +0300, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
In my opinion, the membership has very little influence on the membership fees or the overall budget. We might think we do, but in reality we don't. Since 2002 (when the financial reserves of RIPE NCC were 4.2MEuro on Dec 31, 2002), the budget surplus has been run up to around now 23MEuro. For the past 10 years, we have run a budget surplus and have amassed a huge stockpile of money. Why? I have no idea. Has the RIPE NCC board ever felt that membership fees could be cut by 20% across the board and to start eating away at its stockpile of cash?
Well, actually *this* is not actually fair. The membership fees have gone down quite a lot over the last 10 years, and there even has been a cash payback one year. Jochem is complaining every year that the influx of new members has been higher than expected, and thus, income is higher, while they have been good stewards and spending was lower than budgeted. It's the NCC board's duty to ensure financial stability, so "just reduce the fees to 50% and see what this will do to our reservers" is not so good. The actual proposed charging scheme is reducing the LIR fees by about that amount you've proposed (20%), btw :-) Gert Doering -- NetMaster -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279