[Ambassadors] EMEA Membership Questione

[Francesco Ugolini]

2008/5/8 Sandro red Mathys <red at fedoraproject.org>:
> Thank you Christoph, I already thought I'm the only guy who's thinking
>  something's going terribly wrong there.
>
>  +1 on everything, especially the €128.
>
>  Even though I can afford that money quite easily, I really have no idea
>  how that helps me to save money for travels to events a.s.o.
>
>  I thought private persons are welcome as basic members at a small fee
>  (10-20€...maybe less, if I'm thinking about certain countries) and it's
>  the companys that have to pay more for the member- oder even sponsorship.
>
>  By the way, I've been to Cameroun (West Africa) lately and you can't
>  imagine what it'd mean there to spend €128. A beer (0.6l) costs about
>  €0.6 and most people can't even afford to drink a single beer every day
>  (soft drinks are not way cheaper). Can you imagine what it'd meant to
>  spend €128 for them? And yes, they might be future ambassadors. I've
>  visited some computer schools there and they're doing a good job.
>  They're using Windows and not Linux yet, but maybe that's going to
>  change some day - as soon as it's no longer accepted that they're using
>  illegal licenses for example.
>
>  Well, my $.02
>
>  -- red
>
>
>  Christoph Wickert wrote:
>  > Am Dienstag, den 06.05.2008, 22:56 +0200 schrieb Gerold Kassube:
>  >> Hi all together for the second,
>  >>
>  >> because I forgot and some are asking for; there is only a german bank
>  >> account possible (if we have elected a new Treasurer) and the
>  >> membership fee is EUR 128,-/year for Full membership. This amount can
>  >> be payed at Linuxtag in person (because of high transfer costs from
>  >> foreign countrys) ...
>  >
>  > AFAIR the Fedora EMEA NPO was founded to make it easier for us TO RAISE
>  > money for Fedora and not TO SPEND it. Or did I get something
>  > completely wrong here?
>  >
>  > IMHO 128 € is way to much especially for those of us who are not from
>  > the wealthy countries of Europe. I think once again the European
>  > Ambassadors/Founding members of EMEA did not take the situation of all
>  > ambassadors into account. Remember, the letters "ME" in EMEA mean
>  > "Middle East" and "A" is for Africa. Has anybody really thought about
>  > the people there?
>  >
>  > Could someone also please point out what the difference between the
>  > different membership grades is (full membership, family membership and
>  > so on)? According to the declaration of accession to Fedora EMEA the
>  > cost-reduced membership requires "a confirmation accepted in the Federal
>  > Republic of Germany." What does that mean?
>  >
>  > Next question: What do I get for my membership? If I read Jörg Simons
>  > mail of March 24th 2008 correctly, members are getting a "one-off and
>  > exclusive" welcome present, whatever this means. Must be a hell of a
>  > present though... ;)
>  >
>  > Also EMEA members are allowed to vote what to do the raised money. Of
>  > course
>  > understand this but I'm afraid we are going to divide the ambassadors
>  > program into first and second class ambassadors: Those who (can afford
>  > to) pay and therefore have more rights and those who don't.
>  >
>  > Sorry, but this scares me off
>  > Christoph


Hi,

Fedora EMEA is a resources bridge and a tool that allow people around
EMEA to work together without any limitation. I think to understand
the reason of this fee we have to go right back, starting with the
first FAD: there we understood that we need a unified EMEA
infrastructure that could provide reasonable tools to spread the
fedora voice, it couldn't be possible to work and to join
big/medium/small events without a local management that could provide
fastly monetary and physically resources without waiting the long and
impossible times that we had before.

Fedora EMEA is a no-profit organization, it doesn't produce real
profits, it could live with the founds that came from sponsors (there
aren't a lot of those ones) and members.

Tell me if 10€ could be a reasonable fee: the maximum money we could
rise with 100 members would be 1000: i can assure this money couldn't
cover the expense of a medium event with 3 ambassadors (with  the
connected costs), 100 CDs and a bunch of tshirts.

Fedora EMEA membership is not a requrement to ask for resources and
help, Fedora EMEA want to be a hand for fedora contrbutors and its
membership is another way to contribute to help EMEA people spread
fedora.

I think many people understand this and, personally, i could see it at
FOSDEM and probably you will see it in the next LinuxTAG. If you want
to contribute to this Organization you could do this, if you won't,
don't worry, nothing will happen. As Gerold says Fedora EMEA is not
part of ambassador project: if you will need resources you could ask,
without any problems, one of the aim of fedora EMEA is this.

I haven't the link but i encourage everyone to read the "Fedora EMEA
statute", you will find all the reason behind Fedora EMEA and a reason
for such fee.

Regards

Francesco Ugolini