Sustaining Membership Dues Update

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Paul Bracco

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Dec 14, 2022, 10:30:39 PM12/14/22
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Colleagues,

This proposal is deceptively simple, a simple increase of dues from $25 to $50. If the committee would like to postpone the discussion of and voting on this item in order to compare it to Mr. Moellman's inflation indexing proposal that is fine with me.

Sincerely,
Paul Bracco
002 - Sustaining Membership Dues Update.docx

Secretary LNC

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Dec 14, 2022, 10:34:41 PM12/14/22
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Mr. Moellman can propose a different motion as a substitute so no worries there.

I'll add this to our rolling agenda.

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In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos
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Secretary LNC

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Dec 16, 2022, 12:54:34 PM12/16/22
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Slightly modified form, nothing substantive, just standardizing the form.

___________________________________________________
In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos
LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

Proposal B - Sustaining Membership Dues Update.docx

Sylvia Arrowwood

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Dec 18, 2022, 11:52:34 AM12/18/22
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Whatever it turns out to be, if any amount, should be a round number.
Makes accounting and life easier.  Can't argue with that!

From: "Secretary LNC" <secr...@lp.org>
To: "bylaws-committee-2024" <bylaws-com...@lp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2022 10:34:29 PM
Subject: Re: BYLAWS-COMMITTEE Sustaining Membership Dues Update

Dean Rodgers

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Dec 18, 2022, 4:32:05 PM12/18/22
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I am of the view that joining the party should be as inexpensive and simple as possible.  The $25 serves as a sufficient threshold that someone is serious about dipping their toe into more involvement.  The party should not be treated as an exclusive club but as a movement to encourage.  If the LP needs more funding it should achieve that through recruiting, not on raising its cost to join.

 

From: Sylvia Arrowwood
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2022 11:52 AM
To: bylaws-committee-2024
Subject: Re: BYLAWS-COMMITTEE Sustaining Membership Dues Update

 

Whatever it turns out to be, if any amount, should be a round number.

Makes accounting and life easier.  Can't argue with that!

 

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Sylvia Arrowwood

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Dec 18, 2022, 7:57:36 PM12/18/22
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IMO if we decide to up the ante for National membership dues, it
should be a small amount, maybe $5.  $5 times all of our members
amounts to quite a bit and probably would not cause someone to
back off. 

When I renewed last month Mr. Kraus asked could I see my way
to up my membership and I chose to up it by $35 equaling a total
of $60.  This request put no pressure on me at all and was a friendly
ask. It was just a kind of "could you see fit to up the amount a tad?" 
Am thinking that perhaps other members will follow suit and up their
total due by what they can at the time. If the membership dues are
too high -- and to double might be asking too much -- the amount 
they chose to up by could be reduced.  It certainly would have in
my situation.

From: "Dean Rodgers" <deancr...@hotmail.com>
To: "bylaws-committee-2024" <bylaws-com...@lp.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2022 4:32:02 PM
Subject: RE: BYLAWS-COMMITTEE Sustaining Membership Dues Update

Paul Bracco

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Dec 23, 2022, 12:12:51 PM12/23/22
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I view this proposal as a negotiation between the party and membership. While I fully expect the $50 number to see proposals to amend it downwards, either in this committee or on the convention floor, I wanted to put a high number out there to start with knowing that the only amendments offered would be amendments to decrease the proposed number no matter what the initial proposal was.

I'll leave it to everyone else to decide if the proposal should be left as-is, allowing the delegates flexibility to decide where in the range of $25-50 they think the dues should be set but also using valuable convention floor time, or if we should amend this proposal to lower the increase in dues to try to save time on the convention floor. I'd be of the opinion that we should leave this as is for now and wait for the results of the membership poll, amending the number downwards in committee if the poll results indicate the proposal would fail at the $50 level but pass at a lower number.

Paul Bracco

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ken.mo...@lpky.org

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Dec 23, 2022, 5:52:05 PM12/23/22
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Ronr suggests that starting with a higher amount is the right way, and then people can move to amend it down. It is arguably out of order to try to amend dues upward if notice has been given of an amount. But our rules also don't require notice so that may not apply.

Ken

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/lp.org/d/msgid/bylaws-committee-2024/qhIdRdfiukJGC9U-LsGofhon_f3854OCoSDY4rYOiTxtLA58LDpvyin9Sj09dFMvhQ3oSZWti5PGbaR10dAEpvL_w5j21Aj64QCXnm4Y_2s%3D%40protonmail.com.

Secretary LNC

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Dec 23, 2022, 6:02:50 PM12/23/22
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Mr. Moellman, that is an interesting question that I am going to discuss with some parliamentarians.  Normally, you are correct, amending up would be out of order, but also there is no notice requirement.  HOWEVER, the Bylaws committee report enjoys a certainly automatic privilege and amending up could be argued to be beyond the scope and violating the "privilege" of the bylaws committee report.  I think it would be allowable to amend up but would feel unorthodox - but I am going to ask some advanced parliamentarians for advice here.

___________________________________________________
In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos
LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/lp.org/d/msgid/bylaws-committee-2024/1ef0fb39-a6d6-49ec-8f0f-1516c13a4294%40email.android.com.

Secretary LNC

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Dec 24, 2022, 11:08:53 AM12/24/22
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I check with both Mr. Brown and JJ, and they think an amendment up would be permitted, though Mr. Brown had the same gut feeling I did that if the bylaws committee proposals were distributed in advance, it is not quite as a clear as a member might skip that session if they were comfortable with the scope of the proposals, but likely still permitted.

We need to get some notice requirements in the bylaws to protect everyone.

___________________________________________________
In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos
LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

Sylvia Arrowwood

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Dec 24, 2022, 1:49:14 PM12/24/22
to bylaws-committee-2024
MENDMENT 

Secretary LNC

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Dec 24, 2022, 2:03:30 PM12/24/22
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I think you hit send too early Ms Arrowwood 

On Sat, Dec 24, 2022 at 11:49 AM Sylvia Arrowwood <sarro...@homesc.com> wrote:
MENDMENT 

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Sylvia Arrowwood

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Dec 24, 2022, 2:41:11 PM12/24/22
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Sure did.

From: "Secretary LNC" <secr...@lp.org>
To: "bylaws-committee-2024" <bylaws-com...@lp.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2022 2:03:18 PM

Subject: Re: BYLAWS-COMMITTEE Sustaining Membership Dues Update

Ken Moellman

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Dec 26, 2022, 4:06:38 AM12/26/22
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My inflation-indexed proposal avoid having this fight, but since most people active today haven't lived through this fight they won't really understand it. I don't plan to bring forth the inflation-adjusted proposal; a future committee can do that after we have this fight and everyone understands why it's better to have it indexed instead. :)  Such a proposal would have seen dues increase to (probably) either $35, $40, $70, or $80 depending on the base amount (either $5 or $10 in July 1971 dollars) and whether it was rounded up or down to the nearest $5. 

However, I would like to suggest we amend the proposal to $60 per year, which is $5/mo, and therefore encourage $5/mo, so that we have a more regular flow of income into the party.  As noted, we can always come down, but I think $5/mo is pretty reasonable. 

---
Ken C. Moellman, Jr.
Executive Director
Libertarian Party of Kentucky

Paul Bracco

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Dec 26, 2022, 10:37:17 AM12/26/22
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Under the current rules, when would someone who has never paid dues before become a member if they were to sign the pledge and begin a $5 donation today?
  • They would become a member after their fifth donation. (this is what I suspect)
  • They would become a member after their first donation.
  • They would become a member at some other time.

If what I suspect is true, I think if we want to encourage people to donate $5 per month rather than $60 per year we'd need to include language that would make them members earlier than one year in.

Paul Bracco

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