As a member of the International Comm. Task Force, I will try to abstain 
from going into a debate on the List, but rather try to ask further questions.

As we know, any desired solution to a problem always have "side effects".
A good example: We may think that if all members of ICOM became members in 
an international committee, then all the committees would get more money 
because the annual subvention is based on the number of members.
Side effect 1: Since the sum available for distribution is constant, no 
committee would necessarily get more money, but less money for each member.
Side effect 2: The committees will have to spend more money because they 
have to communicate with more members.
Result: If all members of ICOM became members in an IC, each IC would get 
poorer.
Wisdom: All organizations are dependent on a proportion of members that are 
satisfied with the most basic advantage of membership (like the ICOM card), 
so that the organization can use more money on the active members than the 
passive members.

I think we should try to see the proposals in the same light: what are the 
benefits and what are the negative "side effects"? For example:

If all ICs became AOs the benefit would be:
- becoming a legal entity
- taking your own membership fees and keeping them
- recruiting members from outside ICOM
- freedom from ICOM's different rules and regulations

Side effects:
- time consuming and costly to keep your own record of members
- loosing many members because they do not want to pay both ICOM fee and 
IC-fee (this can of course be seen as an advantage, because it will be the 
passive ones that disappear)
- making it less relevant to be an ICOM member.
- making it less relevant to have National committees
- changing the role of the Secretariat of ICOM rather dramatically
- weakening the economy of ICOM

Now, I put these advantages and disadvantages in a bit provocative manner, 
and it definitely seems that I am against turning the ICs into AOs. But the 
truth is that I am not sure, and I would really like to hear good and well 
balanced arguments in both directions. So what would you say, Jørgen, 
Giovanni, Patrick, Leonard, Lynn and others, would be a good list of 
advantages and disadvantages?

What do you chairpersons of the different ICs say? Would you like to have a 
merge of ICs and AOs?

Another thing: There has been a lot of noise lately around the (not so) 
legal status of the ICs. The annual subventions to the ICs - even to the 
largest ones - are so small that they cannot possibly create any enormous 
danger of putting the leaders of ICOM into an embarrassing position if one 
or three of these committees do something wrong with this money. And the 
conferences of the ICs are as far as I know almost always arranged together 
with an institution of solid legal status in the country where the 
conference is held, so that conference fees, etc, can be handled through 
this institution.
My question is: is the question of the non-legality of the ICs so acutely 
critical that this question should be the primary one to guide our thinking 
on the future of ICOM?

Per B. Rekdal
Chairperson ICME







Per B. Rekdal
Seksjonsleder/Head of Department
Utstillings- og publikumsseksjonen /
Exhibitions, Education and Public Services
Universitetets kulturhistoriske museer /
The University Museums of Cultural Heritage
P.O.Box 6762 St. Olavs pl.
N-0130 Oslo, Norway
Tel. (-47) 22 85 99 64
Fax (-47) 22 85 99 60
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
www.ukm.uio.no

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