Cary:

You are right about the Euro - US$ conversion rate - sorry. However, the
main argument remains.  Paying the expenses of just the presidents of
international committees could easily cost $100,000 a year, which equates
to $7 or 7 Euros a head  across the whole of the ICOM membership.

I'm not advocating ICOM paying these expenses - it would be totally
unrealistic within any foreseeable budget for ICOM even to pay the expenses
of the ten members of the Executive Council, let alone of the 100+ members
of the Advisory Committee. I'm just responding to the considerable number
of demands in different places and media across ICOM over the past year or
two.

On your final point: I don't know of any international NGO like ICOM which
pays the travel etc. expenses of the honorary officers of its expert
committees or working groups.

However, equally I don't know of any comparable international NGO which is
an "open membership" organisation with many thousands of members.  My own
"other" UNESCO-linked NGOs - the International Union for the History of
Geology - INHIGEO and the International Union of Quaternary Science -
INQUA are each restricted to 5 or 6 members per country, each appointed
for a 3 year period by the national academy of science of each member
country, and in each case the national membership works out at something
close to US$/Euro 1,500 per voting member, but this is of course paid by
the national government organisation or agency, not by the named
individuals actually serving on the NGO.

Similarly, colleagues in my university department who serve on other
cultural UNESCO-based NGOs report typical worldwide memberships limited to
around 200 full members.

ICOM - and ICOMOS which was modelled very closely on it - seem to be just
about unique on two counts (1) their large individual memberships, and
(2) membership dues that otherwise comparable NGOs regard as almost
unbelievably low.

IFLA, for example, charges its national committees 0.1% of the country's
UNESCO dues assessment (around $12,000 - $15,000 for a country the size of
the UK or France) with a minimum of 750 Dutch guilders (around 340 Euros
or dollars), while its strictly non-voting "Personal Affiliates" (in
effect "observers" allowed only to attend conferences and receive
publications) pay a minimum of 200 guilders (around 90 Euros/dollars).

Again, I am NOT proposing any increase in ICOM's subscriptions: I am just
pointing out that ICOM is a totally different sort of animal, which has
retained the old principle that if you want to play and active part in the
organisation at the international level, you or a supporting institution,
organisation or government has to pay for this, not ICOM.


Patrick Boylan


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