Late last year there was a debate on the List concerning the need to reform ICOM, inspired by the message sent out by ICOM Reform Task Force's chairperson Bernice Murphy. The debate roused some critique of ICOM's present way of functioning, a critique that I would characterise mostly as impulsive, since the critique was not - with honourable exceptions - followed up with constructive suggestions. Still, impulsive critique comes from the heart, and should be listened to. There are lots of issues that need to be debated and I feel uncertain about how to proceed. Last year I sent out questions and alternatives, rather than my own opinions. This time I feel tempted to present my own opinions as of now plus points that I think should be considered as a more or less complete picture, but fear that an eventual debate will then concentrate on a few, popular issues, leaving many important points not debated. Nevertheless, I'll try this approach and see what happens. I discuss the following issues: ICOM and personal economies. Meetings of the Advisory and Executive National committees Membership Membership benefits Membership and benefits for institutions Membership in international committees ICOM's Triennial General Conferences and participation fees ICOM Economy: can money be saved through more use of electronic media? ICOM Economy: can money be earned through advertisements in ICOM News? ICOM and personal economies. There were a lot of complaints on the List last year about how much of one's private funds that has to be used in order to take up office in ICOM. This is regrettably true, but in my opinion there is no way ICOM can subsidise office holders in general. ICOM's economy is dependent on what you and I and other members are paying into the organisation. If we pay more we get more, but we'd have to pay a lot more should we subsidise office holders. Ironically, the large number of passive ICOM members is subsidising the ones that are active in the international committees. A higher percentage of active members would result in the resources being more thinly spread. A point to consider would be to create a foundation for office holders from poor countries (or use and strengthen the existing ICOM foundation for this purpose). Such a foundation would probably inevitably depend on the increased payment of ICOM members from wealthier countries. The way to solve the problem of the strains on our personal economies is to try to get money from our institutions, be inventive in applying for grants and/or get some from our national ICOM committees. This is what we all have been doing and will continue to do. But through strengthening the national committees, we have a better chance of succeeding. More about this under National committees. Meetings of the Advisory and Executive It has been suggested that e-mail contacts may make it less necessary to meet that often (Advisory once a year, Executive twice). I think it is necessary to meet face-to-face once a year, but the meetings could be far more effective if the issues that were to be discussed and decided upon could be pre-discussed in the e-mail-list for members of the Advisory and Executive. In order to do this; the papers must be distributed early enough to make a pre-discussion possible. The advantage of having all Advisory and most Executive meetings between general conferences in Paris is that it is close to the ICOM administration and we have easy and well-established access to the UNESCO auditoriums. However, the routine of having meetings in Paris gives an extreme advantage to the European members and creates a situation where representatives from the wealthiest countries have the cheapest access to the meetings. A point to be considered could be to have the Advisory/Executive meetings in other venues than Paris, making transport costs more evenly distributed for representatives from other parts of the world. Say rotating meetings between Paris, Mexico City, Sydney and Nairobi (they all have in common that they are important air traffic centres in their part of the world). The European representatives might find the consequences for their private economies of carrying through this proposal absolutely impossible, but such an "impossible" situation is now normal for our colleagues from other parts of the world. The pros and cons of such a proposal should however be carefully considered: we may find out that flying to Paris from the other end of the world is just as cheap as flying to Nairobi, etc. Distance is not necessarily what weighs most in the price of air transport. And the cost of moving the ICOM administration ... National committees I do not think ICOM should subsidise national committees. National committees can be strengthened economically by being allowed to charge more than the 10% above what is sent to ICOM in Paris. However, the best way to strengthen a national committee is by establishing a close relationship with the national museum organisation. A close relationship may increase the legitimacy of international museum work and may open for grants from the ministry of culture or other national institutions. The situation today is that in some countries, the national ICOM committee and the national museum organisation is one and the same, in others the relation is very close (for instance by having a shared secretariat). In others again there seem to be no or very little connection between the national ICOM committee and the national museum organisation. In my opinion, this latter situation is both unfortunate and not functional. In such cases I think ICOM should remind the national committees in question about article 14, pt. 15 in the statutes, and stress the positive potential a close connection with the national museum organisation has. Membership From time to time one is (very unofficially) told that some national committees are extremely restrictive in granting ICOM membership to their museum professionals. This being the case or not, it should be made clear that a national ICOM committee cannot deny a museum professional who fulfils the criteria in the ICOM statutes (article 6 and 2, pt. 2) membership in ICOM. Co-operation with the national museum organisation may help prevent unconstitutional denial of membership, but it should also be possible for ICOM centrally to react if such practices are found. A point to consider is to allow for collective membership in ICOM for all members of a national committee. Such collective membership could be a result of negotiations with each national museum organisation wanting such an arrangement. This may increase the number of ICOM members dramatically, but not increase to the same extent the income from membership fees, since a discount is inherent in arrangements of this character. On the other hand, the higher the number of members, the less expenses pr. member. The advantage would be that ICOM through this could get rid of some of the geographical bias of membership distribution; the membership benefits will be more universally respected (and may be extended); and it may create new income possibilities for ICOM from commercial sources (more on this under Membership benefits and under ICOM economy). Membership benefits It is generally acknowledged that the ICOM-card giving free access to museums may be the main reason for membership for perhaps a majority of the ICOM members. This may partly explain why ICOM have relatively few members in the USA, which is almost a continent in itself and the membership benefits of the national organisation are just as good as ICOM's. And it may partly explain why ICOM have many members in Europe, which have many separate countries and there is a lot of travel between the countries. For the same reason, an eventual EU-based museum organisation coming up with the same benefits as ICOM may possibly in the long run reduce the number of ICOM members in Europe. I think ICOM has a potential for extending the membership benefits, achievable partly through making ICOM a more truly global organisation where membership benefits are respected everywhere (which is not at all the case now) through closer co-operation with the national museum organisations, and partly by increasing the number of ICOM members to such an extent that co-operation with ICOM becomes interesting for international media, carriers, hotel chains, etc, etc, etc. As of now, ICOM is too small and too limited: for instance any automobile drivers' organisation in one country has far more members than ICOM has world wide. To carry the comparison further: automobile drivers' organisations have lots of membership benefits of special relevance to drivers. The challenge would be to identify and find partners for benefits of special relevance to museums and museum professionals. Membership and benefits for institutions Given the cost for institutional membership and only three ICOM-cards as benefit, it is surprising that ICOM has institutional members at all. But I assume the institutional memberships are based on the attitude that ICOM should be supported and a feeling of solidarity with the museum world at large. Which is a truly recommendable attitude. Lower the fee and/or give more cards, would seem to be the obvious solution for attracting more institutional members. Personally, I fear that giving out more cards may make it less relevant for museum professionals to become personal members. The result could be large numbers of de-personalised memberships under the control of museum directors, which again could affect negatively the personal engagement in ICOM's activities and hamper the free exchange between all kinds of museum professionals. Lowering the fee is a much better solution combined with trying to develop membership benefits of special interest for institutional members. Membership in international committees Some years ago a representative in the Advisory suggested that all members of ICOM could choose two international committees and be voting member in both. I think this proposal is sensible because it is much, much simpler than the present system with voting and non-voting members. It is simpler for the secretariat, simpler for many members who no longer can remember which of the three committees they are voting member in and maybe it forms a more just basis for the distribution of money from ICOM. Of course, changing from the present system to a new one is costly in terms of labour at least. But it could be combined with a campaign aimed at 1) receiving members' e-mail addresses (see below on ICOM Economy: can money be saved...") and 2) reselecting international committees. Additionally, the forms on which one applies for membership should contain selection of international committees in one and the same form, and not on two separate forms, like now. Thus the applicant sees the selection of international committees as a matter of course. ICOMs Triennial General Conferences and participation fees In some of the debate on this List last year, it was argued that the participants of the conference should pay the real costs of arranging a General Conference and that it was wrong to use that much money for subsidising participants rather than using the money more generally in ICOM's other activities. With this I disagree for the following reasons: Firstly, the funding obtained and used for General Conferences are earmarked for that purpose and has been raised within the host country. It cannot be used by ICOM for other purposes. Secondly: without subsidising, the General Conferences would be too expensive for each participant. It may be added that grants for participants from poor countries are already a regular part of the budget of General Conferences. ICOM Economy: can money be saved through more use of electronic media? Several of the international committees are either now sending out their newsletter through e-mail to those that have access to this service, or are contemplating to do so. In this there are large sums to be saved, in fact most of the money allocated to the int. committees from ICOM are used for postage. I believe that - no matter which policy ICOM chooses to follow - ICOM should as soon as possible launch a campaign towards all its members with the aim of collecting e-mail addresses. Not a feeble campaign that few responds to, but an easy-to-answer-on-the-front-page-of-ICOM News campaign (and at the same time members should be asked to anew indicate which international committees they would like to be members of). I am sure ICOM can save very large sums by publishing ICOM News on the Internet and sending it in a paper version only to those without Internet connection. To those with Internet connection, a message should be sent telling us that the latest issue are now to be found on this-and-that Internet address. The objection to this is that fewer would read an electronic version of ICOM News than the paper one. This is true at first, but not necessarily in the long run, when this way of publishing becomes common. It is a matter of habit and changes in habit sometimes comes fast these days. Likewise, the heavy piles of papers for the Advisory and Executive should be distributed electronically to all that can receive it, just asking for a confirmation that the "papers" have been received. I find it odd that ICOM still asks us to confirm participation or apply for this and that by mail or fax, instead of urging us to answer by e-mail. ICOM Economy: can money be earned through advertisements in ICOM News? Even with the current number of members, one would think ICOM News was attractive for advertisements. With a strongly increased number of members, advertisements could make ICOM News an income earner, even in a paper version. I do not think advertisements in any case will make ICOM rich, but it may pay part or all of the expenses connected to ICOM News. Well, that's it so far. I would like to come back separately to the question of international committees (The Core Question in my opinion) and to questions on the composition of the Advisory, the Executive and committees appointed to investigate special issues. Any comments? Remember: Proposals for the reform of ICOM is under way through the Reform Task Force. This is our chance to bring good suggestions and points to consider and positively influence the process. Per B. Rekdal Chairperson ICME - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Change ICOM-L subscription options and search the archives at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/icom-l.html