<p>Knowing how tight money is in many PPs, even a sum of 100 euros or even 50 euros per year could turn out to be problematic unless it's a payment coming directly from an active member. While that amount of money would in reality be easy to get, collecting it from members or marking it to party budgets can be something that creates so much social hassle over "where is our money spent" that this can be somewhat of a dangerous move. :/</p>
<p>Then again, starting sufficiently small amounts like a solid 20 € per party could give PPI some hundreds that really in organising stuff, but the smallest pirate parties will have a problem even with this. I don't know how easily money is thrown around in big parties like PPDE or PPSE but a voluntary payment, unlike with thousands of human members, could also turn out to be not working that well with parties that try to keep all expenses to minimum. So, aside perhaps from some big parties and individual pirates, I don't see PPI being funded properly with a mandatory membership fee.</p>
<p>Maybe we should run a survey first? Just a short questionnaire to be sent to national party boards.</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">Den 2 mar 2012 18:12 skrev "Justus Römeth" <<a href="mailto:roemeth@gmail.com">roemeth@gmail.com</a>>:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Dear Pirates<div><br></div><div>Today we were aware of the Budget of the federal German pirate party for 2012 (1). Under the point 'Piraten Partei International (sic, should be Parteien) you can see that, additionally to the 5000 € for support organizing international events (and the 3000 € to support German delegations in travelling costs) there are 12 000€ set aside to pay for membership fees. There were some discussions about that with some members of PPI and the PPDE treasurer, and PPI can only benefit from this money if it decides to organize member fees for all members.</div>
<div><br></div><div>So far PPI has always decided not to ask for member fees. Expect, however, that there should be at least a short discussion on this topic, as the lack of funds does hamper PPI's development. We are aware of the fact that for newly formed parties, parties that don't have members but just sympathizers, parties that don't ask a member fee or parties that don't have members because it could harm the members to be associated with the party this can be hampering. However, as far as this money for 2012 is concerned, a membership fee is the only way for PPI to get more money than the amount for event planning from PPDE. Since Sweden is not a member of PPI (yet) the amount for most pirate parties involved would be relatively modest (PPDE suggested 0.50 € per member per year, but it really is just a suggestion).</div>
<div><br></div><div><div>Of course this also concerns the question in how far observer members should be concerned by this (should a young pirate from Bavaria pay PPI thrice, via PPDE, PPBY and YPDE's fees?)</div></div>
<div><br>The budget for PPI would probably mainly be for the running of infrastructure, and for helping delegates from places that are further away to travel to PPI GAs, as well as the organization of the yearly GAs (and possibly other events). The final decision on a budget (or how much leeway the board would have concerning budget) would rest solely with the PPI GA, of course.</div>
<div><br></div><div>In case the GA is against this: Another idea (by me and me alone) is that PPEU could have the financial setup that PPDE wants concerning member fees, and then in turn help PPI out where necessary, as to not put off members from committing to PPI. This would be impossible to achieve for 2012 obviously, but should be kept in mind for the upcoming discussions on PPEU.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Please speak to the rest of your party about this topic before the GA in Prague in 6 weeks and try to find a consensus within your party, so the delegates can represent their parties adequately. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Kind regards</div><div><br></div><div>-J</div><div>(Simple member PPDE, taking tasks off the PPI board's shoulders ;-) )</div><div><br></div><div>1=<a href="http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/wiki/images/1/1b/Bund_Budget_2012_Stand_20120301.pdf" target="_blank">http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/wiki/images/1/1b/Bund_Budget_2012_Stand_20120301.pdf</a></div>
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