New members for a new ICA ?

The Executive Board got together on November 17^th to discuss ICA membership; its structure, its fees, and its advantages.

The place for members in the Branches
Two Branches wish to modify their constitution and change the members place. SARBICA wants to extend membership to the Branch to non ICA members. PARBICA would like to allow ICA category C members to be considered as category A or B within the Branch, which would allow full participation to the Branch activities, in particular to French territories.  These approaches, both motivated by pragmatism, would introduce an interesting flexibility into the current membership structure. But their articulation with the ICA constitution and their consequences for the organization must be fully analyzed before the Executive Board takes into consideration the corresponding motions.

Develop new memberships ?
ICA is at present composed mostly of institutions and organizations: 224  category A members (National Archives), 66 category B members (Professional Associations), 879 category C members  (Institutional Members), and 211 category D members  (individuals).  Developing individual membership can be an important tool for developing ICA and give it a different orientation, but is quite expensive for the organization.
Creating a membership category for students is one of the ideas to promote a « Young professionals » programme. It would be a good way to encourage them to participate to ICA events and to commit to investing in the organization.

Creating a commercial membership category is also being considered. It’d enable private corporations to participate in ICA projects, to use its standards, etc. It could be an interesting source of funding for ICA, but it’s essential that the framework of such participation is clearly defined.
A specific working group will explore possible evolutions in membership and answer the questions these changes would raise.

The importance of being a member
The place of members in ICA and the advantages that come with membership must be highlighted in current discussions about the budget and funding of ICA.  The new web site is an example of a public resource  that gives a taste of what ICA can do and provide.  But some of the products and resources on line may be accessible only to members.  As for the projects supported by the Programme Commission, one doesn’t need to be a memeber to get funding, which is true for all iniatives that can further the ICA’s goals. But from now on, projects will have to have at least one partner which is an ICA member.