[Sigcabinet] draft of proposed funding change for SIGs

[Chris Landbeck]

I find that Proposal 1a makes the most sense. Most of the ASIS&T
members I talk to belong to more than one SIG already, and I would
think that the ability to join more of them for a lower price would
indeed encourage membership (if not actual participation) in more SIGs
by more members.

The last two points -- about per-member allocation and General Fund
usage -- are a little less clear. To my way of thinking, we may want
to consider pooling all of the SIG funds and not funding individual
SIGs at all. This is not to say that they shouldn't get money to spend
on appropriate activities; far from it, they should be able to engage
in any reasonable activity that will increase membership,
participation, or both. But the way we are managing the money now
makes little sense.

I like the idea of setting a "spend-by" date for all SIG funds, kind
of like a "sell-by" date for bread or milk before it vanishes from the
shelf. But to me, that money should be held in the SIG Project and
Reserve Fund, or in some similar central holding account, from which
regular expenditures would be made. In this scenario, SIGs would not
be allowed to retain half of their unspent funds for themselves each
year, but the central fund would be able to do this before returning
half the funds to ASIS&T. The costs of requests would be considered
with an eye toward how many members are in the SIG, with the current
$2-per-member allocation as a guideline for what is and isn't
appropriate. For those requests within the old standard, approval
would be all but automatic and easily taken care of; for those beyond
it, several steps would be removed from the approval process for extra
funds. Further, special events that are multi-SIG in nature, like the
New Member's Breakfast, would be allowed to draw from this fund, after
the "spend-by" date has passed and a clear picture of what is left
over can be seen.

By no means am I married to this idea; I can (I think) be made to see
the light of reason in these matters. But from what I know and see and
her, funding the individual SIGs as we have been adds to the time it
takes to get funds, and is a drain on the finances of ASIS&T in
general. If we can fix these things, we should do so.


Chris Landbeck
Chair, SIGVIS






On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 4:18 PM, KT Vaughan<ktlv at email.unc.edu> wrote:
> Hi all -
> I'm about to run out the door for a conference in Boston, but wanted to
> share this with you.  Thanks to Shelly for writing the first draft - this is
> my second one (I ran out of steam towards the end!).  Please take a look and
> share comments, etc.  Be aware that the Board has not seen this yet - but we
> have a meeting at the end of the month and I'd like to at least report on
> our progress to date.
>
> Lots more updates for you - but not right now!
>
> KT
>
> --
> KTL Vaughan, MSLS, AHIP
> Pharmacy Librarian
> UNC-CH Health Sciences Library
>
> Clinical Associate Professor of Pharmacy
> UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy
>
> CB 7585
> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
> Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7585
> Phone: 919 966 8011
> Fax: 919 966 5592
> Email: ktlv at email.unc.edu
>
>
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