Vocalist.org archive


From:  "Cynthia Donnell" <csdonnell@m...>
Date:  Thu Aug 31, 2000  2:46 am
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] more vocalist.org brainstorming

yes to both
 
Cindy Donnell
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@yahoo.com>
To: vocalist-temporary@egroups.com <vocalist-temporary@egroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, August 30, 2000 9:01 PM
Subject: [vocalist-temporary] more vocalist.org brainstorming


The current way of supporting Vocalist.org, through
voluntary contributions, involves people putting a
small amount ($10, 5 pounds, your current currency) in
an envelope (yes, cash), folding it up with a piece of
paper on which you scribble a loving note to Marko or
enclose a postcard for his collection, and send it off
to him.  His bank does not charge him very much to
show up with a handful of different currencies and
convert them into Finnish money when he deposits it in
the Vocalist account, and the amounts are not large
enough to warrent serious worry about mail theft (my
own mailings have never been lost, at least).  We
explored a bunch of options, and sending cash was the
easiest way in terms of avoiding huge
conversion/wiring bank fees.  So cash is how it works
now, without a problem.

We could go back to that old system -- in which Marko
sends out yearly or half-yearly "pledge break" emails
to the vocalisters, asking for contributions to
support the costs -- however, I get the impression
that, although most people have good intentions, only
a small fraction of the community actually sends
anything.  Thus, Marko ends up paying hundreds of
dollars in costs every year.

What if the process for getting your subscription
activated simply included sending *anything* to Marko
-- either a $5 or whatever your native banknote, or a
note saying "I'm a student/ I'm a minor/ I can't
manage the fee right now but would very much like to
be a part of the list"?  Those who could pay without
hardship would, and those who couldn't would not be
discriminated against (and it would be private, either
way).  Upon receipt of anything, one's subscription
would go through -- but the process of getting people
to put something in the mail would surely boost the
percentage of financial supporters. 

The purpose of a donation is NOT to chase students and
struggling singers off the list, but to provide a more
concrete opportunity for the majority of listers to
donate, those to whom $5 a year is not a problem but
who never manage to get out a purely voluntary
contribution when the old system is in place.  If the
requirement for subscribing was simply "put something
in an envelope and send it to Finland," is that a
better solution?

Again, I'm not sure if Marko is up for this amount of
work -- it means more mail for him, which he opens and
then he manually subscribes the sender to the list.

However, egroups is getting more annoying by the day
(notice these lovely ads on top), and other "free"
commercial sites are just as bad.  At the very least,
let's go back to the old way and get the list going
again, with perhaps more frequent pleadings for
contributions.  Are we agreed on that point? 

Everybody give a vote -- yes or no, move back to the
vocalist.org list; and then yes or no, have a mailing
process for subscribing.

Isabelle B.

=====
Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@yahoo.com




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  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
3801 Re: more vocalist.org brainstorming Lisa Miller   Thu  8/31/2000   12 KB

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