Re: [adhoc] sterling-based accounting

Dear SC-members,

in one of the earlier messages John advises to give COCH-COSH a sixth seat in the SC.
At present, I find it problematic for the following three reasons:

1. As far as I remember (I am sorry, I am not in the position to look it up precisely now), we have been discussing the SC to consist of 4 (or, at most, 5) members. This quantitative extension of the SC has not been proposed or discussed earlier, neither drafted. Without further rounds of discussions we need to recommend the draft document in the form we have agreed upon.

2. John refers to "Canadian institutions" and "Canadian individuals" who have chosen (if they made a choice at all) ALLC or ACH. Accordingly, they should be counted as institutions or individuals with a preference for either ALLC or ACH as affiliation. Until a separate affiliation COCH-COSH is defined, there is no logical (or, procedural, deriving from our draft document) reason to create a membership for COCH-COSH in the SC.

3. Even if the procedural reason would exist (which is not yet the case), the figures for "Canadian" (not necessarily COCH-COSH) subscriptions is 15-20 times smaller than for ALLC or ACH. A seat for them on the SC at present would mean that their figures are 7-10 times "overvalued". In case membership on the SC is tighed to subscription figures (or, as Harold writes, income derived from such figures), a representation of the kind ALLC and ACH have would not be a balanced one.

I understand some noble motivations for the inclusion of COCH-COSH as a voting member in the SC, but, in addition to my objections above, I also agree with John that by doing so the representation of further organisations would still remain unsolved. Accordingly, we need a principled approach to the further extension of the (voting members of the) SC and this needs further considerations.

With best wishes,

Laszlo
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Received on Sat Jun 11 2005 - 17:06:02 EDT