[Osmf-talk] Chairperson's Report for the AGM

[Oleksiy Muzalyev]

On 10.12.16 00:50, Kate Chapman wrote:
>
>
> ... we both want to increase the membership.
>
Dear Kate and Christoph,

I would like to suggest an idea about increasing membership.

Why not introduce ten years membership for people who were an OSMF 
member for at least say three years? In some associations and 
foundations there is even a life time membership [1].

I would also suggest to issue ten years membership card in pure silver 
with a name of a member. There are companies which produce such metal 
membership cards [2]. The current price of Sterling Silver is $14.18 per 
Ounce (oz), or $0.5 Per Gram (g). Sterling silver is defined as 92.5% 
pure silver (that is why there is a tiny stamp "925").

One membership card from pure silver weighs 24 grams [3]. It means the 
price of the precious metal itself for one card is only $ 12.00. On this 
particular website a silver membership card costs really a lot, because 
it is plated with white gold and rodium. Such a plating is not necessary 
in our case.

It is possible to find a good silversmith who could produce such silver 
membership cards in good quality and with an acceptable production 
price, as the cards could be mass produced and the name & dates engraved 
by hand [4]. There are silversmiths associations in the UK, in the USA, 
Germany [5], etc., which promote specialists in this domain. And such a 
repetitive order would be a good professional opportunity for a silversmith.

A membership card in Sterling silver, a precious noble metal, will never 
be thrown away. It will be kept for good. Who knows, perhaps, in twenty 
or on fifty years it will be like with the first ICRC memberships, - 
books are written about those people. And such a membership card would 
be a good memory in itself that someone did a right thing in her/his 
time. The ten-years-silver-cards could be awarded at a conference.

If this idea is accepted someday in future, I think I personally would 
pay say £ 200.00 instead of £ 15.00 to get a ten years membership and an 
official silver membership card.

[1] https://www.iscb.org/iscb-membership/365
      http://www.wasbe.org/membership-info.php

[2] https://www.puremetalcards.com/product-category/precious-metal-cards/

[3] https://www.puremetalcards.com/cards/precious-metal-cards/silver-cards/

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpEnRKk6VIg

[5] http://www.contemporarybritishsilversmiths.org/
      http://www.silversmithing.com/
      http://zentralverband-goldschmiede.de/

With best regards,
Oleksiy
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