Dear RGCS Coordinators,
Thanks for being on board of this great RGCS adventure we started in 2014.
We have now 20 chapters in 16 countries and have organized more than 150 events around collaborative work practices, collaborative spacesand open science topics. What a trajectory for our small network!
We are now at a turning point and we feel it is becoming more and more important to define what it means to be a RGCS member and also to define a way to officialize this membership.
What does it mean being an RGCS member? Probably sharing our exploratory, collaborative, inclusive, reflexive, bricolage-based, commons-oriented values. Believing that knowledge is always an encounter. Also giving a visibility to an engagement inside the network and beyond, in the context of citizen and open sciences. As debated during the last General Assembly in Barcelona, we think it might also mean supporting the RGCS activities with a symbolic membership fee.
We will soon diffuse a broader email and communication to invite former participants to RGCS events to subscribe to a membership. This membership will be a three years membership.
All members will have an access to a specific newsletter for members. But, in the spirit of RGCS, it will not be related to a 'service'. It will be much more a contribution to a commons and an approach close to love-money.
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The money raised will help to:
- Give a visibility to our community and maintain its autonomy and independence;
- Fund general costs which are not financed yet: running costs of the website (upgrade), running costs of some transversal events (e.g.renting rooms), cost of the bank account itself;
- Finance two key projects: the symposium (e.g. having our own money to finance one keynote speaker) and the co-design of our common OWEE. A common costs something...
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As coordinators, you can also contribute and pay your membership. If you don't want/can't, we have decided anyway that all coordinators will be members of RGCS 'by default'. But do not hesitate if you want to contribute to our love money 🙂
Please, do your best to share the news inside your chapter.
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The membership fee will be of 20 euros.
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Collaboratively yours.
François, president of the RGCS