A new momentum !
Dear fellow Shintaido Instructors,
Greetings! We hope this message finds you well since our last message to you on 24 April 2018 in which we gave you a brief report on the activities of the International Shintaido Project (ISP), including its Board and ITEC (International Technical and Examination Committee), and sent you material to help you decide on becoming a member of the new ISP. These documents are attached.
One of our most important tasks now is to guide and strengthen the organization financially. And so, we feel it is time to resume formal membership and payment of dues, so that together we can accomplish all our goals and wishes, and exist to do so for years to come.
We would like you to know that the old ISC, registered in California, is in process of putting its tax affairs in order ahead of its dissolution as a legal entity. This process, led by Connie Borden, will take time and cost tax payments and legal fees. So all funds which were held by the ISC are currently blocked until everything is resolved.
This means that financially the ISP starts from nothing, but we are confident that we can restore, with your help, our ability to fund the activities we have agreed and the mission of our organization.
And so it is the proper time to resume payment of dues as part of our system for membership. In 2016 many members chose to withhold payment of their dues, personally or through their local organisation. However, despite this interruption of revenue, ISC activities continued, costs were covered, bills were paid. The ISC continued serving all its members, whether they paid dues or not. We may even say that the ISC’s administrative committees (including it’s Board and committees for bylaws, keiko/curriculum, exams, and events) were never so active as during these last two years.
This is how our organisation is today able to present itself with renewed energy and enthusiasm. Even now, we are developing curriculum and planning international meetings and events for 2018 and 2020. Indeed, as a practitioner and instructor of Shintaido, these benefits come to you through the ISP whether you are a member or not. And now, to be a paying member would bring you even more benefits, while also allowing you the satisfaction of fully participating in this work.
We have summarized these benefits under the document named “Eight Reasons to Be a Member of the ISP” which you will find at the end of this letter. Please read them, together with the New Bylaws if necessary, or a Summary of the Bylaws, and decide whether you are ready to resume your participation by paying your 2018 dues.
The 2018 dues have been set at 50€. This is close to the 60 USD amount maintained by the ISC for years. At our next GMM (General Membership Meeting), we all will decide whether this 50€ amount should be changed or not, taking into account an Income-and-Expense budget that will also be submitted for approval, as needed to fund ISP activities.
Unpaid dues will not be required at any future date, including when registering for a gasshuku or international exam.
However, we would like to suggest that, if you are able, you donate a sum equivalent to the amount of your dues unpaid over the last two years. You may consider this as a gift to the ISP in recognition of the important work and expenses incurred during this hiatus. That would mean that if your dues were not paid during this period, you would donate 100€ in addition to your 2018 dues payment. Of course, you are free to donate any amount you wish, more or less, or even not at all. Again, whether you donate or not will have no effect on your standing or status as an ISP member.
And whether you choose to donate or not, the most important thing is that you join us as a member of the ISP. Your participation will be of great help to cover expenses engaged during recent difficult times, it will help ISP to fund new activities without delay, and it will give us the strength of numbers we need to do the work ahead.
Below you will find an explanation of modalities for paying dues and donations. We ask that you make payment within 30 days -- by 15 July -- to allow the Board and ITEC to begin planning with a true sense of our resources and how to budget for the work immediately ahead.
We look forward to your support and input!
Yours truly,
The ISC Board:
Jean-Louis de Gandt, Soichiro Iida, Lee Ordeman, Pierre Paranque, Pierre Quettier
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