Change names of Resonate's membership classes

I’m bringing this Special Resolution to the upcoming General Meeting.

To change the names of Resonate’s membership/shareholder classes:

  • to change “Fan” to “Listener-Member”
  • to change “Music-maker” to “Artist-Member”
  • to change “Collaborator” to “Worker-Member”
  • to change “Founder” to “Founder-Member”

To change names of respective share types:

  • to change “Fan Share” to “Listener Share”
  • to change “Music-Maker Share” to “Artist Share”
  • to change “Collaborator Share” to “Worker Share”
  • to keep “Founder Share” as “Founder Share”

Over my time at Resonate, the original names of the membership classes have led to confusion in communication. That the class names are generic terms such as “Collaborator” means that it was often vague what someone was referring to.

I have stopped using the original names out of necessity at this point. Too many misunderstandings. Changing these names will free up the generic words to be used naturally again. No more double meanings. You can be a listener, a fan, a collaborator, a worker, an artist – all the above – without those terms implying membership class.

The hyphen naming system seems to be more normal within the co-op ecosystem too, which has other benefits. When Directors are elected from the different classes, their titles can naturally follow the same system: “Worker-Director”, “Artist-Director”, etc. This will make these folks and their role more visible in the co-op; good for transparency.

Another benefit of this system is that capitalization and punctuation are less relevant. Whether you write “artist-member”, “artist member”, or “Artist-Member” – I’m confident the point will get across.

I’m seen very few members use the current names (perhaps a symptom of their unintuitiveness), thus I expect the change to be an easy one. We’ll have to update the Rulebook, website and some documents – but since there is already work being done in those areas, it’s an opportune time for the change.

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I’d go further. One membership class. :wink:

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A conversation worth having!

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At 🌎 Community Assembly 2 | October 16th, the following changes were supported:

To change the names of Resonate’s membership/shareholder classes:
to change “Fan” to “Listener-Member”
to change “Collaborator” to “Worker-Member”
to change “Founder” to “Founder-Member”

To change names of respective share types:
to change “Fan Share” to “Listener Share”
to change “Collaborator Share” to “Worker Share”
to keep “Founder Share” as “Founder Share”

However, the group was unsure about the changing “Music-maker” to “Artist-Member”. Discussion to continue here in the forum. “Music-Member” was proposed as another name.

I believe the proposal that was supported was:

To amend the Resonate Operating Manual to allow for membership/shareholder classes to be referred to as follows:

to refer to “Fan” as “Listener-Member”
to refer to “Collaborator” as “Worker-Member”
to refer to “Founder” as “Founder-Member”

to refer to the names of respective share types as follows:
to refer to “Fan Share” as “Listener Share”
to refer to “Collaborator Share” as “Worker Share”
to keep “Founder Share” as “Founder Share”

The intent was allow Coop members to use and commonly refer to these terms with clarity without having to take on the administrative burden of a change to the Rulebook (the coop’s company constitution on file with the Irish State).

That suggestion was offered as an improvement to my proposal, but I clarified that I thought it was a bit off-topic. My goal in raising the proposal was to hear folks’ thoughts on our current membership names and ideas for better names. I didn’t include the the operating manual idea in the written proposal which folks ended up supporting.

I’m hesitant to change the class names in the Handbook (operating manual) until we formally change them at a General Meeting. I’m concerned it may confuse as much as it clarifies – but open to discussing it more.

We could continue the discussion about changing names at the Handbook level in a Handbook Committee meeting (yet to be scheduled!), but first priority for me is just to hear folks’ opinions on the names.

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