[extropy-chat] MOTION: Harvey off the Board

[Harvey Newstrom]

On Sunday, June 6, 2004, at 10:32 pm, Emlyn ORegan wrote:

> Wait wait wait... where did this come from? Should I have been
> subscribed to the transhumanism list to see this particular storm
> exploding?

The WTA founders have been doing unethical things and hiding them from 
the members for a long time.  Things like selling members e-mail to 
spammers to make money, adding people to the membership rolls without 
their knowledge or permission, having secret agendas and methods not 
revealed to the members, etc.  The WTA founders have been ignoring 
board votes or doing things without the board's knowledge or 
permission.  The Oxford board meeting was one example where we were not 
allowed to vote on whether to hold the international meeting or not.  
The conference on Transhumanism and Spirituality is another example 
where the "leaders" went ahead despite board objections.  There also 
were complaints about inaccuracies and plagiarism in the "WTA FAQ" 
which the board was not allowed to address.  Basically, the "leaders" 
are not willing to cede their self-proclaimed control over to an 
elected board as their constitution directs.  They are now pushing for 
a new Executive Director position who can run WTA independently of the 
board with little or no oversight or control.  James wants to be 
Executive Director just as he has been chairman, treasurer, secretary, 
publications director, newsletter editor, and website master.  Despite 
the claim to have a democratically elected board, the founders of WTA 
still retain all control for themselves and hold virtually all offices 
by themselves.

The final straw was when James self-declared himself as Executive 
Director and said he wanted to start taking a $60,000 salary.  They 
intended to vote on this at the Oxford meeting, but forgot to include 
it in the list of votes at the end of the meeting.  When they returned, 
one board member resigned, and two others who did not attend the 
meeting were against the idea.  (Mostly because WTA doesn't take in 
$60,000, so we don't want James pocketing all our funds until we do 
so.)  It then became apparent that James might not have enough votes to 
be appointed ED.  Instead of allowing a vote, James, Giulio and Nick 
decided that the "intent" was to hire James, and that they considered 
it done without a formal vote.  They refused to allow any further votes 
on the issue.  They even abridged the official meeting minutes to add 
this non-existent vote, and sent this out to the membership.  When we 
pointed to the public archives for historical evidence, the board voted 
to shut down the public archives.  When we pointed to the wtaboard 
private archives for evidence, the original motion and minutes were 
deleted.  When we attempted to reveal these votes to the public, it was 
voted NOT to open board votes to the public in wtahall.  When we 
attempted to publish the original minutes, the board voted NOT to 
publish the original minutes, and to NOT amend them to the new minutes, 
and to just leave everything as it was.

Most of the board rather hide the truth to save face rather than tell 
the truth.  When a small minority of three board members started 
discussing this publicly, we were called liars and claimed their lies 
were the truth.  Our motions and seconds were ignored.  There were 
private discussions by the majority how to boot off the minority 
without appearing to kick them out.  There were specific plans 
discussed to try to get me to resign so it wouldn't look like they 
voted to remove me.  Finally, I was told I was removed and had my 
access to the wtaboard revoked.  Later, they denied this ever happened 
and made their motion that I had to resign or be removed.

Look for an announcement of a new election to replace three board 
members who have resigned since James took over as self-declared 
Executive Director.

--
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
<HarveyNewstrom.com>