[extropy-chat] MOTION: Harvey off the Board

Natasha Vita-More natasha at natasha.cc
Mon Jun 7 14:56:19 UTC 2004


At 12:09 AM 6/7/04 -0400, Harvey wrote:

>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.

Harvey, we know that the FAQ was created by Alex Bokow and somehow became 
the property of Nick and WTA, but certainly WTA can explain 
this.  Regarding James becomeing Ex. Dir., I don't remember voting on it 
recently or receiving any email about it.  Doesn't WTA have a policy of 
voting on its principles?  If so and we did not vote on James, there must 
be a reasonable explanation.  Guilio, can you enlighten us?

>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.

Is this why Bruce Klein (BJ) resigned from the board?  I know he did 
because he mentioned it on the chat last week, but he did not completely 
elaborate.


>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.

Okay.

Eli, do you have any comments?  You were on the board.

my best to all,

Natasha


Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
----------
President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
http://www.transhuman.org
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