First I want to apologize to you Bill for not seeing this thread sooner and responding. It one of the risks I face when not checking in regularly. While not an excuse, you have been prolific since coming back and this one sadly slipped past my radar scans. From now on when I want to see what a specific individual has been writing lately I am going to start the search at their profile.
I see that you have rescinded the request for me and after our conversation the other night, I hope you have a better understanding of why the directors might find it difficult to comply with this request. However for the benefit of others I think I need to elaborate on what Caliban succinctly said.
The so called *Treasure Chest* that we directors have been individually assigned is not about personal agendas, no matter how legitimately compassionate they might be. All uses of the funds would be subject to close scrutiny by the board, leadership and entire membership. Any use would need to be assessed and deemed worthy.
Those funds are to expedite pursuance of *the mission* with respect to the institutional requirements and not individuals. They are discretionary funds that are supposed to give individual directors a chance to get around all that bureaucracy alluded (legitimately) to before and implement projects in the furtherance of the institution without seeing the idea simply die on while waiting for a decision.
I do think I should address some of your original concerns though and make a few suggestions that I hope can be discussed and refined sufficiently to be considered by the board at the next meeting. One of them is technically just a decision Mind can make independently.
I would like to forward a proposal.
Since ImmInst shall function as an organization to help its members succeed in working towards the possibility of human physical immortality and ImmInst's mission is to conquer the blight of involuntary death, I am requesting assistance to that end in the form of charitable giving.
One of your members is dying, what would be more consistent with the stated mission than attempting to rescue one of you own members from death? I am about to suffer an involuntary death. This organization has an opportunity to put some real meaning behind its mission.
I think it is valid for you to request this but I also think it is not what this organization was designed or intended to do. The focus is to promote serious research and develop strategies to confront our mortality, however we cannot begin to confront specific individual cases without rapidly depleting the resources of this organization. It not alone would mean having to say yes to a privileged few and no to the majority but would turn into a verification nightmare in the process for the needing yet less well known individuals making the requests in the future. If we start with you then when could we stop?
Aside from the pragmatic aspects of the expenditure of funds that are really the *property* of the members, the logistics for doing so and the potentially difficult precedent it establishes, it might even open us to liability once we become the supplier of self applied treatments. We could not guaranty the quality of products you might receive, their efficacy or the validity of the chosen treatment.
Currently, my understanding is that there is a TREASURE CHESTS, where 6 individuals control 800 dollars each, that they may decide spend in furtherance of this organizations mission. I am not currently aware of any projects that are under consideration at the moment.
While I do not think this is a decision the Directors can properly make you also have the right to ask the membership (members only, not registered users) in a poll form if they are willing to see the funds of this institute spent in this manner. However as you expressed to me privately, if it were you making the decision for another your answer would be no.
Now down to brass tacks as they say.
There is no reason why a respected member of leadership cannot independently work with you such as Shannon, to control an expenditure fund and accept donations from the entire membership (registered users included) to facilitate your purchase of specifically the products that you determine to be most effective.
This could allow any member to make a donation to a specific place (the Paypal account previously mentioned) and that donation could be of any denomination.
If such a *support fund* were established as a separate fund under the umbrella of this institute then at least such donations might be deductible under tax law. The fund would have to be created and *sponsored* by the institute to be able to able to provide that added incentive to donations but then perhaps corporate donations of their appropriate products could be also tax deductible.
I think this approach of not co-mingling the specifically assigned funds but sponsoring the creation and maintenance of such an account might be a legitimate service this institute could provide to our *members*. I will present such an idea to leadership formally after our review of its merits here.
I think it is important to recognize two distinct but mutually dependent and important aspects of this Institute, the first is as a nexus for attracting both interest and resources to focus on the larger task of confronting death through scientific means in the forms of organized and peer reviewed research, idea sharing, brainstorming, creating educational incentives for both academic focus and popular awareness and collecting in one specific virtual locale the very brightest minds on the planet with common cause to accomplish this goal.
This leads to the second aspect. It is more subtle but can be considered just as important; the creation and maintenance of a diverse, yet like minded international virtual *community*.
With respect to this aspect of our mission I not only think we should be helping, but CAN help you. It might not be with direct expenditure of institutional funds we currently have but it could be with facilitating the resources
as a community to do so.
The first thing we should do is Mind's decision and it is a little unfair of me to spring this on him in this manner as I have not had the chance to present it to him privately yet. We should link the a few critically relevant threads developing in the forums under a new proposed category for the front page, A category could be placed as a subcategory under announcements called *Community*. For now it would focus on your needs but should go on to serve other members in the future with legitimate requests aimed at the virtual but very real community that *we* have created. And when I say "we"in this case, I want everyone to realize that Bill is actually one of the founding members of this Institute.
That category of *community* could also be created separate from Announcements as an independent column but for now it might be easier to just add it in rotation to the other items already revolving through that category. The second aspect of this might also be to place the already existing thread involving the request for assistance that Missimini has created under the lists of threads that is next to *Announcements* called *Forum Discussion*. These are not mutually exclusive but I think either one would be helpful in bringing community focus to your plight and streamline the process of requesting assistance from this community helped to create and clearly are a member of.
The second I have already alluded to above when discussing the idea of using this organization and specific volunteers from leadership to maintain an independent, yet associated fund under our 501© designation specifically to serve your needs.
A third (again not mutually exclusive) if for the members of this institute to sign a petition that is endorsed by the Institute, requesting that the suppliers of products you need make available directly, the soon to be expired supplements they would have to destroy anyway, or at the very least provide the aforementioned fund in your name to purchase at or below cost.
Fourth, one thing you might offer in return for a compassionate response would be to develop a journal in which you clearly document all your efforts, specific substances, dosages, diagnostic results and any side effects or contraindications or positive synergy with your medically prescribed regimen, including perhaps your clinical results, sharing those with them and this community.
Doing so and maintaining that as a public record, viewable here at Imminst for everyone to continue learning from in the future would be one way we could bring together both the community and institutional goals of this organization through the *scientific method* even though that record is at best anecdotal. It nevertheless could provide very important information to both scientists and simple members for how to better their application of supplemental approaches to clinical methods.
Anyway, you really have already started this so all you would be doing is making it a bit more formal and organized, including a few more specifics.
Fifth,
if there were any funds left in the account after your demise you should also designate a specific charitable use for them. Please let your wishes be known in this respect for we would be caretakers of the funds should go to a worthy goal of your determination if any survive you.
Sixth, before I make this post so long that even I can't stand to read it (it's probably too late
) I will leave this last item open as an invitation and place marker to include suggestions from others on how to better integrate the combined resources of both our Institute AND our community when assisting individual members in need.