X-Message-Number: 30259
Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2008 00:15:29 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Alcor Board
References: <>

I second Charles Platt's idea of studying other organizations and 
trying to learn from them, in particular, CI which has a member-elected board.

Now, I should say that for a long time I was a supporter of the 
self-perpetuating (non-elected) board, mainly due to experiences in 
the 1980s when I joined Alcor. Alcor was a small, struggling 
organization at the time, as was true of other cryonics groups, and 
there was great concern that patients would not stay in cryostasis 
but be thawed and lost, as had tragically happened already with so 
many of the early cases. At that time a self-perpetuating board 
seemed especially sensible to many of us, especially in view of what 
seemed to be a real possibility that, with a member-elected board, a 
larger organization could gain control of the assets of a cryonics 
organization through an easy process of infiltration. (It was also 
pointed out that very long-lived institutions such as the Catholic 
Church were undemocratic.)

Anyway, times have changed, and also it is clear that safeguards can 
be in place to make a hostile takeover more difficult and unlikely, 
such as the idea of David Pizer to have a pool of member-elected 
advisors from which the board members would be elected. This basic 
idea could be implemented in different ways to provide additional 
safeguards. At minimum, simply having at least one member-elected 
advisor would serve as a check on the possibility of a board that is 
secretive and unresponsive to the membership. This simple idea (where 
actually the board is *not* elected but you do have accountability 
that is currently lacking) could serve as a foundation for others 
that might serve the needs better. In any case, speaking as an Alcor 
member myself, I would favor some sort of member-elected 
representation in Alcor's management.

Mike Perry

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