[Businessmtg] Business meeting--Incorporation

[Steve Rankin]

I forgot to mention that my daughter is married to an attorney in San Diego.
Now, normally I'm not a fan of attorneys, but this guy makes my little girl
real happy and he's got 15 years in AA, so I've been making an exception in
his case.  Since he has his own private practice, I suspect I might get a
family discount on any help we'd need.

More hugs,
Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: businessmtg-bounces+steve=serenitysys.com at asp-afg.org
[mailto:businessmtg-bounces+steve=serenitysys.com at asp-afg.org] On Behalf Of
Steve Rankin
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 9:50 PM
To: steve at serenitysys.com
Cc: ASP Business
Subject: Re: [Businessmtg] Business meeting--Incorporation

Hi folks,

Yes, Jerry's German check example certainly seems to be one of those
God-motivated circumstances some of us call coincidences.

If I'd thought that incorporating was the way to go 14 years ago, it would
have been a done deal.  But, it wasn't an issue then because I quite
literally 'owned' ASP and donations were not an issue.

But, times have changed.  I'm no longer the List Owner or List Administrator
and ASP is now fully accountable to the Seventh Tradition--every layer of
the Seventh Tradition 'onion' not just the surface.  And, the world has
changed since 1996 and especially since 9/11/2001. 

None of the alternatives to incorporation and NPO status address the larger
principles of treating all of our members as equally as we can.  ASP does
have an international membership.  For example, our immediate past List
Administrator did not live in the United States.  None the less, ASP is
still quite USA-centric.  Just a fact of life.  I say this only to point out
that there are or will be things that we won't be able to do perfectly
regarding our international members, but this is one area where we can.

And I believe we should.

 . . .

Regarding Delaware.  Delaware is a popular state for businesses to
incorporate in because of the tax codes in Delaware.  Tax codes are
meaningless to ASP because we are a non-profit organization and therefore
not subject to income taxes.  In other words, from a strictly business
perspective there is no advantage to incorporating in any state over any
other state.

However . . . 

We will need a permanent address, and it makes sense to incorporate in the
state where we have our official corporate address.  It was suggested to me
by another member that ASP use my residence as the official ASP address.
The advantages are:

1.  I'm obviously the resident old fart of the meeting.  Is that an
advantage?  :-)

2.  I am the only permanent member of the Steering Committee.  Yep.  One of
the founding guidelines of ASP is that the Founder would be a permanent
member of the Steering Committee as long as they continued being a member of
ASP.  This means that the official address wouldn't be tied to a member that
would rotate out of service at some point.  

3.  I have a long-time f2f sponsee that gets our mail when we're traveling.
He skims all of our mail so that things get taken care of one way or
another.  So, that base is covered.

4.  We have a big rural mailbox with lots of room for all that ASP mail.
:-)

5.  We live in the Pacific Northwest - God's Country.  :-)  


So . . .


My suggestions are:

A.  We decide to incorporate.  While I believe that this decision could be
made by the Steering Committee, I'd much prefer that the decision be made
here in the general Business Meeting,

B. The Steering Committee work out the details and DRAFT a By-Laws.

C. The Business Meeting approve the By-Laws in September,

D. I would download the requisite forms and prepare them, in DRAFT and pass
them around the Steering Committee for review and approval (including
signatures as needed).

E. I would submit the forms to the IRS and the State of Washington & we'd
wait . . . patiently.  


I'm guessing that we might be done by late 2010, perhaps early 2011.  Yes, I
know there are lots of examples of this process taking years.  But, ASP is a
truly simple organization without any of the complications that challenge
larger & more business oriented NPO's.


I'm hoping that Jerry would be willing to stay on as Treasurer until (a) the
process was complete and rotation would be the obvious thing to do, (b) we
reach a logical break point in the process where changing treasurers seemed
like the logical thing to do (I can't think of an example, though), or (c)
the process went to hell and Jerry threw up his hands and ran screaming off
to his cabin in the woods.  In that case, I'd be willing to step in as an
ITERIM treasurer.


Now, what I'd like to ask the members of the Business Meeting to do is speak
up and say something so that Jennifer can determine if it appears that we
have a consensus or if we don't.  IF we have a consensus, and ONLY if we do,
then we'll draft a motion that includes the salient points of the concensus
(think about points A thru E above) and go forward.


Hugs,
Steve





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