Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00490)

The reasons you state here are why judgement of the case needs to be 
done in a court of law.  I am aware that Wheaton claims a violation 
of the publicly filed bylaws.  The court must decide what bylaws are 
the legal instrument of the Washington State Corporation.  TSA's 
appointed members attempted to file new documents with the Secretary 
of State at the time they requested the Lodge's name be changed.  

The Secretary of State said take-overs of this kind this happen more 
often than one might think.  One guy filed his name as an officer of 
Microsoft on several occasions.  After a while, employees of the 
State get to know the individuals who make attempts of this kind.   

When John Scott provided necessary documentation, TSA's members' 
names and documents were removed from the recods by the office of 
the Secretary of State in Washington.  A cloud was put on the 
records to prevent the TSA members from attempting that stunt again, 
without proper notification.

If you think about it, the individuals TSA added to the Lodge's 
rosters were not legal members of the Lodge.  They had no right to 
file a name change and new instruments for the Lodge as they 
attempted to do.

Let's see what the court says about it.

Krasnna



--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@...> wrote:
>
> krsanna wrote:
> > If you are interested in more information about this case, I 
suggest 
> > you do what the "Aquarian Theosophist" did.  Make written 
> > inquirities.  It saves much speculation.
> 
> 	Except that I am very much aware of the history that 
Rodolpho Don has 
> with the Theosophical Society in America. He published an early 
web page 
> (which, by the way, I frequently used as an example of an 
excellent web 
> site). John Algeo had two major problems with it, however. The 
first was 
> that it represented itself as the official website of the 
Theosophical 
> Society in America. The second was that it revealed rather 
publicly 
> certain information about the TSA which could be used to help in a 
> hostile takeover. He requested that Rodolpho put in a statement 
that his 
> site was not the official site of the TSA, and also pointed out 
that 
> posting the fiscal information was probably a bad idea, but did 
not go 
> as far as requesting its removal. Rodolpho was furious, and 
contended 
> that any member of the TSA was entitled to speak for the entire 
> organization, and posted John's rather polite letter in lieu of 
putting 
> in the simple disclaimer that John asked for. As such, I find 
Rodolpho 
> to be a highly prejudiced source.
> 
> 	According to Wheaton, the lawsuit has to do with financial 
> improprieties, and violation of the organization's publicly filed 
bylaws 
> on the part of its officers.
> 
> 	One thing that I find interesting is Rodolpho's accusation 
that Wheaton 
> intends to keep the resources for itself. I recall a time when 
Wheaton 
> had published a new version of the bylaws which would have 
property of a 
> dissolved lodge revert to Wheaton. It was pointed out that the key 
> language that required that the resources stay in the area of the 
Lodge, 
> and not be moved, was no longer there. All sorts of conspiracies 
were 
> imagined. As then chairman of the bylaws committee of the New York 
> Theosophical Society I gave John Algeo a call. According to him, 
this 
> was the first he had heard of this, that it was entirely 
unintentional, 
> and that had I called 48 hours later, there would not have been 
enough 
> time to fix the wording. As it was, there was enough time, and the 
> wording was changed. But what impressed me was that, for all the 
> complaining, there was so much faith that the leadership of the 
TSA was 
> the embodiment of evil that nobody thought to actually try to fix 
the 
> problem.
> 
> 	This is not to say that the TSA board has not taken numerous 
actions 
> over the years to keep its oligarchical status (notably taking the 
6 
> regional districts and combining them into 3, as well as de-
emphasizing 
> individual lodge membership in favor of member-at-large 
membership, as 
> well as setting up a pseudo "National Lodge"). But it is to say 
that I 
> will take any representation of them as the embodiment of evil 
with a 
> grain of salt.
> 
> 	Bart
>