Theos-Talk Archives (February 1997 Message tl00284)

>MKD wrote
>>Some years ago the Charter of Canadian Section was cancelled.
>
Christine wrote
>Thanks for this information on the Canadian Section.  I am very curious
>about this situation because of the outcome of it at my Lodge.  The story we
>hear is that the Canadian section and some country in Europe (Belgium or
>Denmark - not sure which ) have been taken over by the Shantara Group
>(spelling unknown).
>
>This has been used as a big stick for many years of changes to our
>constitution which has resulted in us having a constitution which
>effectively creates and supports a closed shop.

MKD wrote
>Can you tell us the key aspects of the changes recently put in in your Section.

No, at this stage I cannot, but I will now request a latest copy of the
National consititution, mine is quite old, and have a look at it.   Many of
the changes our Lodge has made were "required" by section, but this was also
used as a coverall to get lots of other changes through which were not required.

I do know that our local Lodge resisted a requirement by National to include
a clause that our assets could be seized by National if our Lodge is wound
up (our Lodge is worth quite a few millon dollars and is an Australian
Company bound by Australian companies Law).  The final clause which got
written into out Lodge constitution on this is that:

::::If upon winding up of the Lodge there remains after the satisfaction of
all its debts and liabilities any property whatsoever the same shall not be
distributed among the members of the Lodge but shall be given or transferred
to the Theosophical Society in Australia with the intention that where
possible it will be used to support another Lodge in [the name of our
state].::::

The significant words are WHERE POSSIBLE, which we apparently resisted
initially until our President was told why it was necessary and assured us
that for reasons we couldn't be told, we had to vote for it!

It is worth noting that there are restrictions on why a Lodge can be wound
up - or at least I thought there were until I started reading our only just
publshed new consititution.  It's not where I thought it was, so I have more
work to do, it seems.  I think this clause has disappeared.

>From  a local point of view, we have a committee (of 10)  and a Board of
Trustees (of 5) with supposedly split responsibilies.

RE the Committee.  The committee can reject any aspiring new member without
giving reason, you must be a member for 12 months before being eligible to
vote,  2 years before running for committee and must attend two lectures a
month for 12 months to be eligible to run, then once on the committee you
must be an ordinary member for 2 consecutive years before running for Vice
President, and serve 2 years (not consecutive) as VP before running for
President.  This has all been done in the name of keeping out the Shantara
Group.

You have to have been a member for 7 years to run for the Trustees, and must
have served on the committee for the previous two years prior to election
(this last restriction was introduced to keep me out in 1995 when I
threatened to run).   All trustees are now Committee members and their role
has been reduced to being answerable to the Committee.

We are currently having our constitution reviewed by the Australian
Securities Commission, but from your alert I will make sure they have the
latest National constitution also.  There may be something there, and I will
check it for the list of items you enclosed.  It will be interesting if they
are moving in the same direction in more than one country, but I must say
that I don't think we are any way near this kind of dictatorship.

I have also just found the clause that Rules of the National Society
over-rule any incompatible rule in our constitution - hmmm - maybe.

Christine



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