Theos-Talk Archives (February 1998 Message tl00197)

Ken Malkin wrote:

> Within a short time, Star Trek bore a sequel, it was our weekly
> “Movies With A Theosophical Touch” presented to the members with the
> public invited. The movie on Friday night usually had 20++ members and
> public attendees. We rented a movie of common interest at a local
> emporium, requested a free will donation, usually a dollar or two is
> contributed and had a discussion of varying lengths after the
> presentation. Some discussions were so intense they went past midnight.
> While the list of movies is overlong, from the obvious ‘Ground Hog Day’
> to the obscure ‘Dune’, we had great success. Unfortunately, Linda
> married and moved to Chicago. It is planed to have the movie night begin
> again soon.

    One word of advice, if you are willing to listen. If you show rented
videotapes to the general public, whether or not you charge admission, you
are in violation of their copyright (at least according to the copyright
lawyers at Matthew Bender). You can get permission by paying a fee ot the
proper organization (whose name escapes me at the moment), but the fee, last
time I looked (about 4 years ago) was $1200 a year. If you don't advertise
the movies in a public brochure then it is unlikely that anything bad will
happen. If you do, then you may get into trouble. Luckily, copyright owners
have the option of not pursuing legal action against violators without losing
copyright protection, as opposed to trademark owners, so they may ignore you
anyway. In New York, we decided that it would be wrong to violate copyright
that way. In any case check with Sy for verification, and to see if things
have changed in the last 4 years.

> Bart spoke to Sy Ginsburg having run for Southeast Director. I believe
> he well and truly remembers the result of that stolen election.

    I really and truly didn't. This is the first I am hearing about it.

> All members who had the right to vote for the by-law changes were sent
> ballots for the national office and BOD elections soon after. When the
> votes were counted, once again not audited, those members with less than
> two years active membership had their votes voided. Sy lost the election
> by fewer than 50 votes. 78 ballots were thrown out from our lodge alone.

    Two points. One is that a rule that is generally ignored should not be
enforced on a situation by situation basis (it either should apply ot all, or
to none). Now, speaking ON A STRICTLY TECHNICAL BASIS, according to the
International rules, those who have been members for less than 2 years do not
have the right to vote in TS elections, even at the Lodge level (there's a
copy of the TS by-laws on Dr. Bain's web page). Was this standard applied
nationwide? Was there prior announcement that it would be? If the answer to
either of these is "no", then you definitely have cause to complain.

    Bart Lidofsky