Theos-Talk Archives (December 1999 Message tl00295)

Well, thanks for your quick response.

I just posted the facts.

You and anyone is free to draw whatever inference that is deemed fit.

mkr

At 09:09 PM 12/27/1999 -0500, Bart Lidofsky wrote:
>ramadoss@eden.com wrote:
>> Does anyone has any info on what their written/unwritten policies?
>> Interesting to know. If anyone can prove otherwise than the above
>> interpretation, it would do a lot of good and I would surely stand
corrected.
>
>	I have been involved in several grants from National Headquarters, and
I have found that they have always been much more cooperative than that.
All too often, people ask the wrong questions, and get the wrong answer
(I have noticed that very often you ask for something that is impossible
to deliver, when perhaps what you are REALLY looking for is possible,
but, because you are so insistant on the format, you end up with nothing
but disappointment).

	Now, for example, if I had given a Lodge the advice you did, and got a
similar message from National, what I would have done would have been to
call up National and speak to Floyd (or email John Algeo), explain the
situation, and ask what the Lodge SHOULD do. It is very possible that,
for example, while National won't pay for an attorney, they MIGHT know
of an attorney that would do it pro bono, or at a very low fee, or
someone who might pay for it, or some way the Lodge can handle it
without an attorney, etc. Instead, you went in swinging; you said that
you would continue to tell Lodges to ask for a service that wasn't
funded, in spite of the fact that you knew it wasn't funded. Let's say
National told you that they sould refer you to Lodges who are looking
for an architect, in spite of the fact that you are not one; how would
YOU feel.
>
	I suspect that the problem you ran into had to do with two factors:

	1) Grants to Lodges are almost all done through the Kern Foundation.
	2) The Kern Foundation explicitly does NOT give funds for building or
anything related to building.

	Note that this is not just to individual Lodges; remember the trouble
that National Headquarters had getting the money to put in an elevator?
The Kern Foundation didn't contribute a single penny towards it. The
lawyer was probably considered to be a building expense.

	If you stop thinking of National Headquarters as The Enemy(tm), you
will find that they can be VERY helpful.

	Bart Lidofsky