Hello, Eldon --
I just finished re-reading your Ombudsman offerings in
the June 2003 and
2004 Mensa Bulletins. You seem to have a good handle on the position
and a reasonable outlook on things.
We have a big "dispute" within Minnesota Mensa, which
is still in the
resolution phase. I will not ask for your involvement with that (at
this time), but there has been a recent development that I believe is
well within your purview.
Here's an extremely condensed version of the original
situation.
I am the founding Webmaster for Minnesota Mensa,
designing and starting
the site back in 1998. Worked hard, did well for over four years.
Minnesota Mensa hosted the 2003 AG, so preparations
started in the first
half of 2002. We needed some pages for the website, but I didn't want
to increase my work load, so a recent transfer named Jason Schmitz was
tapped to do that work. The committee head was Judy Hogan, a long-time
LocSec, Board member, volunteer (18+ years of service).
Somebody decided that Jason would work totally
independently. He did
not approach it from the standpoint of providing pages to be put at the
(original) website, which would have been mnmensa.org/ag2003/. Instead,
he set up a separate website at ag2003.com, the TLD of which is contrary
to Mensa policy, and the domain name of which was ill-chosen as it
suggested agriculture.
He also did his work in secret, with the ag2003.com
website protected by
username/password. At no time was I (as Minnesota Mensa Webmaster)
given access to his work-in-progress, and I was never contacted by
anyone asking for my advice or any other input into this project.
When ag2003.com finally went live, I browsed there and
was utterly
appalled. There was no privacy policy, to ratings code to show that the
site was family-friendly, the pages weren't cross-browser compliant (I
couldn't see any page main content in my Netscape 4.79), there were bad
links, missing links, and a host of misspelled words, included "musuem",
which I believe was misspelled three times on one page, including in a
link.
What I did that was probably *not* upsetting was to
take all of Jason's
pages, clean them up so they wouldn't be an embarrassment to us, and put
them in the mnmensa.org/ag2003/ folder that I had originally created for
that purpose.
What *was* upsetting, at least initially, was that I
got in touch with
the website people at American Mensa, telling them that the ag2003.com
was not worthy of being linked to, and that their link(s) should be to
mnmensa.org/ag2003/ instead, where the pages were presentable. I heard
back that Judy Hogan had given them the ag2003.com link, and I replied
-- rather testily, I'm afraid -- that I was the Webmaster and that I
knew which link was the proper one.
Which started all the hoo-hah, and I found myself
sending out e-mails to
board members explaining in excruciating detail what was inept about
Jason's efforts. A good example of this is at
http://www.millcityrecords.com/mndensa/emails/ag-email26.htm. That
"summary" e-mail was sent on July 27, 2002, subsequent to Judy Hogan's
initial motion to remove me as Webmaster on July 17, 2002 (the minutes
of which were never published).
Judy Hogan took it all personally and retaliated by
having me removed as
Webmaster, and actually set it up so that Jason Schmitz took over the
website after I had been "tricked" into releasing control over the
domain name on the pretext that the Board wanted it moved to a cheaper
server.
So I complained in the first place about cronyism and
a "kill the
messenger" reaction on Judy's part, all of which was supported by her
close friends on the board. That was denied, of course.
Just recently, I was checking out some of the Mensa
leadership
publications available on the AML website. You're probably familiar
with these; you likely have them.
Right now I'm looking at LocalSecretaryHandbook.pdf,
page 2-17 (page 30
in the pdf). This is in the section on American Mensa By-Laws.
"IX"
"(3) Every member shall have the same rights and
privileges accorded
every other member, without qualifications or limitation."
(I'm 35 miles from the Twin Cities, and a single
custodial father of a
now-11-year-old daughter, so I don't physically get to First Fridays or
other public events, so I was never in a position to become one of the
"in crowd" running Minnesota Mensa.)
In the meantime, I had registered the strongest of
protests, and LocSec
DeDe Tredinnick authorized the 1st ViceSec Paul Jensen to "conduct the
affairs of Minnesota Mensa" so he drove down to see me and we hammered
out a written agreement that was a itemized chronological list providing
for resolving some issues and -- most to the point -- reinstating me as
Minnesota Mensa Webmaster. I signed this agreement, and Paul Jensen
signed on authorized behalf of Minnesota Mensa.
This all took place in August of 2002. I did (and have
done) my part(s)
of the signed written agreement. Unfortunately, the "most-entrenched"
members of the Board have resisted implementing the reinstatement
position. (The Editor has taken to listing the Webmaster position as
"Open" on the back cover of Mensagenda.)
As I said, I keep written agreements that I sign. When
this Jason
Schmitz got hold of our original website (mnmensa.org), the very first
thing he did was to destroy 100% of the existing site. Every last page
was gone, and he'd put it on a server that made it impossible to restore
those pages.
Once I saw that, I acted under my authority as
Webmaster through the
signed written agreement and moved our website to a different domain
name, minnesotamensa.org (which had been our original choice in the
first place). I have maintained the site since then, to the same
quality standards that it has always had.
--------------------------------------------
That is the original "dispute" -- condensed -- and it has yet to be
resolved.
(My idea of resolution is that the original removal
was a by-law
violation of unequal treatment of members, and that an organization is
bound to honor signed written agreements to which it is a party.)
Here's what I want you to look into:
As I said, the local dispute is unresolved.
It is currently being investigated by our local
Ombudsman, Eric Adams.
He started somewhere around March 2, 2004, our last phone conversation
was on March 28, 2004, and I sent him an e-mail on
June 3, 2004. Last
week, I sent him another e-mail, summarizing (again)
the dispute and
expressing my hope that he would soon have some results that he would be
presenting to me or the Board.
In the meantime, the Board minutes for August 30,
2004, note that "Cyndi
Kuyper discussed this matter with the board, outlining the options
available." Since she has never, ever contacted me in any way
whatsoever to find out my side of the dispute, I do not consider this a
bona fide attempt at resolving the dispute.
Back last December, totally out of the blue, Executive
Director Pam
Donahoo sent me a letter, co-signed by LocSec
DeDe Tredinnick, demanding
that I transfer the domain name minnesotamensa.org to Minnesota Mensa.
I did not even open this letter for about three weeks since it had not
been mailed from Mensa headquarters and was
festooned with stamps rather
than a postage meter stamp.
I managed to transfer the domain name to Minnesota
Mensa (with me as the
responsible party since I am the Webmaster by virtue of that signed
written agreement).
But first, I had to deal with another Jason, this time
a Jason Aquilino
of Venable LLC that Mensa had retained to bring an action against me
with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
He had already managed to block domain transfers on
minnesotamensa.org,
but I managed to get him to "permit" a transfer, so I put the domain
name in the name of Minnesota Mensa.
Unfortunately, this Jason is almost as inept as the
first one. He's
made numerous errors, including misspelling my first name, referring to
minnesotamensa.com, and cc'ing some e-mails to minnesotamenta.org, which
doesn't exist.
The most interesting thing he did, however, is that
when he drew up all
the Complaint papers, he made it that the domain name be transferred to
American Mensa, instead of Minnesota Mensa, as Ms. Donahoo's letter had
requested.
So he'd bollixed this up to the point that WIPO said
that since
Minnesota Mensa is now the domain name holder of record, it must be a
Co-respondent along with me, and so Jason Aquilino had to file an
Amended Complaint naming Minnesota Mensa as a Co-respondent.
Thus, American Mensa is pursuing a Complaint against
Minnesota Mensa,
which sounds suspiciously like Mensa is suing itself.
Now, I actually think I will win this case, as there
are three things
that have to be proved to WIPO, and I don't think this Jason Aquilino
can do it.
But -- in researching material for the Response I have
to file, I came
across an *extremely* interesting Mensa By-law:
---------------------
>From the Local Secretary Handbook, page 2-2 (page 15 in pdf file):
THE CONSTITUTION OF MENSA
[International Constitution of Mensa adopted April 1982.
Includes Amendments adopted 1982, 1985. Reprinted October 1992.]
III. MEMBERSHIP
D. DISPUTES WITHIN MENSA
Members having a dispute with Mensa, with any national Mensa or
subdivision thereof, or with another member arising out of Mensa-related
activities shall exhaust all avenues of settlement and redress within
the Society before taking the dispute to external authorities. Failure
to do so may be considered an act inimical to Mensa.
---------------------
This seems pretty cut-and-dried.
Let me summarize --
There is an ongoing dispute within Minnesota Mensa
between me and a few
other members (who happen to be on the Board and thus can cause more
mischief than most members) regarding the Mensa-related activity of our
local website and my position as Webmaster.
This dispute is still under the (lengthy)
investigation by the Minnesota
Mensa Ombudsman who has yet to deliver any results of that
investigation.
The RVC has not fully investigated the dispute at all,
and so has not
made a bona fide attempt to work toward a resolution.
The Executive Director has not fully investigated the
dispute at all,
and so has not made a bona fide attempt to work toward a resolution.
The Mensa Ombudsman (you) have not looked into the
dispute and made any
attempt to resolve it.
The AMC has not looked into the dispute and made any
attempt to resolve
it.
In short, the situation is not even close to
exhausting all avenues of
settlement and redress within the Society.
And I don't think anybody can deny that the World
Intellectual Property
Organization is, by definition, an external authority.
Therefore, I submit to you that this whole WIPO thing
totally violates
this By-law.
-----------------------------
I am asking you to look into this By-law violation, and I am assuming
that this request will involve the following:
1. Determining the factual nature of what I've
presented to you in this
e-mail. I'm sure you can easily contact Ms. Donahoo and our RVC. The
contact info for Minnesota Mensa is at
http://www.minnesotamensa.org/excomm.htm.
Further, I expect that you will come up with a list of
facts that you
would like me to substantiate. I have refrained from peppering this
e-mail with URLs, but *everything* about this dispute is up on my own
website. If it's simpler for you, just e-mail me back with an itemized
list of what you would like to look at, and I will reply with the URLs.
2. Since what we have is a By-law violation, I am
obviously asking
that, after ascertaining that what I've written you is true, you contact
the appropriate authority within Mensa and request that this WIPO action
be immediately canceled, and the Complaint withdrawn from WIPO.
3. As part of your investigation, I would ask that you
determine just
how much of our annual dues have been wasted on WIPO filing fees,
attorney fees, and other expenses. I for one would like to know just
how much money has been wasted, and I would think that Mensa itself
would like to know how expensive this By-law violation has been.
4. That second sentence ("Failure to do so may be
considered an act
inimical to Mensa.") makes it sound quite serious. I'd ask further that
it be determined exactly which members are the one who have violated
this By-law, and that the violation be treated appropriately with
respect to those members. Please note that I have no personal
recommendation whatsoever as to how this aspect should be resolved.
5. As I said at the start, I am not at this time
asking you to do
anything about the original dispute concerning my "kill the messenger"
unfair removal as Webmaster, or the failure of some members (in power)
to thwart the full compliance with the signed written agreement between
Minnesota Mensa and me reinstating me as Webmaster. I believe that
resolving this dispute should proceed through channels, so you might end
up having to look at the details of it, but not right away.
Eldon, I hope I haven't swamped you with this problem. I have left out
95% of the details, particularly about the original dispute, as that in
itself is not why I'm writing this.
But I do ask you in all seriousness to look into my position that filing
a Complaint with WIPO is a clear violation of that Mensa By-law
requiring that all other avenues be exhausted first.
I hope you will look into that aspect of it at your
very earliest
convenience, and take whatever action is appropriate to have the
Complaint withdrawn, and those that violated the By-law treated
appropriately.
I am ready to assist you in any way I can to provide
the details you may
request of me. Please let me know what specific information I can send
you.
Thank you very much for looking into this.
Sincerely,
Al Heigl
Webmaster,
Minnesota Mensa
--
Alan Heigl
Mill City Records
P.O. Box 177
Northfield Minnesota 55057-0177
507-663-6090
(Professional Proofreading,
Web Site Work using FrontPage 2003)
http://www.millcityrecords.com/webwork/