Skeptic Project

Apprently when peter made the decision to make TZM a 501c3 it was his decision alone to make and no one elses. The greek chapter is now upset with he decision.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1STcTeFux-0t7oaTgw8urcLnrTqyFkJeLDE9N1P-6iMs/edit



Dear all,


After several incidents within the movement, the latest one being the transformation of TZM to an NPO, the Greek chapter felt the need to express its concerns about the movement's operation, to all of the chapters. We should state upfront that our concerns are not about the NPO itself, as a move to assist the movement, but about the way this decision was made and announced.


For your information, some days ago the transformation of TZM to an NPO was officially announced by Peter Joseph in this video. Here follows the summary:

The Zeitgeist Movement is now an official non-profit, tax exempt entity. Specifically, TZM has established a US-based 501c3 non-profit organization to help with core administrative tasks. Based in California and chaired by core members of the Los Angeles Chapter of TZM, this tax exempt institution allows for tax-deductible donations, and helps TZM engage general commerce at reduced rates. Allocation of donated funds include funding website work, covering administrative, and hosting fees; the development and promotion of global event days, such as the Media Festival and Zeitgeist Day; expanding public relations work; along with overall media outreach, including better social networking strategies. It will also seek to create a better communicative infrastructure to help chapters, while ensuring reliable project heads to help guide volunteer actions in large endeavors.


Now to our point. The movement's transformation to an NPO was not discussed with any other chapter members or at least coordinators, therefore we feel there is a problem here. The movement is global, and consists of many local chapters. It is also, according to its official material, horizontal in structure and leaderless. The aforementioned, however, do not align with what happened lately in some incidents. For one, the global movement became an NPO without any discussion with chapter members, at least not openly. Not only were we not invited to participate in this decision-making (international core-members and chapter coordinators) but we also have no clue as to the effect of this decision to our local chapters, and the association of the NPO to 'TZM Global', because the video announcement was unclear on many important issues. For example, will the NPO be subject to GCA decisions or the opposite? Will the local chapters follow the NPO's decisions? Will the local chapters have any say in the NPO's operation, and decisions? Will the Official TZM hubs be controlled only by the NPO, since it will conduct PR campaigns, as mentioned in the video announcement?


If this is a move which affects the whole movement, shouldn't it be discussed with the movement's members, at least core members and coordinators, if only just to clarify things?


We feel that behind this latest incident, i.e. a decision made about TZM Global without any discussion with the local chapters, lies the vagueness regarding what is the so-called 'TZM Global'. This vagueness has created functional problems in the past, such as what happened with Berkowitz's video, where it was agreed by consensus (in an international meeting) that it would stay in TZM Global's Youtube channel but after a while it was deleted by Gilbert Ismail, head of the Chapters Administration Team because, in his own words, he "received pressure via protesting emails". We cannot prove this fact, as this conversation took place during the Z-Day 2016 strategic meeting in Athens, a meeting which, unfortunately, was not recorded. Gilbert and the other attendants are the only ones who can verify this fact. Regarding the decision to delete the video, we feel it is not the GCA's duty to have to deal with these tasks, since the team already has a lot of tasks, hence our suggestion for a science-literacy team or material-checking team at the same meeting. Regarding this incident, we expressed our concerns in an international meeting but the answer we got completely missed the point about its deletion, and the fact that it overrode TZM's collective decision based on rational consensus. During this meeting we tried to point out that this could happen again in the future, if we didn't do s'th about it, and as the NPO formation proves, it did.


In fact, the reason why we also proposed publishing the admins' names of the official TZM hubs, and creating a material-checking team (eg. science-literacy team) is exactly because it is not very clear what material is considered "official TZM material". This phenomenon often leads to people confusing Peter Joseph's views with TZM's views, and this does not happen by chance, as the NPO formation proves (one example is the fact that Peter's feud with Stefan Molyneux is on the official TZM Youtube channel). In fact, when we asked Gilbert Ismail (head of the Global Chapters Administration) during Zday 2016 in Athens about the NPO, and why we didn't know anything about it or why nothing was discussed with the chapters, the answer was that "it was just Peter's initiative", and "it's not going to be directly affiliated with TZM", plus "it will only have a supportive role". As the NPO announcement shows, this is not true. Actually, Peter's own initiative is clearly linked (or even merged with) the whole TZM.


All in all, we think the root problem here is the vagueness about what 'TZM Global' really is. Since it provides chapters with the official TZM material and chapter protocols, we think it's very important for members to know what it is. We think this vagueness has caused many problems in the past, such as how we decide on global projects (eg. GRI or TZM Magazine), how we declare what our official stances are on certain issues (eg. veganism, climate change), which material is considered official or not (eg. Is material only coming from TZM lecture team official?), whether Peter's films are part of the movement's material etc. Based on current membership and international meetings attendance, we think this vagueness is responsible for many members leaving the movement, and this seems reasonable. Why would someone want to participate in a global movement, when he/she is not asked about global decisions or he/she does not affect TZM Global's direction, even though he/she has devoted so much of his/her time to TZM?


Is TZM Global only the US chapters? Is it just Peter? Is it some members only? Do we arrive at decisions via consensus? Can members bypass the consensus? Are we all equal in decision-making or do some members (eg. co-ords or TZM's founder) have premium rights? Do we have a horizontal structure or can some members by themselves make decisions which affect all the chapters? Are we leaderless or can Peter relate "his own initiative and independent work" (which the NPO was supposed to be) to the whole TZM?


Since the above questions are connected with many of the movement's procedures, as already mentioned (such as global projects approval), if they are not addressed, we think TZM will continue to have organization issues, and will continue to lose members.


So the question to TZM members is this: Should you, the active members of TZM, just accept what is decided by unclear processes, having no say, however your time invested in promoting TZM? Are you really ok with that?


In order to clear things up, we request a special meeting with everyone present who has a role in implementing our requests (eg. NPO members, GCA, Peter, Gilbert, Coordinators, Lecture team representative):


1.To give us clear info regarding the NPO including at least its role, its members and board of directors, its involvement to the TZM Global, its involvement to TZM decision making, its charter (if different of the standard 503,1c), its organizational structure


2.To clarify the roles of TZM Global, GCA, Global Meetings


3.To define a coherent decision-making process for TZM's global decisions


4.To define a timetable of the implementation of the above.


5.To halt all activities of the NPO before the above are implemented



If you agree with the above, we ask you to sign this document by sending us an e-mail on info@tzm.gr. If enough people do, we will present these problems and solutions in a global meeting, and ask for change.


TZM Greece

26-6-2016


Signers:

Christos Papadimitriou (Greek Chapter)

Stamos Arhontis (Greek Chapter Coordinator)

Antonis Voskou (Greek Chapter)

Diomides Skalistis (Greek Chapter)

Yanna Thoma (Greek Chapter)

Kees de Jong (TZM NL coordinator)

Lin Albert (Taiwan Chapter Coordinator)

Casey Davidson (Australia Chapter Coordinator)

Quote from anticultist

Peter Joseph Merola is not the leader

hahaha, hey check ur email?