27 January 2017
Yay! We have enough donations to start work on the Careers in Ideas website! This means I have a load more emails to write as well as the load of events I am supposed to be organising and the load of arguing I still need to do with CIPA Council. We would have even more donations, except that there are still some people saying Hang on a minute, what about the paperwork? They are saying: You need to turn IP Inclusive into a proper registered company. Or a proper registered charity. I think they are worried that at the moment it is not a proper registered anything; it is just a collection of woolly ideas being manipulated from the inbox of an evil, ruthless but ultimately incompetent dictator, ie me. People have become understandably more sensitive about evil, ruthless and incompetent dictators since the Americans elected their 45th President. They say: Surely it cannot be that difficult to get yourselves registered and incorporated and such like, and to get a proper bank account into which we can pay our donations without risk or liability or any kind of Governance Problems? We do not like Governance Problems, they say. And IP Inclusive is just one big Governance Problem waiting to happen. But I do not agree with their assessment. IP Inclusive does not need to be a proper registered thing in itself. It just has to be a catalyst that brings people together to do Good Things in pursuit of a Common Cause. It needs to provide a banner under which people can meet and share and campaign for better stuff. IP Inclusive is an incentive for change, a conduit for dialogue about change, and a focal point for those who pursue change. It is neither a seed nor a growing plant, nor even the soil in which the seed germinates; it is the conditions that cause the germination: the light, the air, the water. We do not need to tie it down, only to run with it. And besides, being purely pragmatic about this, who exactly is going to rush forward to set up a limited company or a registered charity for us? Who is going to pay the lawyers and accountants, and ensure we have Articles of Association and file Annual Accounts? Show me the volunteers who are willing to be directors or trustees. Even I, passionate as I am about namby-pamby things like inclusivity and being nice to people, am not prepared to take on that kind of burden. Because I am basically too busy doing other stuff for IP Inclusive, like organising events and spreading ideas and bringing people together to help spread other ideas. And building a new website that will tell the whole wide world – yes, even the parts of it with different-coloured skin or unnatural sexual preferences – about careers in IP. I do not say any of this out loud, of course. I am too busy thinking about my argument with Council. This particular argument with Council is about me wanting to do some paid work for CIPA, because CIPA has work that needs doing and was going to pay other people to do it but actually I would be quite good at it and I am available and willing and also keen to earn a penny or two now I am no longer drafting claims for a living. And about Council saying it is Unnatural and Unallowable for a member of Council to get paid for doing stuff for CIPA, and if she does it then why don’t the rest of us get paid for turning up and arguing a lot, like I haven’t spent the last two years of my life working flat-out for CIPA in return for what is colloquially known as negative equity? I will not say this out loud, either. But I am quietly fuming. Perhaps it is time to apply a new HRT patch. Apparently they run out of hormones after a week and you are supposed to replace them before they do, otherwise you turn into a menopausal monster. And we cannot have the Immediate Past President of CIPA turning up to the next Council meeting in a menopausally monstrous mood just in time for the debate about whether she is allowed to earn money for it. No sir.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
July 2019
Categories |