The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Page 7 ’LIFERS* AND OTHER WOES In view of an item that appeared in the Vancouver Sun on Feb. 3rd dealing with the "life members' fund" of a certain political party (whose name will not be disclosed here) and a lengthy article in the same newspaper of Feb. 17th whose headline read in part; "money mess splits group"; allow me to blow our own horn - but first, a fill-in on the foregoing. According to the political party's president, the life membership fund, called "perpetual" in the constitution, was "neither held 'in-trust' nor was it in a 'trust account'". The dismaying fact is that the fund - "perpetual" or no - is no more, having been used to help pay for the party's 1991 election campaign. The president went on to say: "It simply was a matter of party policy to spend only the interest generated by the life member fund and that the principal should remain intact for use in emergency". That was clearly not the understanding of many of the life time members one of whom remonstrated: "To me, perpetual means it's an ongoing fund. You don't just take it and blow it. Because if you've blown it, it's no longer perpetual. What are you going to perpetuate, a big zero?" The Feb. 17th story is a sad one, indeed, for it socks us with a scandal of major proportions - missing or misappropriated funds from a highly visible, highly audible and worthy organization. The figures under scrutiny are nothing short of eye-popping. I quote a Calgary fundraising authority. "Of $57,417 raised from businesses in Calgary, all but $26 was spent on administration fees". Read that sentence again. They're talking a whopping $57,391 swallowed up in administration fees or, to put it another way 99 and 95 one hundredths percent blown away like bubbles on the wind - kinda puts one in mind of the folks down at the Ivory Soap factory only difference is they boasted about their 99 and 44 one hundredths percent! "Expenses, salary and a commission on donations paid to the Lower Mainland president and his wife amounted to $13,000 out of a total $16,000 raised in 1991" .... and that's just the beginning of the misconduct allegations. Now stand by for the horn blowing bit. In accordance with a motion passed at our 1991 AGM, the Lifetime Membership category has now been retired. Started in March of 1985, Lifetime memberships provided $7150 all of which was deposited in a Capital Fund. Although the Society was empowered to use the interest for operating expenses, it did not do so. Similarly, all donations with the exception of those designated by a donor for a specific item such as postage were deposited in the same Capital Fund. Not one penny of Lifetime Memberships or donations has ever been used for administration fees or operating costs. How do you like them apples? Brang Upham thinks the undecipherable word in Gertrude Lawson's poem (January newsletter) might be Shearing as in George Shearing, the musician, which it could be as the word is capitalized - but then, so is Pavilion. One has to wonder if Miss Lawson would have taken such vehement objection (expressed in the lines; "And why Honest John allowd it I could not understand") to the melodious style of George Shearing and without the verse being dated, one cannot determine if Shearing was, at that time, on the music scene.