Here are some of the points made by the lawyer with whom I consulted
this week (excerpted from another posting on Wednesday, 7/12)



I saw a lawyer yesterday for about an hour. He actually lives only
two miles from me, and was recommended to me by the lawyer I had
first contacted as one who knew the most about non-profit
corporations. He has done a lot of work with food coops in the state.
However, he is a bit of a recluse, I think, and I can't really speak
for his credentials. I liked him, for what that's worth. He seemed
quite interested to learn that there were three boxes within a mile
of his house, and was going to the computer as I left.

It took a while to really explain just what it is we do, both in the
woods and on the web, but when once he understood that, and I think
he did, he made these points:

We have been fine so far with our loose organization. We are at very
little risk of being sued by anyone who gets hurt looking for a box.
The person who placed the box in a dangerous place might be
successfully sued, but not the people who posted the clues. The
looseness of our organization is a help. He looked at our disclaimer
and said it was fine.

If the only thing we are considering doing differently is getting
money to pay for a website, there is still no reason to incorporate.
We can certainly ask people fo contributions, or fees (not dues),
without being incorporated. It would not be hard to give an
accounting on a web page of who had contributed money and how much,
and what we had spent it on. No problem with accountability.

We can give patches away, and use the contributions to pay for them,
but don't make them conditions for contributing. He advised
definitely against getting into the business of selling t-shirts or
mugs. However, he did say there was no problem in ordering things on
request and selling them at cost. What Kay (Mohmers) is doing for us
with the patches is not a problem.

All in all, he urged strongly against the hassles involved in
becoming even a non-profit organization.

There were more questions I might have asked about incorporation, I
suppose (e.g. states which don't charge $300 a year for non-profit
corp taxes), but I wasn't feeling inclined to at that point.


end of excerpt



Tom Cooch