81.
On Jul 27, 2005, at 5:40 PM, Paul Ellis wrote to Alan Wherry (D328):
“Alan: As you requested, I am sending this to follow-up on our conversation of earlier today. There have been several conversations that I have had or have been involved with when Sir C.P. spoke to this topic. At Sahasrara day, he said to me, Alan Pereira, Arneau and others that he would like to have us put forward a proposal to consolidate all of the intellectual property within such legal entity as we would propose. When I followed up to ask him what IP he was referring to, he said, "everything," meaning tapes, videos, books, etc.
Then, in the airport upon their arrival in the U.S., he clarified this a little more by saying that this proposal should address not just the legal matters, but all aspects of the process of maintaining and disseminating audios and videos, including maintaining and preserving the tapes, reproduction, distribution, finances, defense of copyright, etc. He was proposing that this should all be much more centralized and consolidated than the dispersed, hodgepodge system that we have now. Also, as I mentioned to the group on Sunday, Sir C.P. said that he and Shri Mataji regard this as one of the most
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important, if not the most important, tasks currently before WCASY. He said to me "there is not a day to lose.”
The Legal Committee has been working on a proposal with respect to legal issues. But when Sir C.P. expanded the scope in the conversation we had in the airport, I realized that this proposal went far beyond the realm of the Legal Committee and really needs the input of the Committee charged with audios, videos and books, as well as the Finance Committee (...)”
82.
In a following email written on July 28th, Paul Ellis, in a bid to move matters forward wrote to a number of leaders (D379):
“Everyone: Thanks to Alan for his thoughts on this. I have a couple of reply comments as set forth below.
But, more importantly, I wanted to update everyone based on a conversation with Sir C.P. last night. He stated that, in his view, now that WCASY has been formally established, developing a coordinated means of preserving and distributing audios and videos of Shri Mataji is, without question, the most important task before WCASY. He added that he is hoping that we can make some significant progress on this before he and Shri Mataji depart from the U.S.
So, given that they will be leaving in around 6 weeks, we really need to get cracking on this (...).
In order to try to light a fire on this, I am expanding this discussion to include the entire Legal Committee. Alan and Gagan, perhaps you would like to do the same for the Communications/Publications and Finance Committees.
The bottom line is that the time is short, so it is important to find the people who have the time and the will to push this project forward and to formulate this proposal within the next few weeks. Let's all please give whatever input we can to get things moving. In particular, those among us that feel that they would be able to take an active role in this should speak up."
83.
On 31 July, 2005, Paul Ellis wrote to a number of leaders (D43):
“Dear Brothers: A couple of days have gone by, and I have yet to receive any responses on the following message that I sent out on the 28th. I apologize for sounding like a squeaky wheel, but, as a group, we need to get this project moving. Part of my concern about this is that every day that I see Sir C.P., without fail, he raises this subject and asks me how it is going.
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Last night I told him that we were in the process of setting up a team to address this and that I believed that we would be getting it moving quite soon.
So again, I would request some feedback on this to get a team together and prepare the proposal that Sir C.P. has requested. As I have said, I will certainly make sure that the legal issues get covered, but that is only one, relatively small, part of this effort. As this is fundamentally about preserving and distributing Shri Mataji's spoken and written words, it does seem that, at some level, either the Publications/Communications Committee or some of its members need to be at the core of this effort.
So let's all please get a dialogue going with some proposals for moving this forward. It may be that Alan is unable to check email from wherever he is in Russia. Can Manoj or anyone else who knows the membership of the Communications/Publication committee please circulate this to them so we can get their input? (...)"
C.
AUGUST 2005 EVENTS
84.
A couple of emails were exchanged between various World Council members on issues raised in Paul's emails, but in view of the importance of this matter and a need for greater input, Paul Ellis wrote to the World Council on August 2, 2005 (D43):
“Dear Brothers and Sisters of the World Council,
I am forwarding for all of your information, various email messages that have been circulated over the last week regarding Sir C.P.'s very urgent request, that he is repeating virtually daily, that we take immediate steps to develop a consolidated, worldwide strategy for gathering, inventorying, preserving, duplicating, distributing and legally protecting Shri Mataji's spoken and written words (...) First Sir C.P. has been stressing the urgency of this since he arrived in America. Second, although I raised it at the WCSAY meeting (...) it doesn't seem like we are any closer to reaching any decisions (...) Part of the reason I want to bring all of you in the loop is that it ahs (sic) clearly been set out as the next big step for WCASY. As Sir C.P. is asking about it daily, I felt it important that all of the members be aware of how important this is and the urgency with which we need to act (...) So let's please reply with some very concrete views about who can take this on, how to form the team or whatever it takes. Not to put too fine a point on this but, whenever Sir C.P. has asked about how WCASY is doing in moving forward with this project, I have basically had to give him some version of "we're working on it." When it comes up tonight, which it almost certainly will, it would be great to have something a little more definitive to say.
