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COMPASSION RESPONSE NETWORK CIRCULAR No 13
Compassion Response Network,
Australian Company Number 103 240 071
By David Keane, 1/March/2003
PO Box 582, Gosnells WA 6110, Australia
Email address: keane@nw.com.au
Healing site address: http://www.nw.com.au/~keane/healing/
The Road to Opening a Bank Account
On Wednesday 26th/February/2003, Compassion Response Network officially opened its first bank account.
It has now been over 14 months since in December2001, five goodwill workers from all over the world and communicating through email, and all inspired by the vision of finding a goodwill response to the AIDS pandemic in Africa, joined together to form a management committee called the Inner Planning Circle.
During all that time we did not appeal for money. Whenever men and women of goodwill volunteered to donate to the work, we would say that the time is not yet ready to receive official donations. Our expenditure over the past 14 months has been small. In the audited financial year to 30/June/2002, the expenditure for Compassion Response Network was Australian $296 (about US$160), on postage, stationary and photocopying. This amount was balanced by a steady trickle of donations, though in the past we have never appealed for donations.
Whenever men and women of goodwill offered to send donations for the coming treatment and blood-testing projects in Kinshasa and Harare, we advised them to hold onto their money or start saving, and donate it only after we had officially opened a bank account in the name of Compassion Response Network. Then all incoming donations would be officially recorded by the bank, thus providing an official accounting check that can be easily audited. To such inquirers, we simply kept in touch with them through a regularly published CRN Circular.
It has not been easy to open a bank account in the name of Compassion Response Network. We needed first to register our organisation officially as a public company or as an association. We eventually decided to seek registration as a public company, as this option provided more safeguards for correct accountability, which was vitally important if we were to become a charitable organisation.
The first step was to decide our Vision, Mission Statement and Main Aim, so that our objectives and purpose would be clearly defined in a constitution. Our Inner Planning Circle debated these matters for many months, eventually agreeing on the final versions in April/2002 (see Circular No 8 of April/2002). Next we had to draft an official Compassion Response Network Constitution, that satisfied both our own aims and objectives, as well as the demanding requirements of Australian Corporations Law. This was a particularly difficult task, as the government provided no "how to do it" kits, none of us had legal experience and we could not afford to hire a lawyer for advice. In the end, our secretary researched the matter in depth by reading hundreds of pages of intricate material from the Australian Corporations Act.
After much labour, we agreed upon our Constitution, and registered to become an Australian public company with special provisions for charitable objectives. The company is non-profit and no wages or financial reward can be issued to members or directors. We received official registration as a charitable public company on 23/December/2003.
Only after we had been officially registered, could we initiate proceedings to open our bank account. We needed to first debate banking policy with double checks on expenditure and two signatures of directors for all withdrawals. Eventually on 26/February, we opened our official bank account for Compassion Response Network.
Bank Details
Name of Bank: Bendigo Bank
Address of Bank: 2227 Albany Highway, Gosnells WA 6110, Australia
Bank/State/Branch (BSB) reference number of bank: 633-000
Account name: Compassion Response Network
CRN bank account number: 118955723
CRN postal address: PO Box 582, Gosnells WA 6110, Australia
CRN email address: keane@nw.com.au
CRN registered office address: 29B Percy St, Gosnells WA 6110, Australia
Bendigo Bank was chosen because it is a community bank, dedicated to member's participation in policy making, client service and ethical investment. The first Bendigo Bank was formed as a community initiative in reaction to the profiteering of the major banks and selling off of country branches.
Compassion Response Network is a charitable organisation inviting donations for the charitable purposes specified in our CRN Constitution. The major area of expenditure for the year 2003 will be to support treatment and testing projects for advanced AIDS patients in Kinshasa and Harare. 7 patients in Kinshasa and 24 in Harare will receive treatment and comprehensive blood testing over 6 months, with results openly published on the CRN website (the CRN website to be launched within a month). Full details of the treatment program have been published in CRN Circular No 12.
Donations from within Australia
Direct deposits can be made within Australia through direct deposit to the CRN bank account, specifying company name (Compassion Response Network), Bank (Bendigo Bank Gosnells Branch), BSB code (633-000) and account number (118955723). Deposits made at any branch of the Bendigo Bank are free. If the deposit is made at another bank or financial institution within Australia, there may be a transfer fee of AUD$4 or $5.
Personal cheques, bank drafts or postal notes should be made out to "Compassion Response Network" and sent to our postal address, PO Box 582, Gosnells WA 6110, Australia. It is important that the name "Compassion Response Network" is printed on such payments, as then such payments can only be legally cashed through deposit in the CRN bank account, which is annually audited to confirm all expenditure is in accordance with CRN charitable objectives.
Overseas Donations
CRN does not presently have any bank account outside of Australia, and is unlikely to have over the coming year.
Donations can be sent to CRN's postal address, in the name of "Compassion Response Network". The most efficient way is through a bank draft purchased at any overseas bank and made out in Australian dollars, and then sent by post (to PO Box 582, Gosnells WA 6110, Australia). Personal cheques made out to "Compassion Response Network" from overseas are subject to an AUD$6 fee and 28 day cheque holding period once deposited. Cheques from some nations (such as Poland at present) are not recognised within Australia, and so the safest way to make donations is through a bank draft.
Deposits can also be made direct by international telegraphic bank transfer, specifying Bank (Bendigo Bank), Bank address (2227 Albany Highway, Gosnells WA 6110, Australia), Bank BSB code (633-000), account name (Compassion Response Network), account number (118955723) and postal address (PO Box 582, Gosnells WA 6110, Australia). International telegraphic transfers are more expensive than bank drafts, as they attract a high transfer fee which can vary according to bank and country of origin. The amount of transfer fee will be advised by the sending bank, but typically it may be as much as US$30.
Receipts
All donations of AUD$5 or more received by post and with a sender's name and address will receive a CRN receipt by post. CRN receipts will not attract a tax rebate from the Australian Tax Office. Donations deposited directly into the CRN bank account will not record the sender's name and address so no receipt can then be sent.
Internet Banking
Anyone wanting to donate within Australia and who has Internet access will be able to deposit directly into the CRN bank account using Internet Banking. This facility is not available for overseas transfers of money.
Merchant Facility
Merchant Facility permits payment through credit cards. Australian law prohibits us opening a merchant facility for at least 6 months after the opening of our bank account. We may be able to arrange a merchant facility linked with the CRN website by about September 2003.
Public Accountability
Compassion Response Network seeks to adopt the highest ethical standards of open-ness and accountability possible for a small organisation.
As the CRN is bound under its constitution to be non-profit, all donations received must be spent exclusively upon our charitable objectives. No portion of the CRN fund can be paid or transferred, directly or indirectly, by way of dividend, bonus or otherwise, to the directors of CRN. All seven founding directors serve on a voluntary basis, attracting no financial reward.
All cheques, bank drafts and postal notes can be cashed only through depositing into the CRN bank account. All such deposits are subject to strict audit for expenditure in accordance with the CRN objectives defined in the CRN constitution. In effect for the year 2003, at least 95% of donations received during the year 2003 will go towards the Kinshasa and Harare AIDS projects, the remainder being used to provide healing devices to service groups in poor nations and administrative expenses. The exception will be if a donation is tagged for a special purpose of expenditure; then the money will be used for the specified purpose.
All withdrawals from the CRN bank account need to be double signed, and all expenditures are subject to approval by the Inner Planning Circle.
Every year our accounts, including receipts, expenditure, minutes and full yearly financial statements are audited by a registered chartered accountant. In preparation of accounts we are required to conform to optimum Australian accounting standards.
We invite comments from readers for ways by which we can improve on matters of ethical standards, open-ness and sharing of information, accountability and right practice.
Websites
All CRN circulars are available at David Keane's healing website at;
The vision, mission statement, and objectives as defined in the CRN constitution are presented in Circular No 11. The details for the 2003 Harare and Kinshasa projects for treatment and testing of advanced AIDS patients, are provided in CRN Circular No 12. The next CRN Circular (No 14) will provide a breakdown of expected project expenditure for the Kinshasa and Harare 2003 AIDS projects.
We are in process of constructing a new website, to be named the Compassion Response Network website. It will be released by the time of the global public appeal launch in about a month time. The CRN website will be a group endeavour, produced through the Inner Planning Circle, and will include many features,
CRN purpose, history and organisational structure,
CRN vision, mission statement and main aim,
AIDS treatment and testing projects for 2003
Details of programs for Kinshasa and Harare,
Expenditure estimates for projects,
Monthly update on actual expenditure,
All blood test and other results will be published as they are received,
Vision statement for future development,
CRN Constitution.
We will seek to continually improve the CRN website and will welcome suggestions from readers. Full details about the CRN website will be available in next CRN circular.
Donations
We hope to be able to launch the CRN website and global public appeal (through Internet) before the end of March. Shortly afterwards, as soon as donations permit, we will commence the 6-months treatment and testing programs.
Our Inner Planning Circle is presently in process of concluding its debate of the public appeal budget. The target for funds required to conduct the entire 6-months projects is likely to be between US$60,000 and US$70,000. This will facilitate full treatment for 31 advanced AIDS patients over 6 months with comprehensive 2-monthly blood testing and open publication of the results. The results for 8 different alternative treatments will be presented and compared. Donations also support the continuation of PNI work for the AIDS community in Harare.
The treatments themselves are provided free. The major costs involved in the US$60,000 to US$70,000 projects target include viral load, immunity and other blood tests, various medical items, rent and equipping of treatment houses, provision of one nutritious meal daily for all patients on the 6-months project, transport, wages for carers/nurses, cooks and a secretary for the PNI office in Harare for the 8 months of the project. Central administrative costs will be a minor expense. No expenditure will go towards publicity or promotion.
Full details of expected expenditures will be listed in the next CRN Circular. The present balance of the CRN fund stands at AUD$42 (about US$25). We now urgently need donations, for there are a number of vital expenditures necessary in the preparation month before the projects begin in proper.
CRN is set up as a charitable organisation to establish a pathway by which men and women of goodwill can contribute towards the financing of selected projects. These projects belong to the men and women of goodwill around the world. Without your financial support, these projects will not get off the ground.
Service Objectives of Compassion Response Network
What sorts of projects might Compassion Response Network become involved in, beyond the year 2003, after the completion of the treatment and testing projects?
The guiding purpose with respect to the work of Compassion Response Network is defined by our mission statement;
"To facilitate the emergence of a goodwill network in which the hands of men and women of goodwill are strengthened so that they become enabled to directly provide a meaningful compassionate response to the most urgent needs of humanity."
In the Constitution of Compassion Response Network, the objectives for our work with AIDS are defined in this way;
"To identify with the millions in the world with AIDS and facilitate a compassionate response through direct action until their suffering is transmuted to hope. To facilitate AIDS treatment and testing projects of sufficient scientific-medical quality to attract the interest and commitment of major aid and charitable groups. To cooperate with major aid and charitable groups to provide effective long-term responses to the AIDS pandemic."
During the year 2003, we are responding to the central objective within this broad statement; "To facilitate AIDS treatment and testing projects of sufficient scientific-medical quality to attract the interest and commitment of major aid and charitable groups." Our goal is to follow the treatment and testing projects through to completion, and publish the results with comparative assessments. We remain detached from any expectations of what these results may be, but if they are only half as positive as many of the claims coming from the promoters of these healing treatments, then surely our results will attract the interest of some within major aid and charitable groups.
If these trials are successful, they may well inspire regional projects in other African countries, focussing on providing physical treatments and blood testing to perhaps thousands of advanced AIDS patients. This is our goal. We are committed to follow through until such regional projects become a reality. Eventually the work will in time expand to a national level, and scientific testing will be done on such an extensive scale as to be able to demonstrate in world courts whether or not these alternative treatments provide an effective cure for AIDS.
Other Avenues of Compassionate Response
Our work however goes far beyond the physical treatment approach of the 2003 AIDS projects. It is our broader objective to "identify with the millions in the world with AIDS and facilitate a compassionate response through direct action until their suffering is transmuted to hope." Physical treatment projects provide simply one avenue of response. We are focussing on this single avenue during the year 2003 because we are such a small group, and if we did not so focus our work through very specific projects, then we would remain dreamers, and nothing would get done in practice.
After the launch of our global public appeal and initiation of our treatment projects, the numbers interested in our work will grow. We will make connections with many groups with vast experience in the humanitarian and medical areas.
Our task is to sow seeds for the vision of the greater work to be done to provide a truly compassionate and comprehensive response to AIDS. Our dream is that a day will come when the horrors and suffering of AIDS will be merely a vague memory of a past generation. But to manifest that dream we must ourselves implement the solutions to today's tragic suffering.
Compassion Response Network is at the moment a small group, and I expect it will remain fairly small in future years. We will establish strong networking connections with many humanitarian and goodwill groups, but our main task as we see it is to forge a pathway of responsiveness to God's will through to the anchoring of the divine Plan upon Earth.
In all our work, we are guided by a meditation of synthesis. In particular, we identify with all the millions in Africa, and throughout the world who are infected with HIV and AIDS. In our meditations we attune to their cries and pains and sorrows, yet also to their hopes and dreams and joys. As we identify with them, they become close to us, even as brothers and sisters. Their needs are our own, and it is our heart desire to assist in healing their sorrows.
Thus it is that we establish a special link with the 24 patients in Harare and 7 in Kinshasa who are participating with us in the 2003 treatment, testing and comparative assessment projects. Through our public appeal we are facilitating a treatment program which will assist them in various ways. But through a meditation of synthesis we attune to their deeper need.
If we remain true to our vision, we will continue to respond to their need even after the 6-months treatments are over. When the 2-months and 4-months blood tests are back, we will begin to see which treatments will be more effective in eliminating the HIV virus, and which in strengthening the immune system, and which in providing radiant health. Then we will invite meetings between many groups, involving members of Compassion Response Network with their extended networks linking to men and women of goodwill overseas, with members of PNI Empowerment Trust, with co-workers and volunteers, with doctors and scientists and above all with the AIDS patients themselves, those that have been on our 6-months treatment projects and also those who have not yet been on these projects and who want participation in future projects.
We will then invite a discussion, firstly among the AIDS patients themselves, asking them, "what treatments would they like to see most used in future projects?" We will be asking them to consider the ease of treatment, the safety and also the cost of providing treatments, besides the effectiveness of the treatments. We will ask the AIDS patients who have received our treatment whether they would like to become employed in AIDS support projects, such as growing herbs with curative value, or constructing electrical devices in an electronics workshop, or providing care in a goodwill AIDS support and treatment centre. Our aim will be to provide effective and cheap treatment to the many. Cheapness of treatment may depend upon developing industries employing many people, many of them former AIDS patients, in Zimbabwe, the Congo and throughout Africa. It is our belief, that once we have the medical scientific data from this project, we will together be able to decide which treatments will be most effective for long term development within Zimbabwe and the Congo and Africa generally.
Those patients who have participated in our 6-months treatment and testing project in 2003, we would like to invite to participate in follow up projects. We have a life-long soul commitment to them. We seek to do what we can to respond to their many physical and spiritual needs, even until the affliction of AIDS is no longer for them a disease. When many men and women gather together in common thought, great dreams are possible to become true. Slowly, we must build that network of men and women of goodwill.
Future Work in Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo
Several years ago, Geraldene the CRN project coordinator for Harare, was in Johannesburg South Africa where she met Neil a research psychologist and David, one of the longest survivors with AIDS. They invited her to do a course called PNI, or Psycho-Neuro-Immunology. Six months later David and Neil visited Harare, where Geraldene organised TV and radio appearances and 2 PNI workshops that sold out.
When they left, they told everybody who wanted to do the course, that Geraldene was doing it in Zimbabwe. So it was that Geraldene was inundated with people wanting PNI. The rest is history. PNI proved to be so popular that it spread throughout Zimbabwe and a wide network and official Trust was developed to respond to the huge need and demand.
PNI is based on the mind body connection which Geraldene thinks is more powerful than we realise. The PNI Advanced Personal Empowerment workshop is extremely powerful. For years, Geraldene has been using it, combined with nutrition, counseling and information to release fear and restore health to people with severe HIV infection. To provide distinction, we will not be using PNI with the 2003 treatment projects. But after the present projects are completed, we could devise other projects which bring physical treatment and PNI together. Then we may really see something amazing.
Albert, our CRN project coordinator for Kinshasa, heads a goodwill group serving humanity in many fields;
Albert is presently involved in coordinating the 2003 treatment and blood testing project in Kinshasa. After the completion of this project he describes his future service work as;
Outreach to Other Countries and Regions.
After completion of the 2003 projects, there will be need to sponsor a tour for Geraldene to speak about the projects and results throughout southern African nations.
We will need to initiate goodwill service and treatment groups in other African countries and throughout the world.
We must provide healing facilities and treatments applicable for remote rural regions in Africa where they lack modern conveniences and electricity.
We must respond to the vast AIDS pandemic sweeping India, where the adult infection rate has recently touched 20%, and people with infection are shunned as though they are "untouchable".
We must establish networking links with AIDS workers in China, where the extent of the pandemic is set to transcend even Africa or India, and where the great need is simple information about AIDS and availability of treatment. We must support people's movements for these simple rights.
The way of Compassion Response Network is to select those few projects that most powerfully reflect the extremity and urgency of human need and suffering, and then commit to the healing of these situations through compassionate and direct response to need.
We will not be intimidated by opposition from either conservative medical circles or from political obstruction. These matters are not our concern, our concern being only a direct and compassionate response to profound need. Eventually the principles of love, goodwill, unity and right human relations will hold sway. In these principles we trust implicitly.
We are committed to continue helping the patients presently on our projects, even if it may take many years, until each is returned as far as possible to vibrant health. We will continue to build the work in both Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo, beyond the year 2003 for the need is great. Neither famine nor organised opposition will deter us. We identify with these people and this commitment is life-long.
We must not waver at the intense difficulties before us. These very difficulties must awaken within us an ever greater commitment and sense of compassion.
We have established a soul link with the wonderful people we are presently connected with in service in Zimbabwe and in the Congo and throughout Africa, and yet also with all AIDS patients throughout the world. We are ever one with them.
David Keane,
Secretary, Compassion Response Network