Some Ideas To Make Alcor Better

By: David Pizer

For about 45 years I have been managing or owning different kinds of businesses. I have learned to study my own businesses, those of people who have asked me for advice, and those of my competitors. I feel I have become very good at noticing 'indicators' of things that are leading to a business advancing or declining.

The indicators about Alcor's business are very concerning. Recently on Cryonet, Dr. Stodolsky reviewed some of Alcor's performance indicators and his conclusion was very alarming to me. When Dr. Stodolsky compared Alcor's performance to our main competitor, Cryonics Institute, Alcor seemed to be heading to a grave location.

The three main things that will concern all of us people who are depending on Alcor's managers' actions to try to save our lives are the decline of Alcor in membership growth increase rates and amount of patients, and all the horrible mistakes some Alcor directors seem to be making, including their refusal to discuss these issues with their members. (There are many other things we could compare Alcor to with CI that would also show serious problems at Alcor, but for this work I will focus on the ones mentioned above).

Dr. Stodolsky concludes that yearly growth rates for CI appear to be 20% greater then Alcor's. I don't know what that transfers to in number of members for each group, but if that keeps up there MUST come a time when CI will have many many more members then Alcor. Dr. Stodolsky then states: "Beyond the other differences, the stability of CI appears to be much greater in terms of membership growth and growth-rate increases."

The other thing that disturbs me is that CI has taken over the lead from Alcor in number of patients.

What makes this grave situation (for Alcor members and patients) seem even worse is that I believe Alcor is spending way more money in administrative expenses and things that could be considered marketing costs then CI, and that Alcor had a big lead on CI just 8 or 9 years ago.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE IN CI AND ALCOR THAT IS CAUSING THIS? ALCOR IS A DICTATORSHIP AND CI IS A DEMOCRACY.

(I will explain why below)

It boils down to this: Someday, we Alcor members will become Alcor patients. The strength in safety for the Alcor patients is the size of the membership. There IS safety in numbers. As Alcor declines in market share, while it's overhead soars, the risk to future patients keep mounting.

If you want to be successful in business, you don't just look at today's numbers, you look at the indicators to tomorrow's business results. (although both are now bad for Alcor). If we members look at the indicators, it looks like pretty moribund, as our lead over our competitors along with our hopes and dreams for survival seem to decompose,.

MY OPINION OF WHY HAS THIS SITUATION HAPPENED?

Alcor directors have allowed membership growth rates to fall. Alcor is no longer the leader in the most amount of patients.

The Directors have allowed Alcor to lose their reputation for being the undisputed leader of all cryonics organizations in research.

Alcor does not appear to have the financial strength it once had. It has allowed it's overhead to become too large as compared to it's income from dues.

Secrecy in Alcor prevails. Alcor no longer shares as much meaningful information with it's members. Much of the most dangerous problems are kept hidden from members under claims of needed confidentiality.

Because they have no say, Alcor Members no longer feel a part of Alcor. Donations (in relation to size of membership) are down. Volunteerism is down. Attendance at functions in down. Pride in Alcor is down. Many past presidents and other past leaders have left Alcor or are dissatisfied with Alcor.

Some members feel Alcor Directors have lost, wasted, allowed to be stolen or mismanaged away, hundreds of thousands or dollars of money that Alcor members have contributed to Alcor.

Inability to choose a competent president. Alcor has fired or forced to resign, three presidents in a row.

Putting removed presidents on the board. Regarding ex-presidents after being fired or forced to resign by the board, the board then put two of them on the board.

Alcor got terrible PR in the Ted Williams suspension and in other matters. It seems to many that Alcor is no longer focused on preventing mistakes but just hiding them.

Secret meetings. Lack of detailed reports on suspensions. Lack of sharing performance reports with the membership.

MY OPINON OF WHY ALL THE PROBLEMS ABOVE ARE HAPPENING AT ALCOR

I believe there are there is one MAIN flaw in Alcor that leads to two MAIN problems. The main flaw is that board members elect themselves rather than allow the members to elect the leaders of Alcor. The two problems that this causes are: 1) Under the present election system, there is no accountability by the people who manage Alcor (the directors) and 2) the members feel they have no real say in Alcor and so there is less motivation for members to work hard for Alcor, to volunteer to do things, to donate money, submit good ideas, etc.

MY OPINION OF WHO WE CAN FIX THE PROBLEM.

Alcor directors can change the way the directors are elected, allowing a system (with safety checks built into it) for the members, instead of the directors, to elect and re-elect the directors.

Here are some ideas on how this might be done, but we need a lot of input from members to really design a good plan.

IDEAS FOR A SYSTEM WHERE MEMBERS ELECT DIRECTORS

In this plan there would be two classes of leaders. Member-elected Directors who would have authority and responsibility similar to what they have now, and Member-elected Advisors with less authority and responsibility and are in training to run for seats on the Board after a minimum of two years as an Advisor.

DIRECTORS

1. Directors will be elected from the existing pool of advisors. Anyone who has been an elected advisor for two years before the date of the annual election for the director's office they are seeking can announce his desire to be a candidate.

2. The Members will elect the directors (see requirements for members to be able to vote below) from the pool of qualified advisors who have asked to be a candidate and from the pool of existing directors who want to stand for re-election. We need to adopt rules how the elections will be run.

3. There should be a method for removing (and replacing) directors before the next election if the membership so desires.

ADVISERS

1. To be a candidate for advisor a person must be an Alcor suspension member for 3 consecutive years.

2. The pool of advisers can be up to 5% of the total amount of Alcor suspension members as figured 60 days before the election for advisers.

3. Any person who wants to be an advisor announces that intention 30 days before the election and the qualified members then vote.

4. At the monthly board meetings or special meetings, when motions were to be voted on by the directors, first the advisors would vote on the motion. A roll call vote would be taken and each adviser's vote would be recorded. So a record of how each adviser had voted would be made. Advisers who cannot attend the meeting in person will vote by computer hookup or telephone. This record would be published in the Alcor monthly magazine that goes to the members and a two-year record would be available at election time when an Adviser ran for a director's position. So we would have at least a 2 year record of how advisers felt about various matters that had come before the Alcor board.

5. As the membership in Alcor grows it is harder for only 9 Directors to deal with all the members concerns and suggestions. We need an intermediate leadership position and that is what an Advisor will be. Advisors have monthly meetings 1 week before the Board meets. Member will be encouraged to attend the Advisors meetings and to give their input. Members will present their arguments and proposed solutions to the Board of Advisors who will vote to approve or disapprove the suggestions of each member. That recommendation will be sent to the Board who can either accept their recommendation of over-ride it.

The final vote of the Board is what actually counts. But having the Advisors hear the matters and help to flush out all the concerns and pros and cons will save the Board a lot of time and allow this management combination to hear the concerns and ideas of many more members.

Of course if the general membership does not like the actions of the Advisors or Board members, they can replace them at the next annual election.

WHO CAN VOTE FOR ELECTORS AND/OR ADVISERS

1. Any person that has been an Alcor member for 2 or more years can vote for advisors and directors.

This plan is in the early discussion phase. We all need to share our ideas and see if we can come up with safeguards and ways to make this work.

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