X-Message-Number: 18538 Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 23:01:45 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Cryonics Assistance Fund Help Wanted The subject has recently come up of the Venturist Cryonics Assistance Fund, which is now devoting its resources to James Swayze, but in the future may be able to help other people too. That will take more money, thus we need to find ways of raising money. The ideas below come from Dave Pizer, and relate to holding an auction through Ebay. We need someone with the time and knowledge to serve as the chairperson, as Dave explains, and others to serve on the committee. Anyone interested contact me at Thanks. Mike Perry [From Dave Pizer:] When I was doing fund raising for Alcor, I took a fund raising course at Arizona State University. I remember from the class that it is much harder to raise money in general than it is for a specific project or person. So in the case of James Swayze there is a face and personality that people might want to save. In addition, James has written a lot on Cryonet and has won some supporters. To just raise money for people to freeze needy people in general might be a lot harder at this time (but not so much harder in the far-away future when cryonics might be considered as more mainstream). So holding an auction might be a very good way to raise money for a general rescue fund. First you will need someone to be in charge, a chairperson, who knows how to deal with Ebay. That person has a committee of several persons (whoever wants to volunteer). The volunteers donate things and solicit more things to be auctioned off from members of the cryonics community. Everyone has "stuff" lying around that they might not want to throw away because it has some value, but they don't use it anymore. The committee gathers this stuff up and the chairman contracts with Ebay to auction it off. The proceeds, after Ebay's commissions, are deposited into the Venturist's account and held until someone needs them. It could probably be coordinated all by e-mail. It would be good for the chairperson to have the stuff in his/her possession before it is offered on Ebay. I don't want to be the chairperson, but I would serve on the committee, and I do have lots of odds and ends lying around that could be shipped/delivered to the chairperson to be auctioned off. I will support any effort to get this going. David Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18538