X-Message-Number: 22938 From: Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 14:12:06 EST Subject: local help James Swayze has commented, and Ben Best may have more to say, but let me say just a bit about CI and local help for members at a distance, where at least some people seem to have persistent misunderstandings. First, there is no simple, quick, convenient, turn-key, one-size-fits-all system for your arrangements. The basic CI contract says that our responsibility begins when the patient is delivered to us, and this is the understanding for the minimum suspension fee of $28,000. Naturally, members at a distance will also need local help and transportation, and this must be arranged and funded. There are various options, depending on location and circumstances, and somebody has to fgure it out and put it in place. In particular, the duties of the local mortician and any possible local volunteers must be spelled out and preparations made, including training and equipment as indicated. It is more convenient for the member if the local and transport costs can be included in the suspension fee guaranteed to CI, typically through life insurance, so we offer a Local Help Rider along with the Cryonic Suspension Agreement for those who want it. CI then pays the local mortician when the patient has been shipped, according to the terms of the Rider. The duties assumed by the local mortician, and the price, will vary and require negotiation, perhaps among several parties--the member, CI, perhaps other members in the vicinity, perhaps local volunteers, possibly other cryonics organizations, and the mortician. Finding a willing mortician close enough is usually not difficult, but may take some time. The whole process will take time and demand attention from our staff, which costs money. Therefore we cannot--as many prospective members would like--get everything neatly lined up to the prospective member's satisfaction before he joins. He must join first, and then we will work with the member and do our best, within our resources and as promptly as feasible, to get all the arrangements in place. If at any point the member is dissatisfied, he can always cancel the contract, if he has one, but cannot recover his membership fee (or dues in the case of an Option Two member). How local volunteers fit in is highly variable. In England there is a well organized and equipped and trained volunteer group, centered on the initiative of Alan Sinclair (now on the CI Board of Directors) and others. But even this group--let alone others much weaker--cannot represent themselves as agents of CI, for obvious reasons of legal liability. Any involvement of volunteers must be informal from the point of view of CI. The members who plan to use the group, and the group itself, must see to their own legal protection and make their own judgments as to what is useful and safe. In particular, care must be taken not to get crossed wires between the volunteers and the local mortician. Members and prospective members must avoid the "us-them" attitude, that "we" (the members) are customers and "they" (CI) are vendors. CI is not a business in the usual sense, and its members are not customers in the usual sense. Obviously this is one of the reasons for the slow growth of cryonics--that it isn't easy, simple, or cheap. We are trying to make it easier, and in some respects simpler, and at least relatively cheaper, but it won't happen overnight. There is no free lunch. Unless you are rich enough to hire people to do the scut work for you, you will have to put up with inconveniences and tiresome chores. But you are dealing with chores and inconveniences every day anyway on many levels. At a minimum, you have to run a household with its constant problems and maintenance--it's just the cost of living. With cryonics, you have a chance for a whale of a lot more living with only a moderate dose of inconvenience. Robert Ettinger Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22938