Preamble
The most important feature of a human being is intelligence. It is a measure of cognitive abilities that allows one to differentiate truth from falsehood and good from evil. At the same time, people differ greatly in their cognitive abilities, and those who differ greatly from the majority were often excluded from society and persecuted throughout history. Such a fate befell the most talented and outstanding individuals, so-called geniuses and virtuosos of the mind. They were almost everywhere discriminated against, and often physically eliminated by a morally lower majority, less capable of recognizing truth and good. This process, contrary to some opinions, continues to this day and even intensifies over time. As Stanislaw Lem wrote in “A Perfect Vacuum”:
“First come your run-of-the-mill and middling geniuses, that is, of the third order, whose minds are unable to go much beyond the horizon of their times. These, relatively speaking, are threatened at least; they are often recognized and even come into money and fame. The geniuses of the second order are already too difficult for their contemporaries and therefore fare worse. In antiquity they were mainly stoned, in the Middle Ages burned at the stake; later, in keeping with the temporary amelioration of customs, they were allowed to die a natural death by starvation […]”.
Sometimes there is the opinion that true geniuses eventually break through with their works. However, as authors such as Luc Bürgin [“Errors of Science”] point out, most likely a significant majority of outstanding discoveries and inventions are lost, and their authors die prematurely due to persistent economic exclusion and mental repression.
In 1919 Nikola Tesla wrote about the inventor’s position and his situation in the world:
“The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain. Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs. This is the difficult task ofthe inventor who is often misunderstood and unrewarded”.
Tesla himself experienced at different times in his life a situation of misunderstanding and unrewarding, which certainly had a negative impact on his life and work. Since Tesla, the situation has even worsened, as evidenced by the fate of former NASA employee, now an engineer at CERN, Bart Verlaat, whose rationalization and invention proposals have been blocked for years both in his native Netherlands and in Geneva. It is difficult to estimate how many potentially great inventors failed to even become engineers, because their education was blocked by less intelligent lecturers and teachers who did not understand their rich intellectual needs.
People with very high intelligence, due to the sensitivity of consciousness that accompanies deepened cognitive potential, are people with special needs and often require special support from society to fully develop their valuable talents and mental competence and to be able to bear the burden of their weighty abilities and the burden of work for the good of all humanity.
Meanwhile in every society, the dissimilarity of some individuals invariably evokes a sense of threat. Societies, however, permanently exclude from their midst individuals who are better, not worse, than average. For the better people remind the average people of the imperfections of them and of the need to work on themselves, which people try to avoid out of laziness and convenience. This invariably leads to the exclusion and destruction of truly outstanding individuals. As written in the novel Insomnia by Stephen King:
“He was so different […] so special . . . but the world did not love people like that. The world tried to root them out, like tares from a garden”.
Contemporary psychological studies collected by Michael W. Ferguson in his well-known article The Inappropriately Excluded confirm the fact of social exclusion, discrimination, and persecution of the most intelligent, i.e. the most intellectually outstanding individuals in modern democratic societies. This causes immense and difficult-to-overestimate damage both for the intellectually and morally most valuable persons and for society itself, which is deprived of potentially invaluable results of their work. Democratic societies strive to ensure their members’ equal access to universally applicable law but do so unreflectively – at the expense of depriving their most outstanding representatives of access to their natural, individual rights. These rights include the right to their own educational and professional path (related to the specificity of these people’s talents) and the right to develop their own extraordinary creative and exploratory abilities. For exceptionally talented people, this is linked to the right to choose the nature of work following their vocation and unique predispositions, and to a fair assessment of the results of this work carried out by people with at least equal or higher cognitive competence. Meanwhile, contemporary decision-makers, making such assessments and awarding honorable and material rewards, are usually people of average cognitive abilities, which leads to the promotion of mediocre and contributory works, more understandable to them, at the expense of the most valuable and important opera. This leads to economic exclusion and psychological oppression of authors of outstanding and most important projects.
As Jamie James wrote in his famous book, “The Music of the Spheres”:
“There are very few prestigious grants or government posts to be won by thinking about the ultimate aims of science”.
The process of social exclusion and discrimination of the most intelligent and talented people is undoubtedly based on the so-called social collusion (or social conspiracy), the mechanisms of which are discussed by Eviatar Zerubavel in the book “The Elephant in the Room”. The author explores the practice of silence, denial, and exclusion in both everyday life and science, and calls the non-conscious, instinctive way in which we engage in social conspiracy the sociology of denial. Zarubavel states:
„[…] what we ignore or avoid socially is often also ignored or avoided academically”.
The American sociologist also talks about the “collaborative nature of conspiracies of silence in science”, noting how each conspirator’s actions are symbiotically complemented by the others’. He examines the factors that make them more effective, showing that the pressure toward silence gains momentum as the number of those who conspire to maintain it increases, the longer it lasts, and when the very act of denial is itself denied. This is achieved by institutional bans on seeing, hearing, and speaking, functioning in the form of strict taboos, sometimes in the form of more subtle orders of tact, as well as extensive methods of controlling (channeling) attention, ranging from formal censorship to various tactics of distraction. Science, nominally established for the purpose of producing cognitive progress, turns out to be an extremely conservative field, hard to tolerate innovators who show the economic or political conditioning of knowledge. According to Zerubavel, they are disliked because, by breaking the principle of solidarity, they undermine the expert status of the group. But the matter is much more serious.
As John Brockman remarks in his brilliant book, “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?” scholars who formulate new, politically incorrect ideas are ridiculed, censored, fired from their jobs, and intimidated. Some of them become victims of physical attacks. The most capable people, as Ferguson noted, are not even allowed to enter scientific and creative professions due to the process of negative selection and blocking of real talents at earlier stages of education. Society sees alleged evil in people who, due to the generation of real progress, impose the costs of adaptation to the changes caused by it on everyone. However, the other costs caused by this conservative attitude are much greater – the abandonment of striving for deeper changes and true progress leads sooner or later to the initiation of degeneration processes and civilizational decline.
It must be clearly stated that geniuses and people of very high creativity carry the weight of their deep and expanded consciousness and the resulting increased sense of responsibility for the world in which they live and for the people around them. Under these conditions, social harassment and economic discrimination are felt doubly by them. Meanwhile, the most intelligent people are the custodians of abilities that are essential in every long run for the entire society to survive and develop. Therefore, society as a whole is responsible for the development and proper use of these abilities, and with this comes a special responsibility of any society towards (and for) the most intelligent, revealing and creative persons.
The current democratization of society makes the profession of a scientist accessible to an ever-increasing number of people. According to some estimates, 90% of all scientists who have ever lived are alive today. However, the de-elitization of science had negative consequences – it necessarily caused a decrease in the average intelligence of scientists, which in turn means that the average scientist is increasingly unable to understand the work of outstanding people, including geniuses. Consequently, the most important (that is, the most needed but at the same time the most difficult) scientific works are not printed in scientific journals, are not taken seriously for discussion, and are ridiculed or silenced. Such a non-serious, mocking response met, among others, the book of Marilyn vos Savant The World’s Most Famous Math Problem“. This book indicated serious logical deficiencies in the methodology of modern mathematics. The negative social response to it, in the form of a logically erroneous review of this book by N. Boston and A. Granville, occurred despite (or perhaps precisely: because) Marilyn vos Savant appeared in the Guinness Book of Records as the most intelligent person in the world, and also won in the years preceding the release of her book a public discussion with hundreds of distinguished mathematicians on the so-called Monty Hall Paradox. On the other hand, the well-known and respected in the circles of people of high intelligence CTMU theory of Christopher Michael Langan (who has one of the highest IQs known in the USA) meets with consistent silence in scientific circles. As Langan himself recently wrote:
“The CTMU theory-universe-model dates from the mid- 1980’s, and has since been extensively developed in nearly total isolation from the academic community.”
This state of affairs forces Christopher Langan to support himself by running a farm and prevents him from focusing on developing his revolutionary theory.
Also, one of the originators of this Foundation, an independent researcher and a member of international high IQ societies, Krzysztof Zawisza, encountered insurmountable obstacles in the first decade of this century when trying to publish a groundbreaking discovery, empirically proven many times and very positively reviewed by various Polish professors. As a result, a discovery that could change the way we think about the Universe and about ourselves has been kept quiet since 2006 although information about this discovery circulates all the time in the second circulation, i.e. in popular science books and in belles-lettres.
Another example of the concealment of a potentially very important scientific work is the book „Teotl Theorem” by Carolina Rodriguez Escamilla, which, if confirmed, could simplify lots of important mathematical proofs and have extremely significant applications in physics, but despite many attempts on the part of the author, it has never received any serious discussion.
People with academic degrees must be aware of the fact that if they are unable to understand some scientific work, this does not mean that the work is incorrect and should be rejected or excluded from the discourse, but it means only that its assessment exceeds them. They should then, for the common social good, entrust this assessment to people with higher cognitive abilities. Because at present, when about 8 million people in the world are titular scientists, a scientific degree no longer guarantees that its holder represents a high intelligence, that is, the deep cognitive abilities necessary for the assessment of innovative works.
The social exclusion of a quantitatively not very large, but qualitatively the most important for the development of civilization group of the most capable people contradicts the rationality of principles and the ethical meaning of the modern rule of law and will cause a blockage of the development of the law-governed state. At the same time, a society excluding the most intelligent individuals cannot be called a just or inclusive society. Social inclusion ceases to be inclusive if it is reserved only for certain social groups.
The way out of this situation is to educate society in this regard, consistently inform decision-makers, and differentiate educational methods according to the cognitive abilities of the student. For individuals with the highest IQ, fully capable of learning abstract, logical thinking, and of strong need for learning thinking, the educational path based on learning thinking will be appropriate. This was described by the well-known scientist and writer Stephen Baxter in his famous novel “The Ships of Time”:
„[…] in addition to the rudiments of civilized behavior, the youngster was taught one essential skill: the ability to learn. It is as if a schoolboy of the nineteenth century-instead of having drummed into his poor head a lot of nonsense about Greek and Latin and obscure geometric theorems-had been taught, instead, how to concentrate, and to use libraries, and how to assimilate knowledge-how, above all, to think. After that, the acquisition of any specific knowledge depended on the needs of the task in hand, and the inclination of the individual”.
Meanwhile, the result of discrimination and exclusion of people with outstanding abilities is an increasingly clear fact of impeding scientific and technical progress, which prominent scholars such as Lee Smolin, Sabine Hossenfelder, or Hans Peter Dietz write about recently, noting that human civilization in areas other than computer science stopped developing in the 1970s; in some areas even degenerating. We stopped going to the Moon, despite the latest promises, we no longer fly supersonic passenger planes across the Atlantic, and humanity has not, contrary to earlier hopes, been released from the necessity of hard physical work.
Science, by getting rid of the most intelligent people, had to give up trying to understand the world and is now content with its superficial description, as well as collecting and classifying data. However, science, which at the same time claims to represent the best available methods of knowing reality, blocks the realization of the deepest human need – the need to understand and comprehend. By not developing an understanding of oneself and the world, people become increasingly uncertain of themselves and increasingly driven by fear (various kinds of fears). This is reflected in the often exaggerated, sometimes even hysterical reactions of social and political decision-makers to such threats as the recent pandemic or climate change. Such reactions, as well as decisions based on fear, usually lead to the creation and deepening of social divisions, especially since fear always blocks an open and rational discourse that could eliminate these divisions.
On the contrary, individuals representing the highest level of intelligence available to humans are usually not driven by fear, but by the passion for knowledge and the desire for a deep understanding of the causes of all phenomena. Such individuals are therefore invaluable to society in taming the unknown and incomprehensible, and thus – in freeing man from fear. Individuals of the highest intelligence are only allowed to participate in social life and occupy a place in society if they adapt to the way of understanding the world characteristic of the majority, ie. for less intelligent persons. This means that geniuses and outstanding individuals, to physically survive, must largely deny their abilities and refrain from their creative development. In such a case, they must focus their whole lives on intrapersonal contact, not interpersonal contact, and make an act of “burying talents”. This deprives humanity of new important ideas, discoveries, and inventions. Such a state of affairs causes the waste of humanity’s creative potential and irreversible losses for both current and future generations. This is therefore a crime against mankind and a delict against humanity.
The result of the social exclusion of the most talented individuals is also the flight towards the development of artificial intelligence alone, the undervaluation of natural human reason, and the universal crisis of consciousness. This crisis is undoubtedly the cause of the plague of suicides and the catastrophic spread of disorders and mental illnesses, as reported by the latest WHO reports. Society, by excluding from its midst those who potentially make the greatest contribution to its development, becomes antisocial itself. Such a society excludes itself from itself and, rejecting its own ethical principles, becomes an alienated society. This, in turn, translates into alienation of the individual members of this society and results in the plague of mental illness that are increasingly spreading in the world.
The situation just presented is the result of a serious violation (and leads, in turn, to a serious violation) of universally accepted and inalienable human rights towards individuals with the highest intelligence, by society and its decision-makers. Their personal, political, economic, social, and cultural rights are violated. In terms of personal rights, the social and economic exclusion of highly intelligent people clearly infringes on their right to a good existence, the right to decide on their own life, and the right to happiness. Economic exclusion also infringes, in more severe cases, on the right to life. In terms of political rights, the social exclusion of highly intelligent individuals affects their ability to participate in public life. In the economic, social, and cultural spheres, there is a violation of the right to education (individuals with high intelligence and creativity require their own educational path) and the right to appropriate and satisfactory compensation for the work done (the greatest discoveries and inventions rarely receive any material payment for their authors’ most valuable work). The right to work is often not fulfilled for the most capable and creative individuals due to persistent social exclusion. The right of the most innovative persons to conduct scientific research and to publish their findings is also blocked (no official scientific journal will publish a work based on a new paradigm or a revolutionary idea today).
We are currently facing a situation where civilized societies strongly reject discrimination based on gender, race, or sexual orientation, but hide the fact of discrimination and allow discrimination based on high intelligence, which introduces a dynamic element of movement and development into the static order of the world. This dynamism worries less able and less dynamic individuals. In addition, the most intelligent individuals, who usually become morally and cognitively full due to their potential, are widely hated because they make less perfect people aware of their moral and cognitive imperfections. However, it is precisely these most talented individuals, unless they are excluded from society and/or physically destroyed in the bud, who are teachers and models of ethical behavior and an example that full knowledge of the truth by some people is possible for others.
As history teaches us, all or most communities excluded and persecuted the most intelligent, inventive, and creative individuals, the geniuses and luminaries of the mind, but in the end, they plunged into stagnation, degenerated, and fell. In their place, new societies had to start their development largely from scratch. The accompanying shocks were and are the cause of death and misery of countless people and cause the work of many generations to be wasted. Much suggests that if we do not change anything in this mindless social attitude through cognitive reflection and the decisive action that follows, we will soon face new shocks, wars, and revolutions. As Poul William Anderson once remarked in one of his most famous books, “Brain Wave”:
“The fact that one civilization after another went down into ruin shows we weren’t fitted for it; we were savages by nature. Now we have a chance to get off that wheel of history and go somewhere”.
Therefore, people must be educated to understand the fact that life in truth is more important and more interesting than life in falsehood, just to maintain a badly understood, a-developing social order or to maintain a simple, non-justified, and internally integral integrity.
Poul Anderson described the present state of human civilization as follows:
“You’ve lost your old illusions and you haven’t got what it takes to make new and better ones for yourselves”.
The reason for the above state of affairs is obvious. It is the exclusion from society of people who are capable of creating a real novelty and better perspectives.
As the famous British writer Tanith Lee wrote in the “Kill the Dead” about a brilliant hero of her novel:
“He’ll never be a success, he’s too good. Too good […] to be famous or to be loved. He’s a genius. He’ll never be recognized in his own time. We only revere the rather good, the very good, not the best, never the best. Not until they’re safely dead, and can’t take advantage and hurt us. Never applaud a magician. For his next trick he might eat the world”.
The filled with panic and darkness social attitude described above has destroyed over past centuries and millennia many brilliant human beings, blocked the results of their inventive and creative passion and, to the great detriment of humanity, has wasted a lot of much-needed works. It’s time to terminate this process.
As Poul Anderson wrote in his novel:
“The history of man had, in one sense, represented an unending struggle between instinct and intelligence, the involuntary rhythm of organism and the self-created patterns of consciousness. Here, then, is the final triumph of mind”.
If the society stops excluding the most intelligent and creative individuals, if it lets them into the heart of civilization and into society itself, then it will change, permanently deepen, the state of human consciousness and bring freedom to man. As Poul Anderson wrote again in the “Brain Wave”:
“A man would still have motivations, he would still want to do things, but he could select his own desires, consciously”.
Taking into account all of the above, in a sense of responsibility and care for the ability to survive and develop both ours and future generations, we establish the Syncritic Academy Foundation to put an end to the exclusion, discrimination, and persecution of the most outstanding individuals whose work can provide us with continuous and uninterrupted progress and, consequently, an increase in the general welfare and happiness that always appears as a result of conscious self-realization and the observance of individual rights of all members of society.
Chapter I. General Provisions
§ 1
1. The Syncritic Academy Foundation, hereinafter referred to as the Foundation operates based on the Law of April 6, 1984, on Foundations and the provisions of this Statute.
2. The Foundation has been established by ………….., hereinafter referred to as the Founder, by a notarial deed drawn up by the notary …………… in the notarial office in Warsaw, ……………., on ………….2023.
§ 2
1. The seat of the Foundation is the capital city of Warsaw.
2. The duration of the foundation is indefinite.
3. The foundation operates on the territory of the Republic of Poland and beyond its borders.
4. The foundation may have branches, including remote branches, and create other organizational units (branches).
5. For the purposes of cooperation abroad, the Foundation may use its name translated into a selected foreign language.
§ 3
The Foundation uses its distinctive graphic sign, and seal indicating its name and seat, as well as stamps with identification data.
§ 4
The Foundation has a legal personality.
§ 5
The Foundation may establish certificates, and badges and award them with other awards and distinctions to natural and legal persons deserving of the Foundation and contributing to the achievement of the Foundation’s objectives.
§ 6
The Foundation is supervised by the Minister of Culture, National Heritage and Sport.
Chapter II. Objectives and Principles of the Foundation’s Operations
§ 7
The objectives of the foundation:
1. To bring together, direct, and creatively use the intellectual potential of the most intelligent human beings, with particular regard to persons with IQ 175+ SD 15 (hereinafter referred to as persons with the highest intelligence) and persons with special talents (i.e. those exhibiting special discovery or creative abilities in one or more areas).
2. To create an environment that meets the needs and allows for the development of persons with the highest intelligence or special talents, which removes the barriers of conventional patterns that are an obstacle to their free and unique way of thinking, and which provides the appropriate conditions to enable the use of their unique potential, as well as an environment to prevent socially excluding individuals.
3. To support the intellectual activities of persons with the highest intelligence and/or special talents in the course of their creative, cultural, and scientific work, so that the results of their work can constitute potential for civilizational and social progress.
4. To initiate, organize, finance, and popularize the activities of persons with the highest intelligence and/or special talents in their innovative scientific, technological, ideological, social, and cultural solutions, enabling them to fully develop their potential and cross the boundaries of present knowledge in the above-mentioned areas.
5. To engage in activities in support of organizations whose statutory objectives are to support persons with the highest intelligence or unique talents in their personal development, discovery, and creative work, and in the promotion of the fruits of this work.
§ 8
The foundation pursues its objectives through:
1. Identifying persons with the highest intelligence and/or special talents in the territory of the Republic of Poland and beyond, with a particular focus on those who are professionally or privately engaged in creative, inventive, or discovery work. Comprehensive support in developing their discovery, creative and inventive activities, and propagating the effects of such activities.
2. Working to integrate and activate the environment of the most intelligent, discovery, and creative persons, in particular members of the elite international associations of persons with the highest intelligence and persons with special talents.
3. Fighting social exclusion and discrimination of these persons, through educating society in this regard, in particular:
a. Carrying out activities (PR, publishing, etc.) informing decision-making bodies and persons and institutions responsible for social and civilizational development about the scope of social and moral damage caused by the sociological, economic, and legal exclusion and discrimination of the most outstanding individuals.
b. Identifying and revealing the mechanisms operating in the present world, leading to the social, economic, and legal exclusion of the most creative, discovery, and productive individuals.
c. Drawing the attention of decision-makers, particularly lawmakers and relevant bodies, to the fact of the insufficient legal protection of intellectually most outstanding individuals, hence potentially the most productive, as well as to the fact of the inadequate legal protection of the effects of their work, and to the need to create new legal solutions in this regard.
d. Organizing psychological, professional, and legal counseling.
4. Establishing a research facility, employing people of the highest intelligence and special talents.
5. Endeavouring to create and organize schooling (primary, middle, and higher), the program and teaching methods, and educational methods adapted to the developmental needs of people of the highest intelligence and highest capabilities.
6. Endeavouring to establish with the United Nations a representative for the rights of the most intelligent and particularly talented people.
7. Representing the interests of people of the highest intelligence and talents who are discriminated against and socially marginalized due to their intelligence or creative, inventive, or exploratory activities.
8. Providing citizens’ counseling, in the form of independent services to support the development of creative, inventive, and exploratory activities of people of the highest intelligence.
9. Engaging in educational, publishing, research, and related activities on the topic of human intelligence and its connection to creativity, exploration, and invention, as well as by granting scholarships and grants for purposes consistent with the statutory objectives.
10. Cooperating with local, state, federal, and non-governmental organizations in the scope mentioned in the objectives of the Foundation, including through membership of the Foundation in organizations gathering foundations with the same or similar statutory objectives.
Chapter III. The Property and Revenues of the Foundation
§ 9
1. The founding fund, with which the Founder endowed the Foundation, amounts to 2,000.00 (in words: two thousand) Polish Zloty.
2. The Foundation’s property consists of financial resources, real estate, and other assets acquired by the Foundation in the course of its activities.
§ 10
1. The means for the realization of the goals of the Foundation and for covering its expenses come in particular from:
a) Founding fund
b) Donations, bequests, legacies,
c) Grants and subsidies from individuals and legal entities,
d) Public collections and other public events
e) Property of the Foundation,
f) Bank interest and deposits
g) Economic activity conducted.
2. The entire income of the Foundation is used exclusively for its statutory activities.
3. Revenues from grants, subsidies, donations, bequests, and legacies may be used
to achieve the goals of the Foundation only following the wishes of the heirs or donors.
4. In matters of accepting donations and inheritance, statements required by law are made by the Board of the Foundation.
5. In the case of a foundation being called to inherit, its board makes a statement of acceptance of the inheritance with the benefit of inventory, only if at the time of making this statement it is obvious that the active state of the inheritance exceeds the inheritance debts, otherwise the inheritance is rejected.
§ 11
The Foundation may accumulate its funds in Polish zloty, as well as in foreign currencies, following the applicable laws.
§ 12
1. The Foundation can conduct both paid and unpaid activities.
2. The Foundation can conduct economic activities and all the income obtained from such activities will be devoted to the realization of statutory activities.
3. The Foundation can conduct economic activities in the following areas:
a) Fair, exhibition, and congress organizing activities (PKD 82.3);
b) Publishing books and periodicals and other publishing activities, except software publishing (PKD 58.1);
c) Extracurricular forms of education (PKD 85.5);
d) Artistic and literary creative activities (PKD 90.03Z)
e) Supporting educational activities (PKD 85.60.Z)
f) Other health care activities not elsewhere classified (PKD 86.90.E)
4. It is forbidden to:
a) Grant loans or secure obligations of the Foundation’s assets towards its members, members of bodies or employees, and persons with whom members, members of bodies or employees are in a marital relationship, cohabitation, or relationship of kinship or affinity in the direct line, kinship or affinity in the collateral line up to the second degree or are connected due to adoption, guardianship or curatorship, hereinafter referred to as “close persons”,
b) Transfer the Foundation’s assets to their members, members of organs or employees, and their close persons on terms other than those in relation to third parties, in particular, if such transfer is made free of charge or on preferential terms,
c) Use the Foundation’s assets for the benefit of members, members of organs or employees, and their close persons on terms other than those in relation to third parties, unless such use is directly related to the statutory purpose,
d) Purchase goods or services from entities in which the organization’s members, members of its bodies, or employees and their close persons participate, on terms other than those in relation to third parties or at prices higher than market prices.
§ 13
1. The Foundation is liable for its obligations with its entire assets.
2. From the Foundation’s founding fund, the Board allocates 50% (in words: fifty percent) for conducting economic activities, but not less than PLN 1,000.00 (in words: one thousand).
3. The financial management of the Foundation will be conducted following the applicable tax law in this regard.
Chapter IV. Bodies of the Foundation
§ 14
The bodies of the Foundation are:
a) The Board of the Foundation, hereinafter referred to as the Board,
b) The Council of the Foundation, hereinafter referred to as the Council.
Foundation Council
§ 15
1. The Council is a supervisory and advisory body of the Foundation.
2. The Council consists of three to six members.
3. The Council elects its own Chairman, who directs its work.
4. The members of the first Council are appointed by the Founder. Subsequent members of the Council, to replace persons who have ceased to hold this position or to extend the composition of the Council, are appointed by the Council’s decision.
5. Membership in the Council expires due to:
a) Voluntary resignation, reported in writing to the Chairman of the Council,
b) Death of a member.
c) In particularly justified cases, the dismissal of a member of the Foundation Council and thus depriving him of membership in the Foundation Council may take place as a result of a unanimous resolution adopted by the remaining members of the Foundation Council. Founders cannot be deprived of membership in the Foundation Council in this way.
6. Membership in the Council can be combined with membership in the Management Board.
7. It is not possible to combine membership in the Foundation Council with holding a position in the Management Board of the Foundation or with an employment relationship with the Foundation.
8. In the event of the appointment of a member of the Foundation Council, with his consent, to hold a position in the Management Board of the Foundation or to enter into an employment relationship with the Foundation – the membership of such a person in the Foundation Council is suspended, respectively for the period of performing the function or duration of the employment relationship.
9. Members of the Council must meet the condition that they were not convicted by a final judgment for a deliberate crime prosecuted ex officio or a fiscal offense.
§ 16
The tasks of the Council include in particular:
1. Appointing and dismissing the President and members of the Management Board.
2. Making decisions on the employment of members of the Management Board and determining their remuneration.
3. Evaluating the work of the Management Board, accepting annual reports or balance sheets, and granting absolution to members of the Management Board.
4. Monitoring the current activities of the Foundation Management Board.
5. Defining the main directions of the Foundation’s activities.
6. Supervision the activities of the Foundation.
7. Making decisions at the request of the Management Board of the Foundation regarding the merger with another Foundation or the liquidation of the Foundation.
7. Taking decisions at the request of the Management Board of the Foundation on the merger with another Foundation or on the liquidation of the Foundation.
8. Supervision of the Foundation’s activities.
9. Granting scholarships or grants.
10. Establishing, at the request of the Chairman of the Foundation Council, medals and honorary titles, and awarding them together with other distinctions to persons and institutions meriting the goals chosen by the Foundation. These distinctions shall be established after consulting the Management Board of the Foundation.
§ 17
1. The Council meets at least once a year.
2. The Council is convened either by the Chairman of the Council at his initiative or the request of the Board, submitted in writing.
3. The Council adopts decisions in the form of resolutions – by a simple majority of votes, with the presence of at least half of its members, unless otherwise provided. In the event of an equal number of votes, the Chairman’s vote shall decide.
4. The Council may be convened in an extraordinary manner to consider a matter of a special character, at the initiative of the Board or at the written request of the Chairman of the Council or at least two of its members.
5. The extraordinary meeting of the Council shall not be held later than 14 days from the date of the request.
6. Each of the ordinary members of the Council has one vote.
7. The Council meetings are chaired by the Chairman or a member of the Council appointed by him.
§ 18
The Council of the Foundation is entitled, to perform its tasks:
1. Request from the Foundation Board the presentation of all documents related to
Foundation’s activity,
2. Carry out an audit of the property and financial control of the Foundation.
The Board of the Foundation
§ 19
1. The Board consists of 3 to 6 persons, including the President, appointed by the Council for a five-year term.
2. The function of a member of the Board may be held for more than one term.
3. The first composition of the Board is appointed by the Founder. The next composition is elected by the Council.
4. Membership in the Board shall cease as a result of:
a) Submitting a written resignation to the Council of the Foundation,
b) Death of a member of the Board,
c) Dismissal by the Foundation Council.
d) If a member of the board is convicted by a final judgment for a deliberate offense prosecuted ex officio or for a fiscal offense.
5. The Board, as a whole or each of its members, may be dismissed by the Council before the end of the term, by a unanimous resolution of all members of the Council.
6. The Board may elect one or two Vice Presidents from its ranks.
§ 20
1. The Board manages the activity of the Foundation and represents it externally.
2. The tasks of the Board, in particular, include:
a) Adopting annual action plans and financial plans of the Foundation,
b) Adopting regulations,
c) Management of the property of the Foundation,
d) Determining the size of employment and the amount of remuneration for the employees’ Foundation,
e) Taking decisions in all matters not transferred to the competence of other bodies,
f) Receiving donations, inheritances, bequests, subsidies, and grants,
g) Applying and expressing consent in the case of changes to the Foundation Statute, merger with another Foundation, or liquidation of the Foundation.
3. The Board makes decisions at meetings in the form of resolutions – by a simple majority of its members present at the meeting of the Board.
4. All members of the Board must be informed of the meeting.
5. The Board may appoint proxies to manage a separate sphere of tasks belonging to the Foundation.
6. The Board is obliged to annually, by 30 September, submit to the Council of the Foundation
Annual report on the activity of the Foundation.
§ 21
1. Meetings of the Board are held as needed, but not less than once every six months.
2. The Board meetings are convened by the President, sending information about the date by e-mail, and in the absence of such a possibility by registered letter, at least 3 days before the planned meeting.
3. All members of the Board must be informed of the meeting.
4. The Board makes decisions through resolutions by a simple majority of its members present at the meeting of the Board, unless otherwise provided. In the case of an equal distribution of votes, the vote of the President shall decide.
Manner of representation and incurring of financial obligations
§ 22
1. Declarations of intent on behalf of the Foundation, subject to paragraph 2, are made by two members
Board acting together.
2. In matters concerning the employment of employees and in matters not related to incurring financial liabilities above PLN 5,000 (five thousand) – declarations of intent on behalf of the Foundation may be made by the President of the Foundation alone.
Chapter V. Final Provisions
§ 23
Changes to the Foundation’s Charter shall be made by the Council by an absolute majority of votes, with the presence of at least half of the members entitled to vote. The change may relate to the objectives specified in the founding act.
§ 24
1. The Foundation may merge with another foundation for the effective realization of its objectives.
2. The merger with another foundation may not take place if, as a result of it, the objectives of the Foundation could be substantially changed.
§ 25
1. The Foundation shall be liquidated upon the attainment of the objectives for which it was established or upon the exhaustion of its financial resources and property.
2. Liquidators of the Foundation shall be appointed and dismissed by a resolution of the Council of the Foundation. If the Council of the Foundation does not appoint liquidators in the resolution referred to in paragraph 2 above, the liquidation of the Foundation shall be carried out by the Management Board of the Foundation.
3. The financial resources and property remaining after the liquidation of the Foundation may be allocated by the resolution of the Council to organizations operating in Poland with similar objectives.
4. The Founder’s rights arising from the Act on Foundations and the Statute shall cease upon death and shall not pass to the heirs.