Friday, November 30, 2007

Not a natural person

"Not a natural person" is sort of an insider's joke - it's based on a
comment made by a friend and colleague over our failed attempt to form
an incorporated society some years ago.

The membership of our association, GOVIS, was open to NZ central
Government agencies, and employees of member agencies thereby qualified
to use the services of GOVIS. As an unincorporated society, the members
and office holders of GOVIS were liable for any debts incurred - not a
good position to be in ;-)

The trouble was, Government agencies could not form an incorporated
society - only "natural people" could do that - hence the remark "we
(the employees of government agencies) are not natural people".

Some might argue that this is true and should have been obvious to us -
there's really no polite response to that, but it'll keep!

Tonight's exercise is to see if I can email an update into a blog - so
this is a rather long-winded way to test such a simple function, but it
at least has the virtue of keeping my hands busy.

Ciao