US/ND-4: NPTN, FreeNet Org. Folds
NPTN, FreeNet Org. Folds
Jim Callahan (jcalhan@sundial.sundial.net)
Thu, 19 Sep 1996 18:40:56 -0700
NPTN, the organization that holds the "FreeNet" trademark, has
reportedly filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy (see attached). NPTN
was one of the organizations which testified and filed comments
before the FCC.
Jim Callahan
JCalhan@Sundial.Net
===================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 16:13:26 -0400 (EDT)
Reply-To: acarvin@kudzu.cnidr.org
Sender: owner-civtalk@ready.cpb.org
From: Andy Carvin <acarvin@kudzu.cnidr.org>
To: civtalk@ready.cpb.org (civtalk list)
Subject: NPTN Announcement (fwd)
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but....
> To all community networkers:
>
> The following message to NPTN affiliates is being posted
> to various NPTN listserves and to the Communet listserve.
>
>
> The Bad News:
>
> I regret to report that the National Public Telecomputing Network will soon
> be closing its doors permanently. On September 17, 1996, NPTN filed for a
> Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
>
> As most of you know, funding has been a serious problem at NPTN since
> before the resignation of Dr. Grundner in October of 1995. The Board and
> staff have been relentlessly pursuing a number of potential sources of
> funding since that time, but over the course of the past few weeks, each of
> our erstwhile prospective donors has made it clear (in some cases after
> many months of discussion) that they do not intend to fund NPTN. We are
> now well past the point of no return. As a number of our prospective
> donors have made clear to us, no serious funder is willing to make grants
> to an insolvent non-profit.
>
>
> Affiliate Dues:
>
> You may ask why we have not solicited dues from affiliates. As you know,
> Dr. Grundner declared a temporary moratorium on collecting renewal dues
> last October, when it became clear that the ongoing shortage of funds would
> require NPTN to scale back its operations significantly. After listening
> to your feedback on our proposed dues schedule earlier this summer, we
> concluded that our affiliates, understandably, would not be willing to
> resume the payment of dues without some clear sign of long-term viability
> -- i.e., an infusion of money and the resumption of operations at or near
> previous levels. What we did not want to do was solicit dues from our
> affiliates, collect enough from our most loyal supporters to buy ourselves
> a few weeks or maybe a couple months, then close our doors anyway. Given
> the large number of affiliates who never paid their dues even in good
> times, and the number who have expressed doubts about future payments
> (and/or higher payments) in recent weeks, we did not believe soliciting
> dues offered any promise without having other funding in place first.
>
>
> Logistical Matters:
>
> There are a number of practical details to the bankruptcy procedure that
> will affect NPTN and its affiliates. Now that NPTN has filed, the
> organization will be wound down under the supervision of a trustee, who is
> appointed by the bankruptcy court to represent the interests of all the
> creditors. The trustee's authority trumps that of anyone here at NPTN.
> You should realize that the trustee's latitude is narrowly circumscribed by
> the Bankruptcy Code. The ultimate arbiter of any disputes will be a judge
> in the Bankruptcy Court.
>
> Some of our affiliates have been listed as creditors or potential creditors
> in our bankruptcy petition. Those affiliates should receive a notice from
> the bankruptcy court alerting them to the existence of the petition. After
> 90 days or so, those people will receive a second notice that will explain
> how to file a proof of claim with the bankruptcy court.
>
> Those affiliates who believe they are owed money but do not receive a
> notice may contact their local bankruptcy court for a proof of claim form
> which must then be filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern
> District of Ohio. The address is :
>
> U.S. Bankruptcy Court
> Northern District of Ohio
> 31st Floor
> Key Tower
> Cleveland, OH 44114
>
> The case number is 96-15026 and the Judge is Judge Baxter. The name of the
> case is In re National Public Telecomputing Network.
>
> NPTN will continue to exist for at least a few weeks in order to wind down
> its affairs. However, our telephone service will not be available after
> Sunday, September 22 at 5:00, so those of you with dial-in access will no
> longer have it as of that time. It is essential that you download any
> files belonging to you that you need before this time. Our Internet access
> will terminate by 5:00 Wednesday, September 25. I realize this doesn't
> give you much time to make other arrangements but there is, unfortunately,
> no way to keep our equipment going past that time.
>
> We will keep this listserv open as a channel to you until Wednesday. We
> are looking into ways of reconstituting the freenet-admin listserv after
> our access is no longer available.
>
> Those of you who have not already done so will probably want to subscribe
> to the Communet mailing list, which is a quite active list for community
> networkers. To subscribe to Communet, email to listproc@list.uvm.edu with
> the following request:
>
> subscribe COMMUNET
>
> For What It's Worth:
>
> Those few of you who stand to lose money as a result of our bankruptcy will
> doubtless be angry about this turn of events. Rest assured, you're in good
> company. Our Chairman of the Board of Trustees will be out a considerable
> sum of money as a result. Another of our trustees has lent us thousands of
> dollars as well. Having unwisely sat on paychecks and advanced expenses to
> NPTN over the past few months, both John Kurilec and I will be out many
> thousands of dollars more than the meager amount of employee salary that
> enjoys a preference over other creditors. There are several friendly
> creditors who have already reduced their fees that will now be out
> thousands, including our attorney, our bookkeeper, our accountants, and our
> consultant Drew Taubman, who worked many many hours in the past few months
> in the hope of salvaging this organization. As you can imagine, none of
> the Board or staff are happy about the consequences of this bankruptcy for
> ourselves, for our affiliates, or for those who have helped NPTN so much.
>
> Not surprisingly, the psychic toll on our Board and staff (and their
> families) has also been extremely high. So if we're a little cranky when
> you call, please bear with us.
>
> The Good News:
>
> Not all the news in the last few months has been bad. I'm very proud of
> what we accomplished, in spite of all our financial problems, during the
> past six months. (Under the circumstances, I hope you'll forgive me for
> blowing our own horn a bit.) The TeleOlympics '96 went well this year
> under the guidance of John Kurilec, who has neither sought nor received the
> credit he deserves for the success of that program every year since its
> inception. (John has been mailing out certificates to the medalists with
> money from his own pocket, since the postal meter is on empty -- all too
> typical for him.)
>
> Some of John's other handiwork as Director of Cybercasting Services was
> acknowledged recently when our NPTN and Academy One websites were selected
> as Three-Star Sites by Magellan. Their reviewer called A-1 "an exceptional
> index" that "careens off the scale in content." (These kudos join the
> Point Top 5% rating for the NPTN website and the selection of the Multiple
> Sclerosis section of our Health and Wellness website as one of the best
> medical sites on the Web for 1995 by PC Computing.)
>
> Ben Stallings came in as a summer intern with a stipend from Intel, learned
> the ResNova software package cold in a week or so, and by summer's end was
> sending bug fixes to the software company. Ben singlehandedly shipped
> seven new Rural systems out the door, provided support for those earlier
> systems having trouble with their software, and did training for a good
> many systems.
>
> NPTN was also in the forefront of the universal service movement this year,
> with the help of Glenn Manishin and Jeff Blumenfeld, our pro bono counsel
> from the noted telecom law firm, Blumenfeld and Cohen in Washington, D.C.
> With their help, NPTN had the opportunity to advance community networks as
> a model for universal service. Our comments to the FCC, and subsequent
> meetings with FCC staff, the offices of two FCC commissioners, and Senate
> staff, attracted the interest of the policy makers, so much so that NPTN
> was invited to (and did) testify before the Joint Board on Universal
> Service. The Board's request for follow-up comments also referred directly
> to our comments. I continue to hope that the FCC will follow our proposal
> to provide seed money for community networks, as the Canadian government
> does.
>
> In addition to these accomplishments, NPTN continued to do the lower
> profile things that support community networking -- like directing a dozen
> or so callers to community networks in their areas every day, and working
> on such projects as Academy One, the Health and Wellness Area, and
> CyberSolon. And we did all of this on a fraying shoestring.
>
> The Big Picture
>
> The closing of NPTN should not be taken as a sign of problems in the field
> of community networking generally. All over the United States, Canada, and
> much of the world, more and more community networks are starting and
> succeeding. Public interest has never been higher in socially constructive
> uses of telecommunications technology. New models for community networking
> and new faces laboring at the grass roots appear each day, with valuable
> contributions to add. Despite the financial, technical, and competitive
> challenges that face community networkers in the coming years, I have every
> confidence that they will continue to bring the Internet to their
> communities and, more importantly, bring their communities to the Internet.
>
> On a Personal Note:
>
> Before we sign off for good, there are many people I will wish to
> acknowledge and probably a few thoughts about the future of community
> networking I will want to share. I'll save those for a future message.
> For now, just this: the people I have met in this field are some of the
> most decent, dedicated and hard-working folks I have had the pleasure to
> meet, and I thank you in advance for the supportive messages you will
> probably send. Any offers of employment for John or me will be cheerfully
> entertained!
>
> Please contact me if you have any questions, comments, brickbats, flames, etc.
>
>
> Yours truly,
>
> Tim Connors
>
>
> Tim Connors, Acting Executive Director
> The National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN)
> 30680 Bainbridge Road, Solon, Ohio 44139
> tim@nptn.org 216-498-4050 fax: 216-498-4051
> http://www.nptn.org
> Free-Net is a service mark of NPTN registered in the U.S.
> and other countries.