Page 124

John Montgomery

Law as Hero:

How law will support the creation of a conscious and sustainable global economic system

John Montgomery

March 31, 2013

John has worked for many years to support the legal introduction of a new type of corporation, a B (or benefit) corporation, into state law throughout the US. A “B corporation” has the legal responsibility as a company to be of benefit to society and the environment, as well as to make a financial profit. John’s presentation focused on this work, and the nature of B Corporations, while also showing how this legal change is combining with 2 other key social developments, namely the cultural movement of Conscious Capitalism, and the scientific progress in neuroscience and human behavior, to facilitate a paradigm shift in the corporate world, enabling the development of more healthy, prosperous and responsible corporations, with better leadership, which embrace, promote and seek to realize social benefit and environmental sustainability along with also making a profit.

John provided a brief history of the corporation and the changes in their legal status since the 1700s, showing how their legal status has failed to adjust to their increasing importance and power within society, such that today they are literally almost solely responsible for shaping our human civilization, while legally being obliged only to make money.

John further argues that without the legal foundation of a B Corporation, while many corporations may start off with great leaders, ethical intentions and noble visions, when either leadership changes or internal crises occur, these corporations can quickly lose their good intentions, and regress to a money making survival mode. By writing socially beneficial values into a corporation’s legal foundation as a code of conduct with the status of law, he argues this regression is far less likely to ever occur.

For more information please see the following websites

www.greatfromthestart.com for free downloads from John’s Book, Great from the Start.
http://www.bcorporation.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation
http://www.avaaz.org/en/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz

John Montgomery is an entrepreneur, executive coach, corporate attorney and author of Great from the Start, a step-by-step guide to building a successful conscious corporation. John is the founder of Montgomery & Hansen, LLP a B Corp certified corporate law firm. He is also the founder of Startworks, a Silicon Valley based technology incubator that develops start-ups to thrive in an interdependent global economy. He works primarily with high-potential entrepreneurial teams to help them translate their visions into successful companies. He was also a co-chair of the legal working group behind California’s new benefit corporation legislation.

Humanist Community Forum (2013-03-31): How Law Will Support the Creation of a Conscious and Sustainable Global Economy from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

Installation of Board Members

March 24, 2013

The main event will be the installation of the Humanist Community’s Board of Directors followed by brief statements from each Board member about their goals for HCSV for the year, and for the Humanism Movement. There will be time for audience members to ask questions of the Board members.

Board members for the next year will be: Arthur Jackson, Martin Squibbs, Marie Stephens, Helen Athey, Hilton Brown, Andrea Dorey, Paul Gilbert, Harrianne Mills, and Peng Zhang.

The presentations from the Board stressed that Humanists care about the well being of all humans, and that many of the other activities of members are focused on social issues and social justice. They also discussed the need for a permanent home for HCSV with facilities for both the Sunday Forum and luncheon, but also rooms for our many weekly activities.

There were numerous questions and comments from the audience.

For more information about the Board see: http://www.humanists.org/blog/board-of-directors/.

Erik Schmollinger

The Glasshouse: A Case Study in Fiction

March 17, 2013

Join us on Sunday, March 17, 2013, for a discussion of fiction and its place in modern society, led by first-time novelist Erik Schmollinger. Erik will read from his forthcoming novel, The Glasshouse, and then lead a discussion of the book, as well as fiction in general. Topics for consideration will include the many formats fiction now takes, the place of the novel in an increasingly busy society, and the relationship between novels and movies.

You can read Erik’s talk here.

Erik Schmollinger was born in Albany, New York. He grew up in Puerto Rico, Berlin, New York and Chicago, graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and spent ten years in the public relations industry. He left the business world to travel the real world, and rediscovered his love of fiction-writing while backpacking in Morocco during a two-year, round-the-world trip. He is currently working on two novels and runs a publishing business and a non-profit in Rwanda.

Humanist Community Forum (2013-03-17): The Glasshouse – A Case Study in Fiction (Erik Schmollinger) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

Lupe Rodriguez

Planned Parenthood’s Teen Success Program

March 10, 2013

Denise Berumen, Katrina Slater, Lupe Rodriguez

Lupe Rodriguez, Director of Public Affairs, and Katrina Slater, Teen Success Replication Specialist, will discuss Teen Success, a program of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte. Teen Success serves pregnant and parenting teens through weekly support group meetings and encourages teens to maintain their family size, complete their education, and develop future goals. Additional information about the program was provided by Denise Berumen. You can view the slides from the presentation here. You can also view the video here.

Planned Parenthood Mar Monte covers Northern and Central California and Northern Nevada. They have 36 health centers offering, to over 250,000 patients a year, pediatric and primary health care in addition to reproductive health care and education for both parents and teen-agers.

For an overview of this amazingly successful Teen Success program click here. There are also excellent reviews of actual successes at the following links:

You can view more informati0n about the International Planned Parenthood Federation at: http://ippf.org/, or the Planned Parenthood Federation of America at: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/.

Humanist Community Forum (2013-03-10): Planned Parenthood Teen Success Program from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

My Religious Evolution:
From Being a Simple Catholic,
to a Conservative Preacher,
to an Agnostic Atheist

Tom Bergstrom

March 3, 2013

Tom Bergstrom, a Humanist Community member will share important things in his life in this talk. He grew up in a blue collar town of 78,000 in southeast Wisconsin as a practicing Catholic. As a child he was mostly interested in riding his bike fast, and then later developed an interest in world events. However, in his teens he became ill.

For years during Tom’s teens, his best friend used fear tactics to challenge Tom to join the friend’s church. When Tom was 18, he finally joined his friend’s small modest conservative Church Of Christ. After eight years in the Church of Christ or the “C of C”, Tom found out that he could preach. His short preaching career began in his 20’s and lasted a few years from 1991 to about 1994. By 1999 he went through a divorce which led to a new discovery on Christian hypocrisy.

About this he says, “This hypocrisy opened my eyes. I educated myself about philosophy, Taoism, Buddhism, evolution, US history, particle physics, and other sciences. This new education eventually led me to become agnostic. At the same time as I was becoming progressive, American politics was becoming more conservative. Thus, I remembered my old Bible training which taught that there is a big difference between basic Jesus’ saying to love your neighbor and with right-wing American Christian propaganda. The right-wings’ lying rhetoric in the name of Jesus encouraged me to write, blog, protest, join socialists, join humanists, and to expose conservative right-wing American Christians’ hypocritical propaganda. I hope to open your eyes to the magnitude of the false Christian hypocrisy I have seen.”

You may view Tom’s slides here.

Humanist Community Forum (2013-03-03): My Religious Evolution (Tom Bergstrom) from Brian Davis on Vimeo.