[44net] 2019 Financial report + Amazon sale + Brokerage

2019 financial filings for the ARDC, Inc. have been published by the Californian Register of Charities: * http://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/Download.aspx?saveas=Amateur+Radio+D… * http://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/Download.aspx?saveas=Amateur+Radio+D… * https://www.ampr.org/about/legal/ (links) TL;DR summary: 1. Sale price of $26/IP (to Amazon) minus 0.5% brokage commission [1] 2. $109 million raised, $545 thousand paid to Nationwide as broker 3. Funds now classified as Board-designated Endowment 4. Majority raised now invested in government bonds Trustees for 2019 are listed as: Brian Kantor - Former president Bdale Garbee - Treasurer Phil Karn - New president John Gilmore - Secretary KC Claffy is listed as a non-officer director---possibly for CAIDA conflict-of-interest handling(?) Erin Kenneally is no longer listed (nor referenced at all). (Suspect that a clear answer may not be easier to find). During Financial Year 2019, two grants were disbursed: 1. $10k - TAPR student scholarships 2. $110k - ARISS (International Space Station HAM) Variations of the wording use in different places (paraphrased): * "[support of] Amateur Radio Digital Communications" * "[support of] Amateur Radio _and_ Digitial Communcations". The latter is much wider than the former. Hopefully the trustees can make their own announcement in due course; but this should pre-answer the quick questions that people may have, [2] Before laying into the Trustees, this is pretty positive---cash was raised, and has been sensibly invested. The way the sale was handled was sub-optimal---picking the most dense/actively used part (HamNET) to sell...; but hopefully lessons from that have been learnt. Plus John Gilmore's long statement this week about the MoU with CAIDA/UCSD, will hopefully allow Amprnet's most significant R&D/ experimentation/academic contribution over the last 20 years to be finally be acknowleged openly, -Paul [1] To put things into perspective; had estimated was $24/IP, minus 1% brokage commission---so the amount realised by the Trustees was significantly higher; probably related to the size of the block sold, and clean nature of the IPs. [2] E&OE---refer to the actual documents for exact numbers + wording! Do not rely on this TL;DR---spend your own time, and do your own reading!