AVN to close its doors at the end of this month

A Journey ends…and a new one begins

After almost 17 years of running the AVN, it is my bittersweet duty to inform you that within the next 3-4 weeks I will tendering my resignation as President of this great organisation and moving on to the next stage of my own personal development as mother, wife, activist and researcher.

Though this subject is my passion and always will be, I have found that I spend up to 40 hours each week trying to get in enough money to pay the bills and next week’s wages which leaves me no time to actually do what I need to do and what you want me to do – write, research, lobby and support parents who are trying to make informed choices and who are being discriminated against as a result of their vaccination decisions.

I am getting older; my children have missed out on so much so I could run the AVN; and at this stage in my existence, I need to be able to work on this subject and still have a life. Without a large injection of capital behind me, I simply cannot continue.

It has been an indescribable pleasure to have been involved with the AVN, to have gotten to know so many of you personally and over the phone or internet and to have participated in a chapter of Australian history that has seen the rights of parents upheld and the consciousness of an entire generation regarding vaccination and health raised. The AVN has played no small role in both those events so you should all feel very proud of your involvement.

This has been a bumpy road we have travelled since early 1994 – one filled with potholes, traps, landslips and washed-out bridges – but for every detour we hit, there were an equal number of times where a corner would be turned and the whole world right to the horizon was just laid out there for all to see. These golden moments will stay with me for the rest of my time on this earth.

I thank you for travelling this road with me; for helping to ease the journey wherever you could and for being such wonderful companions along the way.

The AVN’s Future

I am hoping that someone reading this now will feel compelled or called to take on this position - if you have the passion, you will know it. If you feel that this is something you would like to do or would like more information about what is involved, please let me know and we can have a good chat about it.

Alternatively, if a benefactor or series of benefactors come forward to establish a fund that would guarantee the AVN’s existence for at least the next 2-3 years, or if donations were to be come in during the next week that would give us the same financial sustainability, then I would be willing to continue in my role for the foreseeable future.

An idea from a member

This morning, I received a call from one of our long-time members – a woman who has been a faithful member and supporter of the AVN for over 15 years. Her mother passed away last year and she was calling to tell me that when the sale of her mother’s house goes through, she has earmarked a donation to give to the AVN to allow me to go to Canberra. When I informed her of the current situation with our organisation, she suggested that I ask people to not only give generously now, but to earmark 1% of their income to support the AVN into the future. She said that 1% is something everyone should be able to afford and the subject is so important, so vital to our children’s future, that if people were to think about how little it cost them and how much they would be receiving in return, they would be glad to do it. So I am passing this suggestion on at her request.

If nobody comes forward to take on the role of President or if the funds are not provided to allow us to continue however, the AVN will be ceasing operations on or about the 28th of February.

The mechanics of closing down

If that occurs, there will, of course, be many loose ends that need tying up.

We will be looking to sell our magazine, Living Wisdom, as a going concern. This publication – with its subscriber base of over 2,500 across Australia and a small international contingent of subscribers – would be the perfect addition for any small publisher or for one of the larger health magazines who want to expand their reach to a very dedicated section of the natural health market.

We will also need to divest ourselves of whatever assets we have in order to pay off any outstanding obligations such as taxes, leases and other supplier invoices.

My husband Ken and I, through our great belief in and commitment to this issue, guaranteed leases and debt which the AVN has taken on over the years. We are hopeful that by selling off assets – the magazine, computer equipment, back issues, etc., we will be able to pay off at least the majority of this debt should the AVN have to close its doors.

If you have been putting off buying any of these items that are produced by the AVN, your time is running out. Please consider purchasing these resources while they are still available to help us finalise our position and to ensure that you have this information before its availability is discontinued.

My future

I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I am to all of you who have supported the AVN and myself – many of you from day dot. I feel blessed to have been able to share this time with you and am so thankful for you all.

Please don’t feel that by leaving the AVN, I am turning my back on the vaccination issue. Nothing could be further from the truth!

It’s just become too hard to struggle constantly with finances and political issues that have sidelined me from what I really want to do – research, speak and write about vaccination.

So I still plan on doing seminars – more than ever before if possible, writing  about vaccination for publications around the world and most important of all – researching the ways in which vaccines can harm children and adults and the lack of information about how they are supposed to prevent disease infection.

I know that there are some of you out there who have paid for subscriptions and memberships and who may now not be getting what they had paid for and I am really sorry about this.

If our finances were strong enough, we would not be having this conversation right now. But it is our financial position that has finally led to this decision on my part and as hard as I’ve worked and as much as we have all tried, there didn’t seem to be any way to make things easier.

It is hoped that we will find a buyer for the publication who will continue to print this magazine – that I am so proud of – and none of you will have to miss out on even one issue.

I will keep you informed as things eventuate.

I also hope that a person of vision will want to fill this role and keep the ever-so-important work of the AVN going into the future.

In the meantime, however, there are several things which I have made a personal commitment to maintain as long as I am physically and financially able.

1-    I will keep the fortnightly e-newsletter going for the time being. This is such a fantastic way to keep information flowing and it costs about $150 a month so I’m hoping that we will be able to get advertising to sponsor this small amount if I’m willing to put in the time to publish it to our more than 7,000 e-subscribers.

2-    I plan on doing webinars for the near future. Again, the cost is about $350 a month so my continuation will rely on getting enough virtual bums on seats to cover the cost of our Citrix subscription.

3-    I will continue to send out action alerts – especially as the legislation in both Canberra and SA regarding family payments and imprisonment for refusal to vaccinate or take medications goes through the debating process. I hope that by keeping you all informed, you will also choose to maintain your activism on these important issues and on the ones which will be forthcoming.

4-    The AVN blog, Facebook fan page, email discussion list and twitter pages will continue. I can’t do this on my own and I must mention that a very dedicated and talented group of women have been helping to maintain these resources which have been getting a truly incredible number of hits. There is no cost involved other than our time and while I am able and as long as I continue to get the help I have been receiving, these resources will remain live and active.

I’m sure that in the days and weeks to come, there will be more questions you will need to ask and more information I will need to distribute. We will stay in touch via this avenue but if any of you would like to call me, please feel free. Just use the AVN office line – 02 6687 1699 – during business hours please.

I appreciate your understanding and kindness over the years more than I could ever say.

Love,

Meryl