JREF forum's slippery slope into .... ?

    Regarding the JREF Forum status
    Latest JREF News
    Written by Sharon Hill 

    The time for change has come. The long-running JREF online Forum at forums.randi.org is soon to head off on its own.

    JREF staff is in the midst of arranging a transition to a new owner. Various people are currently working to preserve the integrity of the forum content to the greatest extent possible with the privacy concerns of users in mind.

    The JREF still retains ownership of the forum at this point.

    This does not affect the randi.org website.

    Due to some administrative issues that are causing problems and confusion, JREF board member Rick Adams will be taking administrative control of the Forums. This will result in temporary suspension of other admin activity, including registering new Forum users, while the confusion between administrator roles is sorted out. After the Forum is restarted, hopefully within a few hours, all moderator and posting capabilities should resume as usual and you can continue posting. It is anticipated this admin hold will last a day or two.

    Further information will follow as progress occurs.

    The JREF understands that this is not a popular decision for some "Forumites" and hears your complaints loud and clear. This decision was not made lightly, and efforts are continuing to locate the forum safely to a new home. This will take some time to sort out. We ask for your understanding and patience as the problems with the forum are sorted out.

More recently I’ve begun to wonder about his educational foundation, the JREF, which claims tax exempt status in the US and is partly dependant on public donations. I wondered what actual educative work the organisation - which between 2011 and 2013 had an average revenue of $1.2 million per year - did. Financial documents reveal just $5,100, on average, being spent on grants.

There are some e-books, videos and lesson plans on subjects such as fairies on their website. They organise an annual fan convention. James Randi, over that period, has been paid an average annual salary of $195,000. My requests for details of the educational foundation’s educational activities, over the last 12 months, were dodged and then ignored.

Looks like there's more trouble at the mill for James Randi. On the first of September he suddenly announced that the Los Angeles office of his organization was closing down; all operations have been shifted to its national headquarters at Falls Church, Virginia. This change was effective immediately. The James Randi Educational Foundation was established in 1996 to administer the works of James Randi, one of the world's oldest and most prominent Skeptics. It manages applications for the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge and holds an annual conference in the USA, as well as abroad sometimes as well, called The Amazing Meeting!. I've been to the 2010 TAM London myself, see: [Only admins are allowed to see this link]

Then the announcement was made very unceremoniously that the JREF was radically downsizing; its LA office was axed and all the staff there were being laid off. The notice also mentioned in an equally causal tone that its president DJ Grothe was no longer associated with the Foundation and that James Randi was coming out of retirement to be temporary acting president, just like that. It didn't say whether Grothe was being sacked or resigned of his own accord, although he was always a controversial character on the Skeptic circuit and few will mourn his dismissal, if that's what it was, see: [Only admins are allowed to see this link] Soon afterwards, the JREF Forum was disaffiliated and it continues today under the name of the International Skeptics Forum, see: [Only admins are allowed to see this link]