™
Lovers in Training™ Worldwide
Master Trust Document
1. Applicability of this Document
1.1. The terms of this master trust document may be, and is indented to be, incorporated by reference in any trust instrument used for trusts established by any grantor using this master trust document system.
1.2. Whenever this master trust document is included by reference in a trust document, its terms are part of the trust document as if they were written in the specific trust document.
2. Definitions
Unless the context requires otherwise:
2.1. "Trust" means a quasi entity created under the terms of a trust document to hold trust property for the benefit of the beneficiaries of a trust. (Note: The term "quasi entity" is used because, technically, a trust has no existence separate from the trustees.) The intention is that there will many separate trusts created under the terms of the trust document, all of which will be collectively referred to as "Lovers in Training™ Worldwide"
2.2. "Trust document" means the document, as amended, which governs a trust.
2.3. "Trust property" means any asset or interest in an asset, real or personal, tangible or intangible, held in a trust.
2.4. "Trustee" means all those holding the office of trustee under the trust document from time to time without regard to whether or not they were initially appointed, successor, substitute, standby, alternate, acting, temporary, or additional trustees.
2.5. "Grantor" mean any person making a donation to a trust that is acceptable to the trustees.
2.6. "Founder" means an initial grantor of a trust.
2.7. "Person" means a natural person or any fictitious entity or quasi entity, such as a partnership, trust, or corporation.
3. General Provisions
Unless the context requires otherwise:
3.1. All words used in the singular number shall extent to and include the plural.
3.2. All words used in the plural shall extend to and include the singular.
3.3. All words used in any gender, including the neutral gender, shall extend to and include all genders.
3.4. The headings are for convenience only and do not limit the scope or application of the terms of the part or section.
4. Trust Declaration and Agreement
The trustees, being called to serve God and humanity, declare and agree that they hold the trust property to serve the purposes of the beneficiaries and the trusts and accept the role of trustees of the trusts on the terms and conditions as set forth in the trust document.
5. Purpose
The purpose of the trusts is provide legal vehicles to hold assets to support the ministry of Lovers in Training™ Worldwide, so that Lovers in Training™ Worldwide may better serve God and humanity.
6. Trust Property
6.1. The initial trust property is fifty dollars, receipt of which is hereby acknowledged.
6.2. The founder or any other person shall have the right at any time to add property which is acceptable to the trustees to a trust. Such property, when received and accepted by the trustees, shall become part of the trust property and subject to all the terms and conditions of the trust document.
6.3. No transfer of title of any asset shall occur until such time as title to the asset is legally transferable. The trustees may accept a transfer of title at any time thereafter. Prior to such time, any attempted transfer of property, even if it may have all the appearances of an actual transfer, shall only be a promise to make any such transfer after the title to the asset becomes legally transferable. Nothing in this paragraph shall prevent the trustees from holding legal possession to any property prior to the actual transfer of title.
6.4. Unless otherwise specified, any donation of intangible assets, or promise thereof, shall include that same intangible into the future, for the duration of the trust. As an example, the donation of a right to collect a royalty from a story shall include royalties of a movie that might made in the future from that same story.
6.5. All transfers, by gift or otherwise, to a trust are irrevocable.
6.6. The trust property shall be held by the trustees in trust for the uses and purposes and on the terms and conditions set forth in the trust document.
7. Beneficiaries
7.1. At the time of making a donation to a trust, subject to the approval of the trustees, a grantor may specify the beneficiaries and purposes of, and any restrictions upon, up to half of such donation.
7.2. The beneficiaries, purposes, and any restrictions on any remainder shall be determined by the trustees, in their sole discretion.
7.3. In the event that a designated beneficiary or purpose is unable to use a designated donation or portion thereof, the trustees may designate substitute beneficiaries and purposes, in their sole discretion.
7.4. The trustees may, on behalf of and in the name of any grantor, establish benevolent and/or charitable trusts under such terms and conditions the trustees determine to be in the best interest of managing and protecting the trust property for the benefit of the beneficiaries of those trusts.
7.5. The trustees may designate beneficiaries that do not officially qualify as charities based upon any criteria that the trustees may use to determine that such beneficiaries are doing work for the benefit of God, humanity, and/or the public good.
8. Distributions
8.1. The trustees shall make distributions of the trust property to the beneficiaries, as gifts of the grantors, at times and places chosen by the trustees.
8.2. It is the clear intent that all distributions shall be pure gifts and shall not be consideration, notwithstanding that some beneficiaries may have done and are doing worthwhile actions. In the same way that prizes, such as the Nobel Prize, and grants are given to people who do worthwhile actions, as gifts, to encourage people to do more of such actions, and not as consideration, none of the gifts given as trust distributions are given as consideration.
9. General Powers of Trustees
9.1. The trustees are authorized and empowered, to manage, care for, improve, protect, control, deal with, sell, and otherwise dispose of the trust property or any part of it, in their discretion, in any and every way in which any owners or similar property could manage, care for, improve, protect, control, deal with, and otherwise dispose of their own property.
9.2. The trustees are authorized to do all things they deem, in their sole discretion, essential or advisable for the protection and improvement of the trust property.
9.3. All of the powers conferred to the trustees, by the trust document or by law, shall be exercised without obtaining the permission of any court or other legal authority or the posting of any bond unless such permission or bond is specifically required by law or court order and the trustees cannot avoid seeking such permission or obtaining such bond. In the event that any such permission is required, the trustees are empowered to stipulate, on behalf of the grantor and the beneficiaries, consent to the trustees' power to act, and consent to act without bond.
9.4. The powers conferred to the trustees shall not be exhausted by any use of them but shall be continuing.
9.5. The determination of the trustees as to whether or not to exercise any power shall be final.
10. Specific Powers of Trustees
In extension to and not in limitation of the powers granted to the trustees by law and in the trust document, the trustees shall have following specific discretionary powers:
10.1. To sell at public or private sale, including, specifically, the power to initiate or participate in any public offering or underwriting, partition, exchange for like or unlike property, lease for any period of time even though it may be for longer than the duration of the trust, modify, renew, or extend any least, grand options on, release, demolish, abandon, dedicate, and otherwise dispose of any property which may be held, on such terms and conditions, including credit, and for such consideration, even though it may be less than the value at which the property was received or acquired, or for such other benefit, even though it may be intangible, as may be deemed appropriate by the trustees.
10.2. To transfer title to, grant rights in, and convey in fee simple or otherwise any property which may be held, free of all trusts.
10.3. Not to diversify the trust property which may be held, whether such property was originally received or subsequently acquired by exchange, investment, or otherwise.
10.4. To retain cash for reasonable periods of time in amounts sufficient to meet with anticipated needs, including payments of expenses of a beneficiary.
10.5. To retain for any period of time, cash or other unproductive property.
10.6. To retain for any period of time any property which may be received or acquired, even though its retention by reason of its character or otherwise would not be appropriate apart from this provision.
10.7. With respect to property subject to depreciation or depletion, to withhold an amount from trust income to provide for a reasonable allowance for depreciation or depletion on such property under generally accepted accounting principles.
10.8. To do all things necessary, customary, or desirable to conduct the affairs of an unincorporated business, mining, or farming operation, real estate operation, or other venture.
10.9. To do all things necessary, customary, or desirable to conduct the affairs of any corporation; to act as officer, director, or employee of any corporation; and to place stock in the name of a trustee or agent in order to qualify him or her as a director of the corporation.
10.10. Alone or with others, to organize, reorganize, merge, consolidate, recapitalize, dissolve, liquidate, or otherwise create or change the form of any corporation, partnership, joint venture, or other entity.
10.11. To execute any document, under seal or otherwise.
10.12. To create bylaws, rules, policies, procedures, guidelines, resolutions, etc for the governance for the trust.
10.13. To publish, distribute, and publicly file and record documents related to the trusts, including the trust document, memoranda thereof, and notices of trustee appointments, whenever and wherever the trustees deem it advisable, and to not do so whenever and wherever the trustees deem it advisable. Any memoranda shall be drafted in such a way so that it does not take things out of context or present a false picture of the document of which it is a memoranda.
10.14. To change the situs of a trust and of any trust property to any place in any country.
10.15. Not to file an inventory of the trust property or annual accounts of administration with and not to have any of such property examined by any court of legal authority where the filing, publication, or examination is not required by applicable law.
10.16. To post inventories of trust property and periodic accounts of administration on the Internet, or other ways which may be develop in the future, so that the information is broadly accessible to the public.
10.17. To allocate charges for expenses, including any taxes or assessments, to principal or income, or between beneficiaries, in the trustees' discretion.
10.18. To employ any attorney, manager, investment adviser, accountant, broker, tax specialist, or other agent or employee that, in the trustees' judgment may be necessary or desirable for the proper management, protection, and sale of other disposition of the trust property, or any part of the trust property, and to pay such agents compensation for their services in an amount trustees deem reasonable.
10.19. To hold stocks and other assets and to open bank accounts for deposits of money comprising a part of trust funds in the name of the trustees or of their nominee with or without mention of any trust or the disclosure of the fiduciary relationship, and to employ custodians of securities or other property and to permit any such custodian to hold securities or other property in its own name or in the name of its nominee, without mention of the trust or the disclosure of the fiduciary relationship, in separate or common accounts as the trustees determine to be the most advisable and expedient.
10.20. To delegate to one or more trustees, or to agents, the authority to execute contracts, checks, documents of title, and other documents, to keep books of account, to prepare reports and tax returns, to hold possession and record ownership of securities, bank accounts, and other property, or to perform other management and administrative functions, the authority to perform the following discretionary functions: the management of any investment, unincorporated business, farming, or mining operation, and real estate operation, or other venture, whether employing agents, giving proxies, entering into voting trusts, or otherwise, and the selection of the time to acquire or to dispose of any property which may be held, any power, including this power, possessed by the trustees, which is necessary, customary, or desirable so that the delegee may perform any function delegated pursuant to this paragraph; and to compensate the agents by salary, commission, fee, or otherwise.
10.21. To enter into binding agreements not to exercise any power which they possess on such terms and conditions and for such reasons as may be deemed appropriate.
10.22. To purchase options on any property.
10.23. To advance money on behalf of an operating trust. In the case of any such advance, the trustees shall have a lien on the assets of the trust, senior to that of any subsequent creditor of the trust, provided that any such lien shall extinguish on assignment.
10.24. To advance money of the trusts to themselves or agents, in such reasonable amounts as to cover anticipated upcoming expenditures.
10.25. To permit any beneficiary to have the use, possession, and enjoyment of any trust property.
10.26. To accumulate income as, in the trustees' absolute discretion, the trustees deem wise and in the best interests of the beneficiaries.
10.27. To pay or distribute such part or all of the trust property as the trustee may deem appropriate on behalf of the beneficiaries, in such amounts and proportions as the trustees shall, in the trustees' absolute discretion, deem wise and expedient and in the best interests of the beneficiary.
10.28. To incorporate, merge, split, and/or transfer the trust property to any other trust, corporation, association, or entity organized for a charitable purpose, on such conditions as the trustees deem proper, provided that the trustees are assured that the purposes for which the transferee entity is organized are substantially the same as those intended by the trust document.
10.29. To construe any provision of the trust instrument where a grantor's intention may appear unclear.
11. Compensation of Trustee
11.1. The trustees may donate their time or be paid.
11.2. The trustees may pay themselves and others reasonable fees and salaries and reimbursement for reasonable expenses incurred on behalf of a trust or a beneficiary.
11.3. When the trustees are paid, unless strong evidence suggests a higher rate, payment to the trustees shall be limited to the prevailing rate for paralegal services charged by law firms in the general geographical area of the trustees for nonprofit trust paralegal work.
11.4. Unless strong evidence suggests a different rate, in any instance where the trustees are accounting for their time as an "in kind" donation, the reasonable compensation rate for a trustee shall be the prevailing rate for paralegal services charged by law firms in the general geographical area of the trustees for nonprofit trust paralegal work.
12. Limitations on Trustees Powers
Except as specified elsewhere:
12.1. All actions of the trustees shall be done, not for their own benefit, but in a fiduciary capacity for the best interests of the beneficiaries and purposes of the trust.
12.2. No person shall have special privileges or usages of the trust property.
12.3. No person shall purchase, exchange, consume, be given title or usage of, or otherwise deal with or dispose of the trust property for less than adequate or full consideration in money of money's worth, or to enable any person to borrow the trust property, directly or indirectly, without interest or security.
12.4. Except for reasonable petty cash advances to cover anticipated upcoming expenditures on behalf of a trust or a beneficiary, no person may directly or indirectly borrow any part of the trust property.
12.5. All transactions shall be done as if at arm's length.
13. Accounting
13.1. The trustees may make public reports available to members and to the general public by use of the Internet, or other freely accessible methods of distribution of information which may be created at some future time, on such reasonable basis and with such detail as may be deemed appropriate by the trustees.
13.2. Notwithstanding the foregoing paragraph, it is the intent of the grantor and the trustees that any trust created under this document be exempt from making public or filing any reports required by any government.
14. The Office of Trustee
14.1. All trustees serve at the pleasure of the ecclesiastical authority of Lovers in Training™ Worldwide.
14.1. One trustee shall be chosen by the trustees as the managing trustee.
14.2. The trustees may appoint additional trustees and/or successor trustees, as they deem advisable.
14.3. Unless otherwise specified, the initial trustee shall be Andrea L. Curtis.
14.4. Unless appointed as a special trustee with specified limited powers, all additional trustees and successor trustees shall have the same rights, powers, duties, privileges, and immunities of the original trustees.
14.5. The trustees may appoint acting trustees, temporary trustees, standby successor trustees, junior trustees, and/or intern trustees. Such trustees may be appointed with limited powers and duties.
14.6. The trustees shall work and pray to make all decisions by consensus. Ideally, the consensus reached shall have strong concurrence and support of all involved.
14.7. Consensus does not require all to agree. It simply requires none to object. While even reluctant consensus is, technically, consensus, the trustees are urged, whenever possible, to continue dialog until a more ideal consensus is reached.
14.8. Absent a consensus the managing trustee may make any decision that is time critical until a consensus is reached. After a protracted lack of consensus, the managing trustee may make any final decision.
14.9. A trustee may resign by giving notice to the other trustees.
15. Liability of Trustees
15.1. No trustee shall at any time be held personally liable for any action or default of the trustees, of another trustee, of the agents of any trustee, or of any other person in connection with the administration of the trust property, unless caused by the trustee's own gross negligence or by a willful commission by the trustee of an act in breach of trust.
15.2. No loss or damage accruing to the trust property, to a beneficiary, or to a third person, as a result of the exercise of any discretion vested in the trustees shall be charged or imputed to any trustee, except for such loss or damage as my result from breach or trust, bad faith, or gross negligence in the exercise of the trustee's discretion.
15.3. No trustee shall be liable for any loss of any investment.
15.4. No trustee shall be liable for any failure to diversify the trust property.
15.5. No liability shall accrue to any trustee for any payment or distribution made in good faith and without actual knowledge of any change in the condition or status of any person receiving the payment or distribution.
15.6. No trustee shall be liable for any depreciation in value or other losses occasioned by any investment made, provided the trustee acted in good faith in making the investment.
15.7. No trustee shall in any event be liable for any act or default of a cotrustee unless the liability results from that trustee's own breach or trust, bad faith, or gross negligence.
15.8. No trustee shall be personally liable on any contract, note, or other instrument executed by the trustees in their capacity as trustees, or for any indebtedness of the trust.
16. Transactions with Third Parties
16.1. No person dealing with the trustees need to inquire concerning the validity of any actions the trustees perform or purport to perform, or need to administer the application of any money paid or property transferred to or on the order of trustees.
16.2. No party dealing with the trustees shall have any duty to follow any property transferred to or from the trustees.
16.3. The trustees shall not be personally liable on or responsible for any contract made in regard to the trust or for any tort. Parties must look solely to the trust property for any remedy. The trustees are encouraged to put notice to this provision in contracts on behalf of a trust.
16.4. Third parties dealing with the trustees are put on notice of this document and these provisions.
17. Duration of Trusts
17.1. Unless otherwise specified as a time limited trust, the duration of the trusts created under this trust instrument shall be perpetual. In any event where a rule against perpetuities would make a perpetual trust invalid, the trust shall terminate at the latest legal time possible. The trustees may, in their sole discretion, at such time, set up new trusts to continue the work of the original trusts or, if possible, extend the duration of any trust.
17.2. If at any time the trust property shall have been reduced to a size which, in the sole judgment of the trustees, shall make it inadvisable or unnecessary to continue such a small trust, then the trustees, in trustees' sole discretion, may distribute the entire trust property and terminate the trust, or merge the trust with another trust.
17.3. If a trust is dissolved, disqualified, or otherwise terminated, the trustees shall, from the assets of that trust, pay, or otherwise satisfy all the outstanding obligations and liabilities of that trust, and thereafter shall dispose of all its remaining assets by distributing them, in whatever form they exist, in cash or in kind, to such charities, as the trustees may determine, most closely carry on the work as the initial ben.
17.4. There shall be no geographical limitations on such final distributions.
17.5. No final distribution shall be made to any entity if it is subject to attachment or alienation.
17.6. As a last resort, the trustees may apply to a court of equity for guidance and assistance in determining the recipients of any final distributions.
17.7. Should the trustees need to make the the liquidation distribution in increments, prior to the final distribution of the trust property, the trustees may retain such part of the trust property as the trustees deem necessary, in the trustees' sole discretion, to meet possible expenses which should occur related to the trust property, the liquidation, and/or the closing administration.
18. Beneficiary's Rights
No right, title, or interest in the trust property shall vest in any beneficiary. No beneficiary shall have the power to anticipate in any way any of the rents, issues, profits, income, monies, or payments hereby provided or authorized to be paid to or on behalf of the beneficiary, or any part thereof, nor to alienate, convey, transfer, or dispose of the same or any interest therein or any part thereof in advance of payment. None of the same shall be involuntarily alienated by any beneficiary or be subject to attachment, execution, or be levied on or taken on any process for any debts that any beneficiary shall have contracted or shall contract, or in satisfaction of any demands or obligations that any beneficiary may incur. All payments authorized and provided to be made by the trustees shall be made and shall be valid and effectual only when paid to, or on behalf of, the beneficiary to whom payment shall belong, or otherwise, as provided in the trust instrument.
19. Alternative Dispute Resolution
19.1. All parties to the trust will deal in good faith and with good will towards each other.
19.2. If any parties ever have a dispute between them, they will resolve it simply and fairly.
19.3. Parties in any dispute will work first, in good faith, to resolve their dispute by mediation. Mediation will be under the commercial rules of the American Arbitration Association.
20. Binding Arbitration
If the parties cannot resolve a dispute by mediation, they will use arbitration. Arbitration will be under the commercial rules of the American Arbitration Association in the situs of the trust as follows:
20.1. Any party may participate in any hearing via phone or other form of submission not involving physical presence.
20.2. No arbitrator shall be a current or former: attorney, judge, magistrate, or court employee.
20.3. All time periods shall be extended by twenty-one days.
20.4. The arbitration shall be governed by the Federal Arbitration Act. Arbitration shall be binding. Any arbitration award may be entered into any court having the necessary jurisdiction.
21. Costs of Private Dispute Resolution
21.1. Each party will pay its own costs in mediation or arbitration.
21.2. If any party reasonably expects its share of private mediation and arbitration fees to be greater than they would be in court and has a problem with its share of those private fees, it may notify the other parties of its cost concerns.
21.3. The other party may then choose to: pay the difference between the private fees and what the objecting party would pay for mediation and arbitration through court; move the case to a different mediation and arbitration organization that operates nationally and pay the objecting side's extra costs of private mediation and arbitration; or move the case to court.
22. Waiver of Claims
In any dispute related to this trust instrument, all parties waive any claim against each other for: punitive damages, statutory damages, attorneys fees, any claim over a year old that has not been brought to alternative dispute resolution or court, and any claim that has been filed, but not prosecuted for over a year.
23. Authority of Courts
For the sake of speedy justice and to not be a burden to the legal system, in any instance where the beneficiaries or the trustees seek the aid of a court for guidance under the trust instrument, the court is authorized to administer equity and justice by a single judge sitting without a jury.
24. Notices
24.1. Any notice from the trustees may be made by email, or by other widely used communication means which provide evidence of sending and constructive receipt. An email sent by the trustees to a person's last known email address will be deemed to be received.
24.2. Any notice to the trustees sent electronically will be sent by the online contact page at: http://www.loversintraining.org/contact.html. The sender will make sure to get an acknowledgment number from the server stating that the message was received by the trustees.
24.3. Any notice to the trustees sent by conventional mail will be sent by certified mail, return receipt requested to: Lovers in Training, PO Box 847, Burnsville NC 28417.
24.4. The trustees may change the procedure for giving them notice by publishing notice on the Internet, or other ways which may be develop in the future, so that the information is broadly accessible to the public.
24.5. The terms of this master trust document may not be changed by sending a notice to the trustees. The trustees' staff is not authorized to change these terms for any particular person unless they are published on the Internet for everybody.
25. Severability
If any provision of the trust instrument should be found by a court or other tribunal to be void, invalid, unlawful, or unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall continue to be fully effective.
26. Limited Rights of Amendment
26.1. If any provision of the trust instrument be found by a court or other tribunal to be void, invalid, unlawful, or unenforceable, or to avoid such a ruling, the trustees may, without the permission of any court, amend the trust instrument in such a way, as they deem fit, to conform as much as possible to the original intent of the grantor without invalidating the trust instrument. In such an event, the trustees may, in their discretion, deem that the modification previously existed.
26.2. The trustees, shall have the power, acting alone without the permission of any court, to amend the trust instrument in any manner required for the sole purposes of insuring that the trust most clearly confirms to the original intention of the grantor and/or the trustees when the grantor first granted the trust property into trust.
26.3. Notwithstanding any other limitation, the trustees have absolute power to utilize their best judgment and discretion to make amendments to the trust instrument in order that the trusts, the trust instrument, and the administration of the trusts will best conform to the law, most particularly tax law, in effect from time to time during the continuance of the trusts.
27. Governing Authority
In descending order of priority, the trust instrument shall be governed by:
27.1. The terms of the specific trust instrument.
27.2. The terms of this master trust instrument.
27.3. The laws of the jurisdiction in which a trust is situated.
27.4. The laws of the jurisdiction in which a trust is created.
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