Hi everybody,
With Christophe, we had the opportunity to discuss these aspects and our opinions differ on certain points so it is interesting to have additional opinions.
Initially, the idea of forming an association suited me well because it is simple to assemble and above all it is quite economical in operation. Then, we started to work on the technical part and we quickly realized that we would have to call on a lab of course, but above all this lab would have to be particularly well equipped because of the pathogenic aspect of perfringens. On the other hand, I think it is important to protect the works of the group. Indeed, since we are going to have to go through "specialized" labs, we are not going to control the possible publication of patents and for me it would be a real shame if they were sold to a company whose sole purpose was to bury them.
In order not to pollute this post with this last aspect, I suggest you discuss it
here.
To come back to the structure and its financing, I think for my part that an associative structure is not sufficient. Indeed, all the examples taken by Christophe are correct but they were all based without exception on known, recognized and charismatic men (Abbé Pierre for Emmaus, Coluche for the restos du cœur, Nicolas Hulot for his foundation…). And I imagine that the popularity of Nicolas Hulot is not unrelated to the recognition of public utility of his foundation.
Furthermore, I have been a member of civil security associations, recognized as being of public utility (civil protection and the French Rescue and First Aid Federation) for quite a few years and I can assure you that we have not not many grants. In general, we have premises that are made available to us, we have subsidies for our operating costs, but without additional resources (training, DPS), we would be unable to live. However, our missions are dictated and imposed on us by law and our supervisory authorities (Ministry of the Interior in particular) encourage us to equip ourselves and expand our areas of expertise. So in my opinion, we should not rely too much on public subsidies.
For my part, you will have understood, I would rather be in favor of setting up a limited liability company to supervise our work. This would still allow us to raise funds for those who want to help the project (like the association) but above all, depending on the sums involved, we will also be able to appeal to private funds by being taken more seriously. .
Like Christophe, I think it is necessary for this structure to help develop projects other than Laigret oil. However, by setting up a company, in the medium term, we will necessarily have more resources than an association. We will therefore be able to help more projects. When I see the ingenuity of certain geo finds who pass by the site (the pantone, certain ingenious wind turbines, thermal solar assemblies, etc.), I tell myself that we must indeed help them but I fear that if we disperse all of sequel, we wouldn't be able to develop a single one.
If we look at things in the medium/long term (it's sustainable development after all), let's imagine that through the association we manage to collect €10 per year (in my opinion, this is a fairly high figure for our domain). Can we really help a lot of projects (especially if we don't want to give Laigret oil the exclusive)??
Personally, I tell myself that if we initially focus on Laigret oil and manage to develop it, we can reinvest all or part of the profits in R&D and therefore we can more effectively help other very quickly.
We would thus have created a real sustainable development company with an econological spirit!!
Let's debate on this subject which my faith is fascinating!!!