Hello ausGeoff,
Thank you for taking the time to respond; Beyond recognising your username as one of the more prolific on this site, I know nothing of your capacity within the Flat Earth Society so I will not unduly burden you. In reply;
A1. I won't debate the legalities of the FES being a legal Society with you as I am content to proceed on the basis that it is an recognisable group under a established name.
A2. Yes I used PayPal and got a receipt/immediate acknowledgement and will chase the matter with them as soon as I deem necessary.
A3. I have, as I am sure most people do, a reasonable expectation of response time. I have checked the membership lists and I can see that membership may well be in the pipeline. Given the time of year, I have allowed the putative Mr Freer a little extra time. I have also emailed Messrs. Shenton and Wilmore as per the kind suggestion of jroa.
Once again I await the vagaries of joining a relatively loose association that amounts to little more than an electronic address and some pixels on a screen. If needs be and at an appropriate time, I will post a follow-up to my original thread so that, in all events, the matter can be closed without misunderstanding.
Kind Regards
Ajaycee
Firstly, I must apologise if I've inadvertently given you the impression that I have any formal standing or capacity "within" the Flat Earth Society. I'm a round earther and only post on these forums in an endeavour to clarify specific scientific claims made by those believing that the earth is flat. I repeatedly demand supporting empirical evidence for their various claims about our planet and the cosmos that contradict the 21st-century scientific
status quo.
I also attempt to provide irrefutable scientific evidence—supported by numerous accredited citations—that the accepted model of our universe, its physics and mechanics—is exactly as posited and theorised by contemporary astrophysicists, geophysicists, cosmologists and even philosophers.
I advise you to act upon your suggestion of claiming a charge-back from PayPal, as you only have a limited time-frame to do so. If you've not received any personal acknowledgement from the FES confirming your membership status after this lengthy period, I'm inclined to think it could be a scam—although I have absolutely
zero evidence to support this possibility.
Finally, the Flat Earth Society is
not officially "recognised" by any accredited scientific and/or government agency or even any institutions of learning. It's simply a group of private individuals who've chosen to name their group as such. It has no legal status, no document of incorporation, no committee, no formal charter (including a "not for profit" declaration in accordance with IRS requirements), no nominated secretary, no nominated treasurer, and no nominated president. All of these are required in order for an association and/or society to be a legally acknowledged entity. A web page and forum in and of themselves do not satisfy the use of the term "Society".
And you're quite correct in judging the FES as "little more than an electronic address". You can't phone them and they have no street and/or business address. And in most cases the moderators and administrators of the site are known only by their pseudonyms; no names, no pack drill?
And my name
is Geoff, and I do live in Victoria in southern Australia.

(I'd appreciate any flat earthers correcting any errors of fact I may have unintentionally posted above.)