There is, as you said, one permanent WSFS body: The Mark Protection Committee. The MPC is the descendant of what was originally called the Standing Committee, and its structure (nine elected members, appointees from current, future, and past two years' WSFS-sanctioned conventions) is based on the structure proposed for the WSFS Board of Directors during the 1970-80s incorporation discussions. (Which died out before I arrived, so I'm working from other people's recollections.)
For a while, the Business Meetings started referring more and more things to the Standing Committee, although its primary issue was dealing with service mark registrations. Some people appear to have resented this as a form of "creeping incorporation," and in the mid-1980s, enough such people attended the Business Meeting to change the committee's name to Mark Registration and Protection Committee (later shortened to just Mark Protection Committee). For what it's worth, the change was only to the committee's title. The Constitution never actually defined the Committee's authority, so the name change didn't actually change anything technically.
Instead of continuing to refer many matters to the MPC, the Business Meeting has decided to rely mainly on ad hoc committees continued year to year as needed (such as the Hugo Eligibility Rest of the World (HEROW) Committee, which sometimes proposes eligibility extensions to non-US-published works), and in two cases establishing standing committees of the Business Meeting (which has been ruled to be different from standing committees of WSFS and can be done by standing rule rather than constitutional change), including the Nitpicking & Flyspecking Committee and the Worldcon Runners Guide Editorial Committee. There is often a substantial overlap of membership between these committees -- every member of the NPFSC is either a primary or alternate member of the MPC, for instance.
So WSFS, having found one specific case (service marks) in which it's difficult or impossible to have a specific Worldcon committee do the task, established -- hesitantly -- a permanent body to handle it. That committee (and I'm the current Chairman) has no independent funding source and relies upon donations from Worldcon committees and individuals to keep running.
Traditionally, most Worldcons (those that can afford it) have donated $1 per site selection voter to fund the MPC's ongoing work. Some have donated more. Torcon 3, for instance, just donated CAD3100 to fund the cost of registering the service marks in Canada.
The MPC tries to whenever possible spend its money in the same country in which it was donated; there is also a long-term policy of registering the marks in every country that has hosted at least two Worldcons, or where money becomes available.
Last year, Interaction paid, as part of its donation to the MPC, the cost of renewing one of the UK service marks that was up for renewal. (Service marks have to be periodically renewed or they lapse.)
To the extent that WSFS has a chief executive officer, I'm in; however, I'm more like the leader of the Continental Congress than the President of the USA.
WSFS Permanent Bodies
For a while, the Business Meetings started referring more and more things to the Standing Committee, although its primary issue was dealing with service mark registrations. Some people appear to have resented this as a form of "creeping incorporation," and in the mid-1980s, enough such people attended the Business Meeting to change the committee's name to Mark Registration and Protection Committee (later shortened to just Mark Protection Committee). For what it's worth, the change was only to the committee's title. The Constitution never actually defined the Committee's authority, so the name change didn't actually change anything technically.
Instead of continuing to refer many matters to the MPC, the Business Meeting has decided to rely mainly on ad hoc committees continued year to year as needed (such as the Hugo Eligibility Rest of the World (HEROW) Committee, which sometimes proposes eligibility extensions to non-US-published works), and in two cases establishing standing committees of the Business Meeting (which has been ruled to be different from standing committees of WSFS and can be done by standing rule rather than constitutional change), including the Nitpicking & Flyspecking Committee and the Worldcon Runners Guide Editorial Committee. There is often a substantial overlap of membership between these committees -- every member of the NPFSC is either a primary or alternate member of the MPC, for instance.
So WSFS, having found one specific case (service marks) in which it's difficult or impossible to have a specific Worldcon committee do the task, established -- hesitantly -- a permanent body to handle it. That committee (and I'm the current Chairman) has no independent funding source and relies upon donations from Worldcon committees and individuals to keep running.
Traditionally, most Worldcons (those that can afford it) have donated $1 per site selection voter to fund the MPC's ongoing work. Some have donated more. Torcon 3, for instance, just donated CAD3100 to fund the cost of registering the service marks in Canada.
The MPC tries to whenever possible spend its money in the same country in which it was donated; there is also a long-term policy of registering the marks in every country that has hosted at least two Worldcons, or where money becomes available.
Last year, Interaction paid, as part of its donation to the MPC, the cost of renewing one of the UK service marks that was up for renewal. (Service marks have to be periodically renewed or they lapse.)
To the extent that WSFS has a chief executive officer, I'm in; however, I'm more like the leader of the Continental Congress than the President of the USA.