Re: GSAS Email Forum

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

On Thu, 1 May 2003, Rick Rose wrote:

> 1)                   Should the Board establish attendance (and/or other
> requirements) to be imposed on its own members in order to "remain as a
> board member"? 

While I beleive it is valid (but not necessary) to have the OPTION of
revoking the status of a board member, I feel very strongly that this
should not be implemented as an "automatic" rule that kicks in after N
missed meetings.  The benefits I see from such a rule are that it keeps
the books cleaner, and it makes things easier on the president and other
board members (who now do not have the responsibility of contacting the
wayward board member).  But the drawbacks are great: First there is a lack
of dignity for the person involved; there is no attempt to first find out
WHY they are not attending; they are treated like children with "strikes"  
against them shown in meeting minutes.  While some see no insult in that,
others (such as myself) do.  With "strikes" against me, I am not
encouraged to come back and participate.  Third, there is no accounting
for WHY they may have missed the meetings, and as demonstrated this year,
seemingly no attempt to find out.

Second point: what is the damage of having an inactive board member still 
listed?  I do not see any.  Their name stays on the list until the end of 
the year, and then presumably they don't get re-elected.

Another point I've been trying to make (and perhaps it is only a side
issue, so feel free to disregard in this forum) is that it is not clear to
me how important attendance IS at board meetings.  My experience has been
over the past few years that it is easier to get input and a quorum on
issues through e-mail forums such as these than at the board meetings
themselves.  One can review the issues carefully, and compose an answer at
their leisure that says exactly what they want.  Oftentimes I find that
issues get "ramrodded" through at the board meetings without even time to
discuss or vote on them.  Other issues are discussed ad-nauseum and take 
up (IMHO) far too much time at the board meetings, and I'd prefer to just 
skim over and vote yes or no.

Finally, a paradox I've noticed: how do we now rectify some of the needs
for "special" board members such as (apparently?) the newsletter editor,
with such a hardfast rule?  If the newsletter editor doesn't need to be at
board meetings because they are the newsletter editor (arguably the
person who's, in the best of all possible worlds, the most on top of
what's going on, because they're the liaison to the general membership
every month), why do the other board members have this rule?

Now, I'll go with that "be positive" suggestion... what I *think* should
be the policy for board membership is this:  if a board member is doing
actual DAMAGE to the club by non-attendance or other means, they should be
asked first if they want to continue on the board.  "Hi John, you haven't
been at the last few board meetings, and you're supposed to have planned
all the speakers for the next year.  Are you sure you want to keep doing
this, or should we try and find someone else?"  The next phase would be to
transfer their responsibilities to another, more active, member.  When I 
was president, this ALWAYS worked.  In fact, most people were real polite 
about resigning themselves in advance due to other committments.


> 2)                   How can we improve participation from the general
> membership?

Rick's right, this is a totally separate and unrelated topic, should have 
been in a separate e-mail "forum" after the first one is completed.

I have found the best way to get participation has been to involve the 
membership in the activities.  The member profile column, new members 
list, and even just walking up to people at the meetings helps a lot to 
this end.  Asking a member to host the board meeting/open fishroom is 
always succesful.

I guess this is tangentially related to the first topic, in that I beleive
you'll get more participation from non-board-members by making it easier
and more fun to be on the board, or even if not on the board, allowing
folks to have something they 'do' for the club without a lot of
interference, rules, and general red tape.


> 3)                   Suggestions for holding general elections for board
> members - again, maybe this is a mute point since we've found the bylaws
> (or maybe not?)  Let's see what comes of it.

This should be a moot point, and/or separate discussion.  traditionally,
nominations from the general membership are held in may, and elections
held in June.  We discussed at a board meeting a while back of putting
them off until the fall, because it would end the problem of changing over
a regime during the summer break, and historically the fall tends to be a
bit slower than the spring for the club; a perfect time to elect and
welcome in a new set of board members (I think the Christmas party is a
good day to do the changeover, what with it being a laid-back "fun and
distractions" meeting to begin with).  The absolute worst experience I had
with elections, and probably what we essentially stopped doing them, was
trying to coordinate them (AND the nominations which had been blown off
the previous month) the same night as a big national speaker.  It just
eats into the time people would prefer seeing what they came for.

OK, 'nuff said.  I'm done.

  - Erik

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com

  ------------------
  To unsubscribe from this list, e-mail majordomo@thekrib.com
  with "unsubscribe gsas-board" in the body of the message.
  Old messages are available at http://lists.thekrib.com/gsas-board
  When asked, log in as username is "gsas-board", and password "gsas-bored".