🚀 go-pugleaf

Very well said!

Clark Morris wrote:
>
> In looking back over the past few months, I find myself asking why am I so
> interested in the issues surrounding Steve Gallinger's removal from office.
> I don't know him and though I liked his platform, I don't believe that I
> remembered to vote in that election.  I do know Mike MacDonald and Doug
> Swift from having attended CIPS Fredericton and respect both of them so the
> issue was at least one worth further consideration.  I also have been long
> interested
> in politics and how institutions work so this too has played a part.  I also
> am not content with the status quo and have wondered each year whether I
> should renew my membership since I have not found anything where I wanted to
> volunteer my time.  The major motivation that I have for pursuing this issue
> is that various precedents are being set and seemingly set in a manner that
> gives little guidance to those who want to bring about change.
>
> Everyone who is on the board represents at least one constituency which is
> all or part of the electing body be it national or one of the regions.  If
> the election is uncontested, it can be safely assumed that the agenda of the
> person was not opposed sufficiently to engender an opposing candidate.  If
> the person was the winning candidate in an election where there were
> distinct points of view expressed, those points of view and platform
> promises can be said to be at least more acceptable to those who voted than
> the views and platform of the opponent.  Thus the views brought by any
> member of the board must be considered as having backing and resonance with
> a broader constituency.  Further it is difficult with so few contested
> elections and with the limited amount of campaigning allowed to determine
> the prevalence of any given viewpoint within the constituencies.
>
> On removal of a member of the board, there are two distinct views among the
> membership.  One is that the board has a fair amount of leeway in determing
> acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and that the individual members are
> responsible basically to the board.  The other is that a member can be
> removed only for serious behaviour detrimental to the society or flagrant
> non-feasance of office.  In the latter view incompetance would not be a just
> and sufficient cause where in the former view it would.  I hold to the
> latter view but would not want to stake any large amount of money on that
> being the prevailing view within the general membership.
>
> If I vote for motion one, i.e. to re-instate Mr. Gallinger it will be
> because of the following:
>
> 1.  Descriptions of each of the acts with date, time and context,  that
> constitute the justification for the charges have not been provided.  Thus I
> have no basis for either determining the validity of the charges or
> questioning Mr. Gallinger for his side of the story.
>
> 2.  To my knowledge, the board made no attempt to forstall the SGM by
> offering to agree to an independent review either as outlined by motion 2
> which was discussed on cips-l for over a month before the call became
> official or as could be negotiated by the principal parties on both side of
> the issue and
> to hold off on any specific further action until the review was completed.
> As one of the signatories, I know that my transmission to the president
> indicated an openness to change if it could be agreed to by the other
> parties involved.  This was sent on December 17 and other than the
> acknowledgment of receiving the message and the forwarding to the national
> office, I have heard nothing since other than what we see on the various
> lists.  Since the board had the right to set the date and time of the
> meeting, they could have set instituted the review committee as set forth in
> motion two, postponed filling the vacancy, and scheduled the SGM for two
> weeks after the report was made available to the membership.  While I can't
> speak for my fellow signatories, that would have been acceptable to me and
> won my hearfelt approval.
>
> 3.  The acceptance of the removal without clear statement of actions
> involved where we can look at the documents or question people about the
> events causing the removal leaves people who may wish to run for board
> office in opposition to current policy in a vulnerable place if they obtain
> the office.  I do not wish to set that precedent.
>
> 4.  I will not consider the statements that various officers plan to resign
> as final.  If they choose to quit because a majority disagrees with them on
> one issue and lose their ability to shape ongoing events, it is a shame that
> things have escalated to this extent.  Many statements are made in the heat
> of a dispute that we later regret.  I can not claim that I look back on all
> of my actions in disputes in the various organizations as having been the
> best but hope I have learned from that.
>
> 5.  It may be the little things that have tipped the balance.  The SGM web
> page can't be reached from the main web page.  The board 's unwillingness to
> allow a member in good standing to post a request for a meeting and not
> providing a safeguarded mechanism (i.e. concurring requests from twenty
> members in good standing from at least 3 different chapters, etc.) if they
> feel that allowing on the petition of single member is too open to abuse.
> If sgm-l is a cips enabled discussion group, there was no notice of it on
> the SGM-L web page as of Tuesday, March 9 and no posting to either cips-l
> or cips-ann.
>
> If I vote against the first motion, it will be because the board and/or
> others provide enough evidence that it would be against the best interests
> of the organization to do so because of stated specific actions by Mr.
> Gallinger.
>
> In closing, this series of events definitely warrants a review that is not
> controlled by partisans of either side.  Further it calls for careful and
> considered review of our governing documents.  Since the executive is the
> governing body on with the board offering sporadic oversight at most, is it
> appropriate for the president to be able to appoint the directors of his
> choice thus guaranteeing that he/she has a majority of the executive?  Also
> with the executive being the normative governing body and the policy shaping
> organ, I believe that the agenda for the various meetings should be posted
> in advance.  We also have to explore which good practices of a board as
> mentioned elsewhere are applicable to an organization such as ours where the
> staff is in a support role to the volunteers and is not the company and
> hopefully is not the major doer of most things.  We also need to explore the
> extent of control that the board should have over committees and SIG's and
> if there should be some constraints on that control and ability to create
> and disband.  Just getting the right questions to enable intelligent and
> fruitful exploration of the issues and avoiding creating worse problems than
> we already have will be difficult.  The benefit to all of this review is the
> enabling of people to work in a knowable framework and for change to be
> openly discussable.  Both the review committee that I hope will come out of
> the SGM and the constitutional review committee have major tasks in front of
> them.  I can see the latter committee needing up to a year to really do the
> job right.  Some changes may be straight forward enough to be ready by the
> annual general meeting and not preclude more comprehensive change later but
> I believe much work is needed on obtaining a view of who we want to be and
> how we should relate to our institutioms.
>
> Clark Morris, Member of CIPS Bluenose on assignment in New Brunswick
>                       morrisc@nbnet.nb.ca