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cimoreneThere's board elections coming up for the OTW and some unfunny business emerging. I have seen comments to the effect that people *would* have considered involvement/not shunning the name of OTW and spreading malicious sniping about AO3 but now that they've seen how extra-wanky it supposedly is they should instead run away.
When I was born, my mother was acting as the president of the large New Orleans chapter of NOW, the National Organization for Women, and one of her close friends in the leadership of that chapter later went on to become the national president when I was about 4. From the time I was ~6 both my parents have been heavily involved in our Unitarian Universalist congregation, which has only ever been a few hundred members tops, but always has lots of committees and is famously encumbered by a consensus-only model of decision-making. I've been dragged along to sit on the floor and entertain myself with dolls or sketchbooks in meetings since before I can remember, have listened to my parents ranting over dinner about pig-headed board and committee members every year of my life, and had Robert's Rules explained to me before I was old enough to follow.
Dysfunction, intrigue, and wank is endemic to this method of running things. That doesn't mean you shouldn't work to clarify, compromise, bring issues into the open, eliminate undue influences, and replace board members with more cooperative ones. It just means the sky isn't falling. My parents' congregation has suffered through far worse than the board member who told the president of the board she didn't have the authority to lay the groundwork for a strategic plan that she had been told to do by the board (and then going behind her back to tell people to stop working on it with her). They survived and you will too. You'll never have a year where a bunch of you don't want to rip your hair out, though, I'm pretty sure. The people I see posting meta about this are doing their best: honestly airing their thoughts and talking to each other and sometimes having large alcoholic or tannin-laden drinks, which looks like an exemplary handling of the situation.
When I was born, my mother was acting as the president of the large New Orleans chapter of NOW, the National Organization for Women, and one of her close friends in the leadership of that chapter later went on to become the national president when I was about 4. From the time I was ~6 both my parents have been heavily involved in our Unitarian Universalist congregation, which has only ever been a few hundred members tops, but always has lots of committees and is famously encumbered by a consensus-only model of decision-making. I've been dragged along to sit on the floor and entertain myself with dolls or sketchbooks in meetings since before I can remember, have listened to my parents ranting over dinner about pig-headed board and committee members every year of my life, and had Robert's Rules explained to me before I was old enough to follow.
Dysfunction, intrigue, and wank is endemic to this method of running things. That doesn't mean you shouldn't work to clarify, compromise, bring issues into the open, eliminate undue influences, and replace board members with more cooperative ones. It just means the sky isn't falling. My parents' congregation has suffered through far worse than the board member who told the president of the board she didn't have the authority to lay the groundwork for a strategic plan that she had been told to do by the board (and then going behind her back to tell people to stop working on it with her). They survived and you will too. You'll never have a year where a bunch of you don't want to rip your hair out, though, I'm pretty sure. The people I see posting meta about this are doing their best: honestly airing their thoughts and talking to each other and sometimes having large alcoholic or tannin-laden drinks, which looks like an exemplary handling of the situation.
(no subject)
Date: 13 Nov 2011 05:30 pm (UTC)Also, I was the only public objector to the rule that there's no term limit for Board members, they can serve forever. I think that makes an org sclerotic.