[24846] in APO-L
Re: [APO-L] Board restructuring comments from Michael Gallagher, Active in Zeta Sigma Chapter (UDel)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mariza Shavelle)
Sat Jan 7 13:49:13 2006
X-Envelope-From: shavelle@misty.com
Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2006 13:48:52 -0500
Reply-To: Mariza Shavelle <shavelle@misty.com>
From: Mariza Shavelle <shavelle@misty.com>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
In-Reply-To: <43BFFCDA.10103@udel.edu>
Quoting Michael Gallagher <famtree@UDel.Edu>:
> Brothers,
> I apologize for the crosspost, but I feel it appropriate to comment to
> my region and to those on the national listserv, as my RD said now is
> the time for discussion.
> Regarding the "Issues" slide: links between students and the board must
> be maintained according to the presentation. However, in my experience,
> direct linkage is inefficient and impractical in many cases, as those
> lower on the chain are underutilized and those higher overutilized.
> Believe me, I emailed and instant messenged board members, thinking they
> were in the best position to deal with questions and issues, being the most
> experienced. In 2002, I opposed student involvement on the board. I
> still oppose it for the hardships that would create for college students
> (financial and time). I run into these issues in my other organizations
> as a college student. We cannot expect a student to be able to handle a
> full course load, chapter involvement, travel (time and money), and
> decisions that students would be ill-equipped to make in most cases due
> to lack of experience. On a similar note, why would we want to
> diversify the experience and knowledge of the board? True, we could get
> other insights, but lower amounts of experience and knowledge could hurt
> us. How can we diversify the board suchly without negative effects?
I want to respond to a few points that Micahel has raised. I did not
attend the Regional Conference nor have I studied in-depth the new Power
Point presentation. I was at the National Volunteer conference where they
briefly touched on the restructing issue.
I disagree STRONGLY that college students can't handle high leadership
level positions in a national service organization. Maybe SOME students
can't handle it but to say all students can't is a bit much. If we are to
truely be a "student run service organization" then we need to give the
students a higher level of responsibility and power. Having a vote as a chapter
delegate every two years...and in some cases being a fairly meaningless vote..
is not.. in my mind, power or being student run.
I belong to several other service organizations amoung them Kiwanis which
has the collegiate service group of Circle K International. All of the
International officers of Circle K are students (11 officers) and they manage
to
be effective International officers, maintain home club involvement, and
yes..even hold other jobs and responsibilities.
There are ways of removing the financial hardship of being a National Officer..
it's called a budget and officer reimbursements. In Circle K, their required
National and International travel and convention attendances are paid for with
little cost to the student involved besides the time spent away from home.
I'll leave the other areas of comments to other people to respond to.
Mariza
life member, Alpha Phi Omega
University City Kiwanis Club, VP Membership
Gamma Sigma Sigma District 4 Director
Pennsylvania District Committee on Circle K,
Metro Division Advisor
yada yada yada more titles I don't feel like typing
