[24860] in APO-L
Re: [APO-L] Board restructuring comments
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tom Strong)
Mon Jan 9 18:44:35 2006
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 14:08:14 -0500
Reply-To: Tom Strong <strong@DEMENTIA.ORG>
From: Tom Strong <strong@DEMENTIA.ORG>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
In-Reply-To: <017601c6153c$b5b69260$6401a8c0@bradhome>
Why does the discussion seem to be hanging up on whether or not
students or "outsiders" should be on the board? Right now a simple
majority vote at the convention could put either onto the board - all
that would need to happen is for them to be elected, just like anyone
else. The bylaws place no restriction on who is eligible for
election to the board, be they active, alumni, or completely
unaffiliated with us prior to their election. As it stands now, by
rule and custom the nominating committee determines a slate of
candidates that they believe would do well. This is a committee
composed of active members, who then presents their nominations to
the convention's legislative floor, 90% or so of which is also
actives. (The Regional Directors are elected through about the same
process, just within each region)
I'm unsure if there's an actual precedent for electing an active
member to the board, I do know from checking some of the biographies
on the national web site that Bob Barkhurst at least came close to
that, serving as a delegate to the 1966 and 1968 conventions and
being elected as a regional director while serving as a delegate.
There is certainly precedent for bringing in board members (at least
non-voting ones) with no prior affiliation, as a very recent example
consider our National Executive Director who became a brother after
joining us (and the board) in that position.
If a student (or a retiree, or anyone else for that matter) is
elected who lacks the financial resources to perform their duties on
the board I'm certain that others would be willing to help as has
often happened in the past. If one or more students happen to be
elected then there's student voice on the board, if not then the
board can find out what the students think through the simple
expedient of asking them, whether it be by talking to any who happen
to be in the gallery, formally visiting a chapter or two, appointing
students to a committee, or anything else that happens to work at the
time.
Now aside from the concerns about who should be on the board, there
remains the issue of how many board members there should be and what
their responsibilities should be. Having spent time as a Regional
Director, it's very time consuming to keep up with both the board
responsibilities and the management of the region, at least in a
first term. Dividing those duties would allow the two people in
those roles to concentrate on their assigned tasks, but there are
still the unanswered questions about how to maintain the regional
representation on the board (or is it even necessary?). There are a
lot of other questions as well, questions like should the board elect
some of its members or should they all be elected by the convention,
should program directors continue to be elected at large or should
they be elected directly to the various positions (or should they be
on the board at all?), etc. These are large enough issues already,
why complicate it by also trying to remove the freedom that the
convention already has to elect the best person for the job?
--
Tom Strong
strong@dementia.org
