dreamshark: (Default)
[personal profile] dreamshark
I wasn't going to get into this discussion, but it was just getting too absurd. I posted this to natter a few minutes ago. I think I'm trying to bring the discussion back to earth by boring everybody to tears. Note: if you don't have any idea what prompted this, count yourself lucky.
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There seems to be some confusion about the role of the Minnstf Board in relationship to Minicon. Since a Board election is approaching, perhaps this is a good time to clarify some basic points.

The Board does not run Minicon. Rather, the Board appoints a Minicon Exec (which has ranged, historically from 1 to 5 persons) to run Minicon for the club. The Minicon Exec is given seed money and directed to formulate a budget so as to make a specified minimum profit. Then the Exec chooses a committee and plans and runs the con. The Board oversees the financial aspects of the con in a general sense, requiring certain reports and accountings as spelled out in the bylaws.

The Board does not set the membership rates. It does not choose the hotel. It does not define processes or policies for the concom to follow. Board members have been known to remind concoms of certain long-standing traditions that have been followed by Minicon committees in the past and encourage them to continue those traditions, but the actual decisions are up to the Exec.

The Board is certainly not in the habit of second-guessing judgement calls made by the Exec in the heat of running a convention. The Exec has broad discretionary powers in both planning and running the convention and it would take very serious circumstances for the Board to intervene.
In cases of behavior deemed injurious to the club,the Board IS empowered by the Bylaws to remove, overrule or censure a member of the current Exec. This has never happened. Minnstf Boards have always interpreted these clauses in the bylaws to refer to extreme malfeasance or complete inability to do the job.

Note that the Board has no power to censure anybody else, including past Exec members. The Board does not conduct trials or hearings or court-martials. It does not take testimony, appoint special prosecutors, or generally speaking, go looking for trouble. The Board will consider complaints and requests that are formally presented to it, but does not go out of its way to intervene in disputes among its members.

Not being deaf, dumb and blind, individual members of the current Board have noticed that such a dispute is under way right now in various public forums. We were also aware of the origin of the dispute at last year's Minicon. Several Board members investigated the issue at the time sufficiently to determine that they saw no reason to pursue it further. Note that this is not the same thing as saying that the Board approved (or disapproved) of any particular action by Exec members. It is not our job to micro-manage individual decisions and actions (unless we find evidence of serious malfeasance or incompetence, which we did not).

We were prepared for the aggrieved party to bring his issue to the Board, but he did not do so. Since the Board does not make official responses to gossip and hearsay, we took no action. One might say that we officially ignored this dispute, but that does not mean we are ignorant of it. This particular Board is about to pass into history with next week's Board elections. If you want to know what we would have said if a complaint had been brought to us, I guess you will have to ask us individually. Continuing to harass subsequent Boards, who will have less and less knowledge of the incident in question, makes little sense to me. Although there is, of course, nothing in the Minnstf Bylaws requiring our members to have sense. Sentience yes. Sense, no.

With the Board Elections coming up, perhaps it is a good time for voting members to review the Bylaws (online
at http://www.mnstf.org/records.html). Do you want a Board that will take a much more aggressive interpretation of Clauses VI(5) and (6)? Take that into account when you vote.

Respectfully submitted,
Sharon Kahn, Outgoing Board Member

Date: 2005-03-08 09:13 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mplscorwin.livejournal.com
Thanks for an articulate and useful contribution to a converstation which is keeping me up late.

We were prepared for the aggrieved party to bring his issue to the Board, but he did not do so.

However over here [livejournal.com profile] davidschroth says:
The local bully asked the board to censure Larry and Laura Jean; based on the results, I'd say the board declined to do so.

I'm sorry to be bringing this to you, when you are clearly wishing those of us going on endlessly about this would just shut up, but David has forbiden comments on this entry, so it seems asking him about this would be rude.

Date: 2005-03-08 12:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cakmpls.livejournal.com
Joel also says that he brought the issue to the Board. There seems to be some confusion here.

Date: 2005-03-08 01:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] joelrosenberg.livejournal.com
I don't think there is. I doubt that there's any question that I've emailed the Board on the matter, more than once. I think Sharon's suggesting that that doesn't constitute my nephew -- the aggrieved party -- having officially brought the matter to the attention of the Board.

Sounds to me like the Board was looking for an excuse (or, to be more generous, a reason) to drop the matter, as going further into it would certainly have been awkward for many involved, but that's another matter.

Date: 2005-03-09 01:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dreamshark.livejournal.com
Joel, if you ever sent an email directly to the Board asking it to take action, I never saw it. Apparently on some occasions you cc-ed the Board on comments posted to natter, where the Board was referred to in the third person. This is not the same thing. I say apparently, since I saw some natter posts (being subscribed to natter) and didn't notice that the board was cc-ed. If you want to bring something before you the Board, you have to address the Board directly. A letter or personal appearance is preferable to email, since email is so easily overlooked or misplaced. Indeed, if you did send an email directly to the Board requesting their intervention, that is probably what happened to it. I know I would not deliberately overlook such a message. I must confess, however, that I do not read all of your posts on natter.

Date: 2005-03-08 12:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cakmpls.livejournal.com
Minnstf Boards have always interpreted these clauses in the bylaws to refer to extreme malfeasance or complete inability to do the job.

I don't see why any such interpretation is needed. VI(6) seems to me to be pretty clear on its face, and not in need of further interpretation:
"The board of directors, with and only with a vote of at least two-thirds of the full board, may overrule any action of the executive committee or chairperson(s) or the convention committee, if in the view of the board such action was injurious or detrimental to the Society and its purposes, or clearly taken for reasons of personal disagreement or personal gain."

Surely there are actions that are injurious or detrimental to the Society (we don't even have to touch on personal disagreement or gain) that don't involve "extreme malfeasance or complete inability to do the job." Has it therefore been the policy of the Board to overlook such actions when they fell short of "extreme malfeasance or complete inability to do the job"?

(deleted comment)

Date: 2005-03-08 03:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cakmpls.livejournal.com
OK, "overlook" was the wrong word.

Has it therefore been the policy of the Board to judge all actions as not being "injurious or detrimental to the Society," and therefore not to overrule those actions, if they fall short of "extreme malfeasance or complete inability to do the job"?

The problem is that those two standards aren't related. I will address this in a separate post.

Thank you

Date: 2005-03-08 12:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lsanderson.livejournal.com
It would help, however, if the Board published minutes of meetings.

Re: Thank you

Date: 2005-03-08 01:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cakmpls.livejournal.com
I agree. However, I have reservations about posting them in a public forum, such as an openly accessible (I don't know the right techie words) Web site. I'd be interested in knowing whether any nonprofits do so.

Re: Thank you

Date: 2005-03-08 01:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lsanderson.livejournal.com
There has been a tradition of publishing Board minutes in Rune. Then there came a hiatus in the publishing of Rune.

I suspect Google might be able to answer your questions about nonprofits.

Re: Thank you

Date: 2005-03-08 01:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cakmpls.livejournal.com
Yes, Rune was an excellent forum. An expanded Einblatt could also handle this, but we run, once again, into matters of finance.

Re: Thank you

Date: 2005-03-08 02:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lsanderson.livejournal.com
In the dark ages, when I was on the Board, we started publishing Board minutes on the web. The cost of paper and postage is somewhat lower on the web.

Re: Thank you

Date: 2005-03-08 08:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dd-b.livejournal.com
Plus, Einblatt is mostly published electronically, and is archived on the web, so it publishing there doesn't avoid making the minutes public.

Of course, any paper publication of which over 100 copies are distributed isn't actually private in any useful sense either.

Re: Thank you

Date: 2005-03-08 08:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cakmpls.livejournal.com
I'm not thinking in terms of "private"; I think that the accessibility levels of something posted on a Web site and of something printed even in several hundred copies are very different.

And I'm not opposing the minutes being on the Web, but I would like to see some evidence that other nonprofits do such a thing, and maybe even sound out a lawyer, before posting them.

Re: Thank you

Date: 2005-03-09 12:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] skylarker.livejournal.com
Perhaps a friends-locked post through the Mnstf LiveJournal?

Re: Thank you

Date: 2005-03-08 08:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lsanderson.livejournal.com
Yes, and Einblatt has that troubling physical manifestation that involves processed dead trees and the US Postal Service...

Date: 2005-03-08 03:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com
Thank you Sharon for this clear massage about how it works, without applying drama into what's right wrong what you agreed with, disagreed with etc.

Date: 2005-03-08 03:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com
Or course I meant message

Date: 2005-04-02 05:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] serendipoz.livejournal.com
I'd like to get a copy of the web page you had for programming in order to archive it on the Minnstf site for Minicon 40. At the moment my link points to your page for Minicon 41. I should have a page for Minicon 41 shortly after Greg and I get together to create it.

Let me know?