RE: Your Post to Ridecamp

["Bob Morris" <bobmorris@rmci.net>]

Title: Your Post to Ridecamp

I will chime in here agreeing with what Kathy has stated. Further more it common procedure for all AERC Board Meetings to be open to the membership. Now what constitutes a Board Meeting. In civil service, vis. public agencies, it is considered a meeting when three or more members convene to discuss a subject. That word convene includes telephone conversations, meeting over coffee, in a bar or by electronic means.

 

Albeit, the membership cannot take part in the discussions of the Board but they are, by virtue of having membership, privileged to observe all but certain specific proceedings. The general membership is excluded from personnel discussions and like subject deliberations.

 

Therefore, it is only prudent that the Board's on-line discussions be open to observation by the membership. This could be expedited by the use of membership identification number, thus restricting non-members. (who, incidentally, are not excluded from the regular Board meetings)

 

Anything less and I would say the Board is either hiding things or ashamed of what is said during their on-line intercourse.

 

Bob Morris

-----Original Message-----
From: Kathy Mayeda [mailto:Kathy_Mayeda@atce.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 6:06 PM
To: roger@vmaxept.com
Cc: ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: RC: Your Post to Ridecamp

Roger -
I was a little taken back by your post to Ridecamp.  Yes, there are times when I think that the whole list is absolutely nuts….. myself included…. but I felt like I was being trashed by you for some reason.  (Maybe I just shouldn’t take it so personally…)

I just wanted to comment on keeping the Board List closed to be read by the members.  I think that the majority of the decisions that the Board makes would receive less criticism if AERC members knew what information that you are working with.  It worries me a little that the Board has that many things to “hide”.  Right now, we do not have the same facts that are available to the Board Members and we only see a small part of the picture.  Also, we vote in the BOD to run our organization, but if we do not have any information or biased information about how our elected BOD is functioning within AERC, how can we make an informed decision in our voting?  Many members are not able to make it to the convention, but having a method to know what is going on before the Board would allow a chance to give voice to our concerns.  (Since I was working a booth the convention, I was not able to attend the meeting.)

Most AERC members just want to ride, anyway, and can’t be bothered with Board politics, so the impact of opening the Board list will probably be minimal to the BOD.  But, if you want people to be more involved with organizational issues, you cannot exclude them from the process by keeping us in the dark.  You can’t have it both ways.

I agree that there may be subjects that should not be discussed in open forum necessarily – like “beating dead horses” - but could be taken to closed committee lists that are open to the BOD and committee members only.  I would certainly want the legal issues to be handled with discretion. 

I hope you do not view this as a “flame” or “criticism” but a simple voicing of my opinion.  There are many other positions that I agree with you on – in fact about 80% of what you posted on the Board Motions I agree with you.   I know that you have worked hard for AERC and I would not hesitate to vote for you again as DAL.

Respectfully,
Kathy Mayeda

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