DMS politics are … contentious. I’ve pretty much stopped paying attention to them and enjoy Talk more as a result. It’s going to take a cultural shift to change the underlying issue.
take a cultural shift to change the underlying issue
Yes, and how do we get that started?
I do not have a solution nor do I wish to engage in those struggles at this time.
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I do not have a solution nor do I wish to engage in those struggles at this time.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke
Or as I’d like to think of it; Aristocracy happens when a community stops engaging and looks to the loudest in the room to make the changes.
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It is funny to me to see it described as contentious and know you are understating the situation to be polite. I found the last member meeting out right combative. With statements like last years BOD members are intentionally out of the information loop and suggesting they are trying to sabotage DMS.
I believe our serious issues are based in transparency and decision making. When we started this group hard questions were publicly asked and answered. When the Membership voted for something in a members meeting, the BOD did it.
Over the years this has changed. We’ve had the Boards of DMS take away powers of the membership over the years and the membership let it happen. The first step in this was removing the ability for general members to lead membership meeting when anyone of higher than general member status was around, like committee heads, officers, or board members. This decision formalized a class struggle between general membership and those with more power within the group. It also increased the difficulty to challenge BOD decisions as there was no official forum for challenging the BOD without having to ask their permission to do so.
The long term outcome of this was a more independent BOD. As the BOD grew comfortable in this new arrangement, we started to see the DMS spending become more narrowly focused on projects and parts of DMS that the BOD members specifically supported. This wasn’t terrible at first as we had some issues that had analysis paralysis problems on incredibly minor decisions. But, it balloon to years where selective spending went vastly to 1 or 2 committees, which allowed them to grow substantially while other committees had to get more and more political to get funding.
During the growing committee politicization, trust worthy information to the general membership became even harder to come by as the general membership were getting selective information with political slants. To make matters worse, we were never great on recording the official actions of the group. This meant, you had to build large groups of trust to check the validity of what you knew as looking back at meeting minutes meant almost nothing as either the minutes where not descriptive enough, out right incorrect, or never actually implemented.
At this point we enter into the DMS climate of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). As good information was hard to come by, it became incredibly difficult for the general member to follow what was really happening at DMS. We had board members exclaiming that the membership had no power beyond voting for board and with BOD members solely leading the membership meetings this became effectively true. From there the general membership watched as the BOD actively ignored the suggestions of the membership when the BOD disagreed with it. Further, the BOD leveraged even more power over the committees pushing committee head status to not much more than a general member status, unless they had political support on the Board. To keep the push back of the membership at bay over these decisions, the Board started making claims of being sent to jail over the most minor of circumstances under the false pretense of being Fiducially Responsible meaning any mistake made will lead to them being personally put in jail. While reality suggests that the real liability is more around extreme gross negligence or out right criminal act. With the legal system showing an even more lenient eye to the boards of non-profits than regular corporations.
I believe currently this is where we stand. A solution to this would be to try and empower the membership to be involved in decision making again. The better tracking of financials will help this, but we need to bring more decision making to the membership meetings, not just little problem, but the big problems. We also need to have extensive notes for all of our meetings as they are often the only location where citation of facts are submitted and actions are taken from them. Lastly, we need to be more open about the information surrounding the running of DMS. Private and Emergency meetings should be the less than 1% of all BOD meeting in a year. Playing these information power games just needs to stop.
Cool, that’s only like the thousandth time I’ve seen that quote. I’ve found my solution, which includes what could be read as a dose of not adding to the problem.
I used the term culture shift deliberately; it will take a broad consensus to see such a change. Having done some time and expended some effort in the past serving the organization, I’m taking a break.
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Having done some time and expended some effort in the past serving the organization, I’m taking a break.
I can respect that, everyone needs a break from public service from time to time.
Sorry, wasn’t at the membership meeting. Can you elaborate on this?
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I saw you at the meeting, but I didn’t hear the same things you heard.
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I was at the meeting and that’s not what I heard.
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Hmm sounds like…
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I was not able to make the meeting. I was trying to pick up pizza for the event when Costco had to shut down because of a CO leak 
Since there was nothing on the agenda however, there is no requirements for minutes for this membership meeting.
I took notes at the meeting. But I think it would take a word for word transcript or recording to resolve this.
To help jog the memory, the previous board members sabotage comment happened during the discussion of the expansion. I to wish there was a recording. not for a poor comment, but for reference.
Well just to clarify, I do not believe that any previous BOD members are intentionally or unintentionally trying to sabotage DMS. Anyone being out of the loop would be my problem, and I want to hear more about how to better disseminate information. Also knowing what information is not being communicated would be beneficial.
I feel the same way.
Maybe it would help if you clarify who made these comments?
The statement was made by Kris.
To clarify more, Kris has never expressed to me that she believed any previous BOD members are intentionally or unintentionally trying to sabotage DMS.
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I concur with Luke, I haven’t heard that. I’d say folks that have/are board members are dedicated to see DMS succeed. Each individual board member may have a vision of how to achieve this, that’s why there is 5 and not 1. But disagreeing on policy is not mean there is malice behind the positions taken.