part-1 of a 2-part series on the federation is up now, on the home page. here is a snippet from part-2, tomorrow:
"What did the Board make public to its members? All eligible voters – annual members – were asked to vote for a number of bylaw changes, and each side weighed in, in some cases on Slowtwitch. Opinion pieces by Board members were written, and ballot measures were explained, on why the Federation needs to move to Colorado; on why the “Sunshine Policy” needed to be amended, or to not be amended; on why the percentage of elites on the Board should be changed from 25 percent to 20. But no one – on either side – provided context. Members were asked to blithely cast a vote ignorant of the real issues motivating the two Board cohorts."
of everything that's happened on the board - bearing in mind that there are no bad people on this board, they all work hard, they're all volunteers, and they do a lot of good work and keep the federation running smooth - my big complaint is the lack of transparency. to me, the worst of it is when board members are asked to vote for resolutions but you don't know the back story. you don't know the context of what you're voting on. you don't know that these resolutions may just be tactics used in an internecine board fight. you're pawns in this fight, but you don't know your pawns. when you're asked to vote to change USAT's transparency requirements you don't know that it may well be about whether one side has to hand private documents over to the other side.
further, there is no way to cover this - for outside media, whether slowtwitch or other - to report on this, because your board members are bound to some kind of masonic lodge type secrecy.
i find this infuriating.
most of you don't care because you do this for fun. just don't complain to me when you have less fun available to you in the form of available, safe races in your area, because USAT was so busy fighting itself that it forgot to focus on its core mission.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
"What did the Board make public to its members? All eligible voters – annual members – were asked to vote for a number of bylaw changes, and each side weighed in, in some cases on Slowtwitch. Opinion pieces by Board members were written, and ballot measures were explained, on why the Federation needs to move to Colorado; on why the “Sunshine Policy” needed to be amended, or to not be amended; on why the percentage of elites on the Board should be changed from 25 percent to 20. But no one – on either side – provided context. Members were asked to blithely cast a vote ignorant of the real issues motivating the two Board cohorts."
of everything that's happened on the board - bearing in mind that there are no bad people on this board, they all work hard, they're all volunteers, and they do a lot of good work and keep the federation running smooth - my big complaint is the lack of transparency. to me, the worst of it is when board members are asked to vote for resolutions but you don't know the back story. you don't know the context of what you're voting on. you don't know that these resolutions may just be tactics used in an internecine board fight. you're pawns in this fight, but you don't know your pawns. when you're asked to vote to change USAT's transparency requirements you don't know that it may well be about whether one side has to hand private documents over to the other side.
further, there is no way to cover this - for outside media, whether slowtwitch or other - to report on this, because your board members are bound to some kind of masonic lodge type secrecy.
i find this infuriating.
most of you don't care because you do this for fun. just don't complain to me when you have less fun available to you in the form of available, safe races in your area, because USAT was so busy fighting itself that it forgot to focus on its core mission.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman