A Friendly and Inclusive Future

Bob Hodgson has placed a discussion paper on the MFS Members web site. You can find it under "Discussions" in the index at http://www.mfs.org.au/members/


I won't try to summarise Bob's point of view; you can see the full paper by following the link above. However I do agree wholeheartedly with the thrust of the paper, and its arguments.

In particular, I agree that the future success of the MFS depends on us being friendly and inclusive. We are a not-for-profit community organisation, and our main objective is to promote all aspects of folk lore.

To pick up on one example from the discussion paper, like Bob I am dismayed at the MFS Committee decision to exclude all non-MFS events from our printed dance calendar. You may wonder how a President can be dismayed at a decision made by his own committee? Let me explain.

As chair my role is to tap into the collective wisdom of the committee. The President does not have any decision-making or veto power over committee decisions, but instead has the executive role of carrying out decisions made by the committee.

I am guided by the decisions of the committee at our face-to-face meetings, and focus on determining the "will of the meeting" during our necessarily limited time. This has worked well in general, but in this case it has allowed a decision that appears to me to be ill-considered.

I am a "friendly expansion and growth" person and you cannot put an unfriendly contractionary head on the shoulders of a volunteer who is otherwise inclined, so I will try to find someone to do the calendar, but I am withdrawing my labour and it won't be me working on the printed dance calendar under those conditions.

The decision was made at a Christmas meeting which was supposed to have a minimum of essential business, and because of low attendance a vote of three in favour was enough to pass the motion.

I realise my mistake in allowing such an important motion to be moved without any notice and in such a setting, and it won't happen again while I am in the chair. I will now only accept motions that have been put on notice with adequate supporting documentation and input from the volunteer(s) responsible and other stakeholders. We live and learn.

To return to Bob's discussion paper, I cannot do it justice by summarising it here, but it refers to the important subject of welcoming new activities into the society. New activities mean more members and more mutual support for all. I can see no negatives whatsoever to welcoming new activities.

From my point of view, if the activity owners

- wish to be a part of the society,

- comply with the financial reporting responsibilities that are needed under the incorporations act for a non-profit organisation and are in place for the responsible governance of the society, and

- encourage membership of the society and help promote our objectives

then it is a win-win decision to welcome them into our organisation with all the benefits to the activity that being part of a larger organisation brings.

I commend the discussion paper (under "Discussions" in the index at http://www.mfs.org.au/members/) and invite discussion either on the members-only discussion tab of the paper, or by clicking on the public "comments" link below. If you have any problems getting into the paper on the members' web site, or anything else, please get in touch.

Cheers
Lance