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
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At this stage I had chosen to ignore the misrepresentation of the Committee by Bob Hodgson but given the President has chosen to endorse his position I believe that members should be given the background to the decision to exclude non-mfs events from the A5 calendar and the generation of a motion without notice - the decision to add music events to teh calendar was made at the previous committee meeting, without notice and without any discussion with myself or other music organisers - I was on holidays at the time and not in a position to provide information - when the Calendar was tabled there were several non-mfs events in the Calendar but several others of equal merit ( I could think of half a dozen off the top of my head) had not been included- it seemed that the criteria for inclusion was an arbitrary one. I raised this as an item for discussion but the President insisted that a motion be put - the discussion centred around the need for a process for inclusion of non-MFS activities and a process of consultation with MFS members to canvass activities for inclusion - and that until such a process was in place then activities should not be included. Also the appropriateness of inclusion of additional non-MFS activities in a document that was almost unreadable because of the density of content was discussed.
ReplyDeleteThis was the basis for the decision - that there should be a process for determining whether an activity should be included and making sure we did not produce a document that was unreadable. At the March meeting a motion for establishing affiliates with the MFS and including them on the Calendar was moved - there is now a process in place which means members can now put forward groups that meet the affiliation criteria for inclusion - rather than it being only a few people's opinion as to what should be included.
In terms of welcoming new activities into the Society I don't think anyone has any problems with this but any new activity does need to have a proposal that comes to the Committee and the Committee has a right to have any concerns addressed before they join the Society - the only proposal that has been put to the Committee this year was one that was sketchy on detail and the Committee asked for more detail - this was described by the President as 'unfriendly'.
From where I am sitting we need a President who welcomes constructive discussion of issues and a collegiate inclusive approach that supports the activities of the Society,rather than one who tries to quash discussion with process. I am posting this as anonymous because I can't seem to get any other option to work