Life In 19x19

fantans wrote:...lack of transparency...

I was holding off on posting since I have only minimal dogs in this fight (I'm an AGA member, but I can't say I know enough about all of the related issues to make a relevant comment in either direction on them). One thing I am familiar with those is organizations like this, and I do understand why in my (apparently never coming off as quite as humble as I claim it to be) opinion, the idea of "transparency" is a joke. The reason you have conflicts around a term like "transparency" are as follows:

You have an <authority group> who says "Hey, we have <issue> we should talk about!" Then you have that talk about it at <poorly attended meeting>, then you have the summary of <poorly attended meeting> put into <section of newsletter that is only read by the sort of people who would attend poorly attended meeting> and one of the major discussion points at <poorly attended meeting> revolves around <old event that everyone in poorly attended meeting went to, but most of the larger organization didn't go to>. The details of <old event> are omitted for efficiency because everyone discussing it knows what we are talking about, and afterall, anyone who wasn't at <old event> could read about it in <publicly available archives of newsletter>. Let's also please keep in mind that after all these discussions <authority group> is still bound by <by-laws that even fewer people ever cared to read>. So after <discussion no one wanted to participate in> at <meeting no one bothered showing up at> was rehashed in <newsletter no one ever reads>, some poor soul even goes through the trouble of summarizing it in <website no one visits>, and we are left with a large population of people who doesn't understand why we are following the exact procedure stipulated in <by laws they still haven't bothered reading>.

The end result is that many claim there is no transparency on <issue>. While it is unfortunate that people come in late to the game, or are otherwise disinclined to do the legwork required to have a complete background on <issue>, the <organization> doesn't have the payroll to keep a full time instructor on staff to educate every member who suddenly feels disenfranchised. The <authority group> on the other hand has a hard time feeling responsible, after all, the history that led up to the event could found through publicly available materials. Any member could learn it so long as they know the right questions to ask and right places to look.

Admittedly this is my experience from large (non-AGA) organization, as always your mileage may vary....

Mef, you nailed it! PERFECT.

I would LOVE it if we could somehow sticky this reply with the subject "lack of transparency" in the AGA forum.

Alternately, perhaps a bot could monitor threads for the phrase "Lack of transparency" and repost this answer in its entirety.

This forum has many active members of AGA leadership, board members past & present, as well as large numbers of active volunteers. They're available and answer questions on the regular. And still, every few weeks we hear "there's no transparency!"

Show up, people! Are you at the general assembly this year? No? Why not?

(seigenblues posted that from the AGA general assembly, while it was in progress...)

Can we have a general summary of what the discussions were like at the AGM and board meeting? What's the state of the union, so to speak?

pwaldron wrote:Can we have a general summary of what the discussions were like at the AGM and board meeting? What's the state of the union, so to speak?

I got there late -- even later than I wanted after I found out I was late, because they moved the meeting -- and even if somebody said "Washburn", my head heard "Ware" and I went to the wrong place. (edit: oh, and I missed the board meeting entirely because I was game recording)

Since I got there late, I never saw a published agenda, though I heard about it from somewhere.

-- Big changing of the guard. Allan's out, Andy's in. Lot's of other musical chairs.

-- Next year in Tacoma! Yay!

-- Then the next year we're all becoming Canadian.

-- A couple new agenda items (maybe I shouldn't say "new", as they were on the list as I understand). I don't remember all the specifics, but at least one item got a little heated and defensive when last year's congress shortfalls were brought up.

And I'm sorry, but I have to agree with Feng Yun on this one... if we already knew this topic was going to be on the agenda, we should've been a little better prepared to talk about it.

And then again -- I may just not know all the various details and particulars still.

-- Some other topics about memberships and chapters, and I apologize for being quite fuzzy on the details.

Daniel was taking the official notes, though he may not be allowed to publish them just yet (and I'm actually a little confused as to why that is)


And then to tie this all in with what Mef wrote a couple of posts above (because its sorta related to part of the discussion at the general assembly)... while I agree that what he wrote is true most of the time, I think we have to admit that there are times when, and more often than we'd like, the transparency is still lacking and its like pulling teeth trying to get information out of people who are in the know, if we get any information at all.

In general, minutes are considered on-the-record statements of policy positions, are records of factual information, and can be legally binding (if e.g. a properly constituted board introduces a motion, debates it, amends it, and then passes as amended). Thus minutes from one meeting need to be officially finalized (they are sometimes taken verbatim and need to be shortened, or taken in some kind of shorthand and need to be lengthened) and then approved at the next meeting, so that the statements, facts, and records of business transacted are correct. That is time-consuming enough, but some associations get into a negative dynamic where people are petty about the minutes (wanting to airbrush what they say and so on), which can turn minutes from a minor headache to major headache. (I have no idea if either of these play a role in the AGA, just explaining why you can rarely release minutes until after a subsequent meeting.)

Yes, I took the minutes at the general assembly. I'm not sure what the procedure is for releasing them. My guess is draft minutes will be posted to the chapters list at some point. I know the last minutes were approved before this meeting.

They need a little cleanup, but are not too bad. I wrote with the level of detail you've all come to expect from board minutes (despite the fact that I don't think that level of detail belongs in minutes and ought to be communicated in other ways, but I digress). Listening, paraphrasing, and typing at full speed for three and a half hours was quite stressful.

My feeling is that given that the meeting was public, anyone should be allowed to release notes about the meeting, as long as they don't advertise their notes as official approved minutes.

On the topic of board meeting and AGM, I'm less interested in the retrospective griping as I am about forward-looking items. Can we get a general summary of discussions about future plans, priorities and programs?

pwaldron wrote:On the topic of board meeting and AGM, I'm less interested in the retrospective griping as I am about forward-looking items. Can we get a general summary of discussions about future plans, priorities and programs?

Daniel's notes will have the details but I'd say in general with the recognition that there is an almost all-new Board (5 out of 7 members) coming in September and a new President, the specifics of most forward-looking items were deferred. The overall tone was upbeat and fairly optimistic about the future. Nice slide show of the facilities in Tacoma and some of the local sites, and quite a bit of enthusiasm over the likely prospect of having it in Vancouver the following year jointly with the CGA. It was a great Congress and lots of fun!

- gurujeet

Now that the smoke has cleared, the election results are:

Western: Steven Burrall 55% (21 votes); Chris Kirschner 36% (14); Jeff Horn 7% (3).
Eastern: Gurujeet Khalsa 74% (32); Feng Yun 16% (7); Thomas Hsiang (withdrew) 6% (3);
Central: Robert Barber 58% (14); Lisa Scott 41% (10);
At-Large: Zhiyuan [Edward] Zhang 34% (85); Chuck Robbins 29% (74); Jie Li 26% (65); Abstain 8% (20); Other (At-Large): Roy Laird 2 votes, Feng Yun 1 vote, Bob Bacon 1 vote.