[Missouri-l] Board Meetings

Tue Mar 2 10:26:06 CST 2010

Denny, Conference calls can and do work for many organizations, including ACB but they don't seem to work for us. The more that are on a teleconference call the more likelihood you have that there will be problems. We have over twenty members on our board and that number will increase as we take in new affiliates. That raises a very delicate question: is our board too large to be effective and if so, what can we do about it. Most organizations have rather small boards of directors to run the organization's business. But the smaller your board is, the less memberrs will be able to make their views known and be represented. But when you elect officers to represent you, you give them the right to make decisions for you and you trust that they will do a good job. Large boards like ours can become very unwieldy and it can be very difficult for them to make decisions. There will either be too many opinions or  there will be too many people just sitting at meetings going along with whatever is proposed because they don't know how to vote. So back to my question about the size of our board. Many years ago, on a van ride to a board meeting, Mike Keller raised this question. He said the board was too large and it  was smaller  then than   it is now. At the time, I didn't agree with him but now I am beginning to think he was right. But what to do? People have tried to eliminate the directors, but that would only reduce the size of the board by three, which isn't going to help that much. How important is it to have every affiliate represented. On the surface that seems very important but as the organization grows, that makes the board larger and less capable of doing its business smoothly. But if affiliates aren't represented, members don't feel that they have a say in what is going on. Mike's idea was to have regional representation. St louis affiliates would get together and elect someone to represent the st Louis area; Kansas City would elect a KC rep, there would be a rep for the Springfield-Joplin area and so on. I thought at the time and still think that this idea was interesting but probably not practical But it could be worth a look. Doo all of our affiliates feel that they need to be represented on the board? Some affiliates find it very difficult to find someone who wants to take on that responsibility. Would a board consisting of the elected officers and three to five directors elected by the assembly be more effective and still represent the views of the majority of our members? The ACB board represents a national organization but is much smaller than ours. There are fifty state affiliates in ACB but each state is not represented by a member on the board. Also, with a much smaller board, you could afford to have more meetings in person that non board members could attend and be heard at their own expense. Another problem with a board of our size is that members don't speak up or even vote. last night, a vote was taken on a motion to donate money to an organization who requested it. It turned out to be very controversial with many people asking questions and giving opinions. But when the voice vote was taken, you could hear two or three half-hearted yes votes and a few loud no votes. In other words, most boared members apparently said nothing or spoke so softly that they couldn't be heard. Maybe they had no  opinion' maybe they hadn't decided or didn't care. So our president, very wisely, I think, called for a time-consuming roll call. Even then, some members spoke so softly and hesitantly that it was hard for Virginia to know who or whether they voted at all. One person lost her phone connection and called back too late to vote, although her vote could have made a difference in the outcome. Folks, when you are on the 
Board, you have to speak up, take a stand and be heard. Otherwise, your presence on the board is a waste of your time and that of your affiliate. That sounds harsh but that is what being on a Board of Directors means. If not, you are wasting your time being there. I am not on the Board email list, so if someone forwards this message to that list, I would have no problem with that. John  
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Denny Huff 
  To: 'John and Donna Weidlich' 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 9:09 AM
  Subject: RE: [Missouri-l] Board Meetings

  John,

                  I understand your frustrations and I share in some of them.  I am all ears if you have any suggestions for a solution.

  Thanks,

  Denny Huff

  President

  Missouri Council of the Blind

  (636) 262-1383

  (888) 362-1383

  DHuff at MoBlind.Org

  From: missouri-l-bounces at moblind.org [mailto:missouri-l-bounces at moblind.org] On Behalf Of John and Donna Weidlich
  Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 10:02 PM
  To: MCB LIST
  Cc: Virginia Berberick; CHAT LIST
  Subject: [Missouri-l] Board Meetings

  I have just finished listening to the live streaming of the open portion of tonight's MCB Board meeting and I feel that I need to make some observations for what they are worth. As you know I have been a member of the MCB Board during many administrations and have participated in Board meetings in many venues. I have been at face to face meetings and on conference calls. I have been in open meetings and closed meetings. i have participated in meetings where members who were not on the board were not allowed to speak and in meetings where guests could freely speak. I have seen well run meetings and poorly run meetings, controversial meetings and quiet meetings. I have sat through meetings and listened to them over the Internet. I fully realize the meetings via conference calls save this organization a considerable amount of money and that this is very important in a time of budget cuts. But the more I have observed conference calls, both as a participating Board member and  as a passive listner, the more totally and completely convinced I have become that teleconference calls are an extremely inefficient way for a Board of our size to conduct business. On every teleconference call that I have participated in or observed, there has  been confusion. There has consistently been problems with roll call votes that have affected the outcome of motions. Even though members are repeatedly asked to mute their phones, there is background noise which is very distracting. The constant muting and unmuting of phones is also distracting and makes it hard to follow the discussions. Some callers can be heard clearly while others can barely be heard at all. Members come onto the call late and are not aware of the motion being debated or voted on. Members often  leave the call and then are not present when a vote is taken. Members are called on to give information but they are not there, even though they were on the line when the call started. A good deal of time was spent on Monday night's call dealing with the issue of a member who was not on the board and therefore ineligible to participate being on the call and being asked to hang up. There was no way to know if the member obeyed the President's request to leave the conference. On a close roll call vote, a member lost  her phone connection and was unable to vote and her vote might have changed the outcome of the motion. These problems are not confined to tonight's call. They have happened frequently on numerous calls. I could give many instances of this but I won't go into long details. But trust me, I could. As I said, I know this saves us money but are we saving money at the cost of the most efficient way to conduct the business of the organization?  I know we need to have more meetings because of all of the business that we need to deal with and I know it is not always pracgtical for us to travel to a meeting site but I also know that teleconference calls are filled with problems. I believe we need to look seriously at this issue and figure out the most cost effective way of dealing with board business that  is also   in keeping with good business practice and, most important with democratic procedure.  If we must have calls, members must be aware of how to conduct themselves while on the phone. Members cannot continue to come on the line and leave the line and come back as some are doing. It makes it impossible to get accurate vote counts. The other problem with calls is that they are essentially closed meetings. Even though we can listen, we can't speak or have input. Members without computers are completely exxcluded from even listening to the call. In the case of tonight's meeting, to my knowledge there was never an announcement that the Board was meeting or that the meeting would be streamed. I heard that there was going to be a meeting and went online to see if it was there and it was. I suspect that many members who might have listened may not have even been aware that there would be a meeting or that it was being streamed.  I admit I don't know the answer but I don't believe that what we are doing is working. The democratic process is being compromised for the sake of saving money. Any thoughts on this? John 

  ASAP! 
  ALWAYS SAY A PRAYER!
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