I have a lot to do today, but feel I have to comment on this latest proposal to strip items out of the Secretary job description in order to convince someone to volunteer for it.
The job of officers is to uphold, protect, and shepherd the organization, to make sure it operates legally, holds the rights of the members for them, and has oversight and management responsibilities for everything done in the name of the organization. This is essential and must be in place, legally and morally.
They are supposed to receive staff support to do the tasks that come with their areas. The President who facilitates the meetings needs someone to print and send the agendas and meeting materials. The Treasurer needs someone to do the financial management and payroll and pay for the permits and rent. The Vice President is backup and assistant to the President so that job doesn't get overwhelming. Only the Secretary is legally required to attend every meeting, but they are not just there to make sure accurate records are kept.
The Secretary needs staff to make sure that legal registrations are complete, the Board is prepared with materials needed to make informed, legal and sensible decisions. They have oversight over the entire organization, the recordkeeping, the public record, the archiving, and the current and future actions of the Board. They don't do this alone. All of the Directors are responsible for the organization, now and in the future.
Staff gives support to those roles, but staff cannot be responsible for those roles. It has to be members. Paid employees, supervised by the Board, can be directed to do tasks but those tasks are the responsibility of the members. Releasing the members from those responsibilities is not the role that can be legally taken by the members.
If you can't get anyone to volunteer for the oversight responsibilities of the organization, you have got to admit you have a big problem that you must find a way to address. The jobs are not overwhelming in themselves. When an organization is run capably you do not experience volunteer burnout. We had 30 years in which we had little problem with burnout. There were problems, but they were addressed.
Continuing to strip out the member responsibility and oversight of the organization just opens it up to more danger, weakness and destruction. Denial about where the problems are coming from is a huge issue.
Sure, officers and Board members are among those who step up during transitional times when there are big changes in staffing, big budget issues, and other challenges like the Park Blocks redesign. During the staff transition in 2021-2022, there were more than 30 volunteers doing the tasks that staff needed to be supported in, including checking members in and out, working on the receipts and paying bills, doing everything the org needed. Not one savior as the false narrative tells...you can read the minutes. Ask me and I will send you a copy. Most of those volunteers have moved on for various reasons but the energy was so positive and supportive, with everyone pulling together.
Compare that to what we have now. Being on the Board has never been one two-hour meeting once a month. There is a lot of research, discussion, and careful thinking that needs to go into every decision, every action. We've always had task forces, and our committees did the research the Board needed, and made sensible recommendations based on their diligence. It takes as much time as you have available to do a good job. It isn't an honor and it isn't always easy, but with the right staff support it is collaborative and manageable, spread among groups and teams and applying everyone's best thinking and innovative solutions to every problem, current and projected. It is service.
Weaponized incompetence has ruined every committee and driven away dozens of volunteers. Where was the Board training to handle the past two years of challenges? Where was the volunteer training to support and educate the willing volunteers? Where was the appeal process when they were bullied and vilified to push them out and make them stop trying to help?
Shoving responsibility into a closet that only staff has a key to is so dangerous to our survival. If you can't get anyone to take responsibility, you have got to address the cause. The longer you put it off, the more danger the actual survival of the organization is in. No one is going to want to serve on the last Board, the one that disposes of the remaining assets of a community treasure that was thrown into a canyon. Do your jobs. Accept your responsibilities.
We have the resources to do what is needed. We always have the resources, but you are being told that "everything was lost." Nope. Things were thrown into the canyon. Has anyone taken the time to look at the 2019 archive I put together? Read the past minutes, see how past staff and members worked together? If you can't find those resources, why not? I've said I have a digital archive. Everything from the past four or five years is still in the office. Need new ideas? Maybe you don't. Maybe everything has been done before. Maybe you are not hearing the truth and seeing the reality.
