Re: Voting

At 06:20 p.m. 02/07/98 -0500, Susan Duncan (MALICO) wrote:
>Matthew Wickline wrote:
>> On the other hand, whether the Guild appears to be run by a clique or not
>> probably shouldn't be top on the priority list of those running the
>> organization....
>How an organization appears to the outside world affects not only
>sponsorship, but membership as well.  While it might not be a top priority,
>it should at least be something to keep in mind.

Any time you're going to have a small group of hard-working
people who genuinely get along with each other as you work
towards a common goal, you're going to have accusations of
"cliquishness" from petty, immature people.

The Guild can either decide, "Oh, hey, we've got PROVE we're
not a clique", or we can ignore those whiners.

Now, you see, it's really hard to prove a NEGATIVE; there's
no real easy way for a cooperative group who operates behind
mostly closed-doors (for very good reasons) to prove to every-
one who comes along "WE'RE NOT A CLIQUE!"

Elections may be a way to do this, but of course, that won't
convince everyone -- especially since, after a month or two
of working with the Board, most cooperative people will begin
to "look like the clique" from outside.  "Charlie's been
assimilated!" they'll say.

Well, we could go back to what we had before -- a Board that
_doesn't_ cooperate, and _doesn't_ work together.  This was
the case when Al Smith and others were on the GB.  Unfortunately,
this discord didn't produce any good for the Guild; in fact,
we suffered due to the presence of individuals who flatly
refused to work together, and instead wanted to pursue their
own petty rivalries.

This is not a good thing, in general; we should not feel
constrained to take uncooperative people onto the Board
merely to prove we are not "a clique".  This is not Junior
High.  This is not your neighborhood bar.  This is not an
a children's afterschool computer club; this is the Guild,
and we a incorporated organization with a responsibility
to see that the membership is delivered the best Guild we
can provide.

Playing little games like proving "we're not a clique" is
the kind of childishness we _don't_ need on the Governing
Board.  I urge all voting members to consider this point
when choosing whether to vote for Susan and the other
candidates.

--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn(at)hwg.org>
President, HTML Writers Guild
http://www.hwg.org/

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