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| #4  05-May-2009, 02:39 | ||||
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| #6 05-May-2009, 13:37 | |||
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| #7 05-May-2009, 20:25 | ||||
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| OK, after a long day at work, finally got some time to offer some response. For most of my time in the DSC I've been straightforward member, the same as anybody else. I put myself forward for the MT a few years back as Regional Coordinator and spent about 9 months doing that before stepping down due to a series of very difficult personal circumstances. I put myself forward for election onto the MT as Pronto Editor at last years attempted AGM, mostly because the MT would not have had enough members for the club to continue if people hadn't stepped up. So, out of 7 years membership, some 18 months in total on the MT. As an ordinary member, I tried to maintain an objective, mature and thoughtful approach to any issues that affected the club, also taking care to find out all the information I could, from every angle, before making my mind up. I am also scrupulously honest and straightforward. I have never been part of anybody elses agenda and never will be, I have my own forthright views that I am more than willing to stand up for, and I haven't changed a lifetime's values simply because I'm now on the MT of a small bike club. That's the background, so what I can tell you with complete candour is the story from both sides of the fence. The MT is currently made up of 5 elected members and a couple of co-opted people. That's not nearly enough to create a critical mass of folks to get their shoulder to the wheel and keep the momentum going. We really need more people to step up, contribute whatever they can to the running of the club and help move us forward. As Skids said, some people are not brave enough because to join the MT is to invite incessant negativity and vitriol from some self-appointed critics, especially in past years. Thankfully, those days seem to have passed, at least on this site, and I have not been subject to any personal abuse. So, what if you do put yourself forward and get elected, what will you find when you get onto the MT? Well, what you won't find is a professional management team, just a bunch of well meaning amateurs trying to run a decent bike club in an appropriate manner. We all have other lives and other commitments and, not surprisingly, people often put their family and work commitments ahead of the DSC. Have you ever tried getting a few mates together for a beer, or a game of golf , or whatever social event? A nightmare trying to get everyone's calendars in sync isn't it? Before you know it weeks and months have been added to your intended meeting date. It's the same with MT meetings, despite the fact that we've all got target dates in the calendar for MT meetings none of us are in a position to say to our bosses "I can't do that shift or that business trip, I've got a bike club to run" or say to our partners "Whose birthday? Yours? Sorry I've got a DSC meeting". Life gets in the way and we all have to balance our commitment to the DSC with life's realities before getting lined up to meet. Of course we do meet in a regular if rather elastic, haphazard sort of way, and have phone conferences when it's impossible to meet face-to-face (remember we're also scattered all over the country geographically), so things do get done - just at a creakingly slow pace that frustrates me as much as anybody. When we do some of these things, some stuff gets done very well, other stuff gets done acceptably well and we make a complete ******** of other stuff - Communication being one of the rubbish bits, just like any other management team you can think of. But think of what has actually happened since September when the club was within a whisker of implosion. We have new posting rules, new moderators and there is a policy is place that the rules and moderation are as 'light touch' as possible, and yet this board has stabilised and there are very, very few flame wars (I hope that's not because we also have very few posts by our standards  ). I am also hard pressed to remember the last time that anybody's post was pulled or somebody's views were censored - although I'm not a moderator so I don't have a total insight on that. Of course some of the 'traditional' events have been organised for members once again - the forthcoming track day being the biggest of these, and I said when I took on the Pronto editorship that you would get a Winter, Spring, Summer and Autmn edition of Pronto and members have had the Winter and Spring copies as promised.There is still a mountain to climb, but what I can tell you is that the MT genuinely tries to do it's best by all members of this club, so quite where the conspiracy theorists get their 'insight' from God only knows - C O C K Ups? Yep, plenty of those, but conspiracy theories? Nah, not unless I'm intensely naive and stupid. Ooooh look, and how long has it been since the last 'War and Peace' post from Jools? There's another deliverable  Have you missed me? The Patent Jools Mood Meter -Today I am:         ___________^ |
Jools
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