Many of us have been waiting for the minutes of the latest board meeting to be released, but apparently the board is changing the procedure on this. One of the latest news stories to appear on the ARRL website, ARRL Board of Directors Agrees to Review of Conduct Code for Directors, notes that, “In other action, the Board approved a motion requiring that minutes of Board meetings be published only after being formally approved by the Board.”
That’s fine, as long they publish news stories about the goings-on at the board meetings—and the official minutes don’t deviate from the published news stories.
The biggest news is that all of your emails and letters to your directors seems to have done the trick. The news story reports that the board has voted to “review the entire code of conduct for Board members, known officially as the ARRL Policy on Board Governance and Conduct of Members of the Board of Directors and Vice Directors. ARRL Officers, Directors, and Vice Directors will review the code of conduct and complete a final draft version 60 days ahead of the Board’s July 2018 meeting.”
It goes on to say, “In the same motion, the Board deleted and suspended sections that were considered ambiguous and in conflict with the intent of the code of conduct requiring Board members to act in the best interest of the League’s membership. Also, the Board suspended Section 8 of the code, ‘Support of Board Decisions,’ until after the complete review is acted upon. Both actions are effective immediately.”
Furthermore, the report notest, “It was decided that if these or any additional changes are proposed, they will be made available to the membership and will be accompanied by explanatory ‘white papers’ before the Board considers action on them.” Again, thanks for speaking out on this. Now, we need to keep our directors feet to the fire when they do make the changes available to the membership.
The search for a new CEO begins
Finally, there is news of the search committee for the new CEO. The committee will include Treasurer Rick Niswander, K7GM (chair), Central Division Director Kermit Carlson, W9XA; Roanoke Division Director Jim Boehner, N2ZZ, West Gulf Division Director Dr. David Woolweaver, K5RAV, and First Vice President Greg Widin, K0GW. The report says the committee “is authorized to engage a search consultant, [and] will report periodically to the Board and at the July meeting.
I’m really hoping that the search committee will involve members in the search process. I live in Ann Arbor, MI, home to the University of Michigan. When the university was searching for a new president a couple of years ago, they involved nearly everyone they could think of in the process, including staff and students. Including staff and ARRL members might slow down the process a little, but I think they’ll get better results if they are more inclusive than not.
Frank Howell says
I’ve been invited involved in many such University President searches as well as one at a university system level. Your comment is well founded. However, it’s unfortunate that the latest trend is for universities to utilize private executive search firms with the announcement of the “preferred candidate” after the final three candidates do a beauty contest run on campus and thereabouts.
The League would do well to empanel a member subcommittee with one from each Division to interview the finalists by Skype. Then, a rating (ranking) with written input on each one found acceptable from each Division member. This would give the decision making body a set of member inputs to balance out their insider’s viewpoint.
Do you think this would be a good idea, Dan?