I feel spent...

[Bo Criss]

Just got out of prison (I mean the SBSA meeting).

It was brutal. We discussed raising member dues from $20 to $25 or $30 for over an hour with heated emotion.

I'm very glad my guest did not arrive tonight. I don't think that was the impression I'd like to give to a newcomer.

I spent about 6 hours preparing for a presentation on flying down to the I-5, pioneering a new site, and gathering videos to both entertain and educate. Because we ran out of time, I didn't present tonight. It's a bit deflating to prepare a program and then suffer through the brutality of one issue.

I make a motion that when the next heated debate comes up, it gets tabled for a board meeting and future club meeting after 15-20 minutes.

The club meeting would be more interesting if speakers were there organized with a "program". That technical difficulties be worked out ahead of time.

I'm not worried about my time spent. I'm worried that I don't feel inclined to bring new people in - possibly non-pilots that want to learn more about free flight.

Why is the club dwindling in numbers? Does politics play a role? Are we creating something that inspires?

Please consider maintaining a meeting that is worthy of our time. I spoke to one attendee who may never come back. That's what hurts the most.

Bo

[DBLD]

Bo and everyone else at the meeting,
I agree and take full resposibility for not cutting the discussion short. I got emotionally involved and probably fueled the fire at some point. You should have said something right then. I try to keep the meetings moving and not let them get carried away with politics or bogged down in the same old.... I also like to think that I respond to the feelings of others and I am very disappointed in myself for not recognizing a bad situation. Once again I apologize and will try to keep that from happening at future meetings.

DD

[JimmyZ]

It's sad that a lot of great ideas on several "other" topics were clouded by a single topic that got a bit out of hand. A good, and bad, thing about our group is that we have many strong, smart, opinionated people in our group. This can both bless, and hinder, decision making and I feel that is what happened last night.

It's unfortunate that we had new people there and that the money topic (5 - 10 bucks???) went the way that it did but we need to move forward and not dwell on the past. Dwelling on it, making judgement on others and our club, and passing emotions on to others would be the wrong way to respond. Let's make an effort to move forward... And if 5 or 10 dollars is REALLY a reason to have a tiff towards the club (outside of your own opinion, or how you think it is used), then phooey on those that do...

I'm still excited to be a part of our flying community. I'm stoked for the coming year and hope you will be too.

Cheers!

[Ramey]

its not as easy at looks to run a productive meeting.

I would offer a couple of suggestions:

There are books on how to do this. Of course the canonical reference is "Robert's Rules of Order" but there's no need to go overboard. I'm sure a watered down version can be found. (There's probably a "Robert's Rules for Dummys" - not to make any implications about pilots in general) These "rules" include things like:

a) meeting has to have an agenda. An intention to make a non-trivial motion can be arranged with the chairman ahead of time. Also, it is helpful for those who want to make such a motion to circulate it ahead of time so that he can get some feedback before it goes to the floor. If it turns out to be a non-obvious non-starter, he can save a lot time finding this out sooner rather than later. Also it gives those who would disagree an opportunity to prepare thier objections in a coherent manner.

b) debate is engaged upon specific motions.

c) certain motions - e.g. - a motion to amend the current motion on the floor, motion to adjourn, etc have priortity so that things can proceed in an orderly way.

d) chairman of the meeting doesn't participate in debate. I know this seems odd - but it is very helpful in permiting the meeting to be run in an efficient way and maintain the perception that things are being conducted evenhandedly. If the chairman want's to participate in the debate, the normal procedure is for him to yield the gavel to another person and ask to be recognised as anyone else would.

There are other rules like this which

So I think meetings could be improved by making them just a little bit more formal.

Other suggestions I would make would be:

a) Before each meeting, the BOD identifies any issues that it feels should be presented to the meeting. Often there arn't any. But if there they can stated that a particular motion will be made and invite interested parties to appear.

b) I have always been dissatisfied with the adhoc manner which decisions involving revenue/spending have been arrived at. I was concerned that if to much money were at stake it would become a bone of contention. In practice it was never really a problem though. But, what I would like to see is the following:

1) The new treasurer is elected in december
2) He prepares - along with the board of directors - a budget for the coming year feb - to feb of the next year. This is presented as a motion to adopt at the first meeting in January. Amendments may or may not be made through the normal process.
3) The whole budget is passed as one motion.
4) The club treasurer is authorized to write checks upto and only upto the maximum amounts specified in the budget.
5) Any amounts in excess in the budget would have to approved by the club.
6) The budget would probably include a line like - board of directors descretionary fund - $400 which would confer the authority in the BOD to spend up to that amount in the year without any extra motions. This would cover the small stuff that comes up without alot of hassle.
7) The budget would also include an estimate of expected revenue.

This would bring about a number of advantages over the current method:

1) It does the whole thing just once instead of revisitiing it again and again throughout the year. So it would diminish the amount of tedium in meetings.

2) It permits decisions about spending to made considering the trade-offs involved. E.G if the club pays for activity X then it might have to give up on feature Y. Voting one things one by one ignores the trade offs.

3) It would mean that members who don't attend every meeting woudl have more confidence that things are being handled in the expected way. Personally I was surprised that club funds were spent on a scholarship fund. and that now we "need" to raise dues. Surprises like that dimiinish trust in the system.

4) It would require that we have available a list of the years revenue and expense in comparison to the budget. Its much easier to debate the stuff when we have a clear presentation of the facts.

Robert Rame

[sbflyguy]

Hello fellow pilots,

I second Bo’s motion to keep discussions on a timer. I know most of us have better things to do then sit through another meeting like that, at least I do. I think in order to “Move Forward” we have to deal with the past so that history doesn’t repeat itself. We’re not “Dwelling” on it, we're trying to overcome it. I may only have been to 2 SBSA meetings so who cares what I have to say, right. Well then, that’s just my 2 cents worth.

Lets get organized eh,
Ben Haug