[council] Back to work!!

[Amadeu Abril i Abril <Amadeu@nominalia.com>]

Hi all,

After Santiago, Sao Paulo, Paris ....and a whole week in bed under the
effects of a trancontinental flu and "gobal" headaches, here I am
again. And happy to find 60+ unread mails in my council folder, most
of them worth reading, amny of them with concrete proposals.

As all ofyou, I gelt asamed about the show we organized in Santiago
8It was not a meeting, in fact: we did nothiong). I was specially
furious because (unlike somne newly elected bmembers who were not
aware of that) I knew that this was inevitable, given the "hitory" of
such meeting. 

I have seen lots of discussion about rules and procedures,
parlamentaians and netural facilitators. My woriires lie elsewhere, to
be frank. We need more responsibility, commitment and work. Much more
than anything else.

What ius NOT possible to repeat is that:

* Chair of a meeting is elected just to prevent somebody else dong so
* Appoiibted chair seems to ignore that he has been elected two months
after his/her selectoion
* Noibody takes care of the agenda (chair's responsibility, btw)
* No meeting is scheduled in order to prepare GA or NC itself
* NC members seems to believe that thy are only consituency reps, that
NC is "somehting/someone else".

[* incidentally, we cannot ask someone to write the whole agenda on
his own at the very last minute...and then appont him as chair at the
middle of the meeting. It's an absurd mixing of roles).

I am oversimplifying, I know, but all this is what caused the Santiago
fiasco, not our ignorance of Roberts' Rules of Order or the absnce of
a mediator form the Carter Foundation, if you see what I mean.

This is why my only concrn about chair (besdies rughing trhu the
agenda in order to see whehter there was at least an issue the NC was
swilling to discuss) was haivng some people take clear responsibilites
for the upcoming meetings (Dennis for the next teleconf and JJonathan
for the LA meeting). At least this time we do have  a proposed agenda,
some clear rules about submission's deadlines etc. REeasonable work of
any individual with9in the NC is better than collective complaint
about the lack of perfect structures..... (incidentally: we also had a
group of voluneeers that were supposed to present a proposal regarding
the electoral process. Sp far we have just seen two differnet personal
views form two of the membrs of some coments form the third. No such
"official" propsal is on the table yet...). Hmmm, this reinforces my
natural preference for individuals taking the responsibility of
important task over committees (I am not talking about doing the work
individually, only about taking responsibilities. In fact most
committees only reflect the work of one individual.... and no
responsibility whatsoever).

Talking about responsivility: it is curious that each time that we
reach the budget issue on the agenda, we decide that it is too late
and that we do need a beer :-(

This said, I am sending a series of very modest propsosals to help
improving the quality of upcoming meetings (IMHO). In separate mails
for separate topics.

Best regards,

Amadeu