Re: WXW GA Director - Re: [ga] Reply to William Walsh

[DPF <david@farrar.com>]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2001 17:57:00 -0700, William Walsh wrote:

>Hello Derek,
>
>There are no GA directors, and this body can work within itself, it
>does not need to elect "representatives" to an executive board to get
>results.

My initial reaction to Derek's proposal was pretty negative but having
thought about it further I believe his proposal actually has
considerable merit which may be worth considering.

Almost every organisation in the world has some sort of executive
committee to co-ordinate and make sure things happen.  There is a
reason for this model - because it works.

Now once upon a time I might have suggested that the Names Council is
effectively the executive of the GA but this is clearly not the case.
The GA has no real relationship with the NC.  The GA does not elect
the NC, in fact the NC appoints the GA Chair.  The NC has no
obligation to help the GA function better even though individual
members may be supportive.

So perhaps there is merit in having the GA elect its own Executive.
This would be an Executive with no *powers* but with responsibility.
Of course they would have an open mailing list but they would act also
as an agenda former where they spend extra time on considering what
issues are upcoming, leading consultation on them, putting together a
draft position paper and then having the GA endorse or modify it.

These sort of things can be done by an group of 7 - 9 people far
easier than a mailing list of 200.  And with a more shared workload
than on 1 or 2 people only.  Everything would still come back to the
GA for endorsement but in an easily debatable form.

If the "Exec" fail to be useful or even worse a hindrance the members
can be replaced or even the thing dropped as an experiment. 

However currently as a GA we are incredibly dysfunctional and upon
reflection the idea of an accountable organising cmte/exec might be
useful to improve our output.  I believe it is certainly worth
considering.

DPF
--
david@farrar.com
ICQ 29964527
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