Ideas on open governance

[GrandMarnier]

Hi all,

I have recently become re-involved in the SCCA after taking an approximately 5 year hiatus due to having no racecars close enough to touch on a regular basis. I am very happy to be back in the scene and love nothing more than my weekends with friends at the track.

Although I'm a relative newcomer to the club at 8 years or so, I think the purpose the club serves to all racers and the sport itself is huge and should never be taken for granted. The idea of a huge body of like-minded people sharing a passion and having a self-governing, democratic organizational body that is centered around that passion is pretty incredible in my opinion. I'm pretty sure it's a concept that most free-thinking governments would attest to.

In any form of public business or any municipality where democratic government is practiced there tend to be polices of open governance which allow for better communication leading to a more educated constituency, and accountability for the decisions being made by the governing bodies. There are standards and rules in place to govern the openness and structure of the proceedings of government body meetings throughout the world that have been in use for hundreds of years, far outdating our club.

In thinking about this while at the track over the weekend and talking with friends, I am alarmed to find that outside of the monthly publication of Fastrack, talking with our CRB/BOD members seems to be our only insight into this process. This amounts to all members of the club being handed down edict without any insight into the decision making process. Since we are the ones electing the people making these decisions and supporting the club through our monies I feel like it would be appropriate to have more insight into this process. I have seen multiple examples recently of decisions being made which adversely affect fair to large numbers of people, both positively and negatively, with no accountability or information on the rationale for these decisions on the backside.

I understand that in order to ensure the future of the club that hard decisions may have to be made, and as always these decisions will have proponents and opponents. I don't think I've ever met anyone who liked a decision that caused them a loss, no matter what sort of loss it was. I do think people are far more accepting of hard decisions when the can understand why those decisions were made and feel like they were given a chance to take part in the process, if only in small ways.

I'm opening this thread to allow people to post ideas that may lead to a more open governance of our club. Hopefully one which allows for people to be more informed and therefore involved in the process. This I think will allow for the hard decisions to be made with understanding by and for the people who care for their sport and club.

Please take this space to post and discuss any ideas you may have regarding this issue.

Thanks

William Horn

Here's one I had over the weekend: I would think that to keep costs down most CRB/BOD meetings are held by conference call. In my work I deal with this sort of thing very often. It would be very easy and fairly inexpensive to set up a dial code that only allowed for muted callers. This would allow anyone interested to call in and listen without the ability to interrupt the conversation. If the meetings are actually held in person, this would be as simple as dialing a conference phone into a bridge and allowing members to call in to listen. Maybe a good/bad/cost prohibitive idea, but an idea all the same.

More?

[RussMcB]

William, I agree. Hard decisions can be expected from time to time. It's not asking too much to have some involvement in the decision process. It's frustrating not to have the opportunity to weigh in, and also not to have decisions and policies explained (and/or marketed to us to get us on board).

Last weekend when we were talking about this we also came up with listening in on meetings. I like the idea a lot, We should be able to know what our representatives are proposing on our behalf. I can't think of a reason why the BOD members would need to hide their discussions from us, unless it was about lawsuits or something sensitive. Rules and policy discussions should be open.

[Rick Kirchner]

California has the "Brown Act" which requires any quarum of state or local government officials to post the place and time of the meeting in advance in order for the public to attend and comment.

Closed door sessions are allowed for personell and legal matters, but they still have to post the place and time in advance.

[Bob Clark]

Most CRB/BOD meetings are held by conference call. They do meet face to face 3 times a year. All AD Hoc committee meetings are done by conference call. I'm on one of the Ad Hoc committees and the proceess works well. I would like to meet my fellow committee members in person someday though.

[Stan Clayton]

Most CRB/BOD meetings are held by conference call. They do meet face to face 3 times a year. All AD Hoc committee meetings are done by conference call. I'm on one of the Ad Hoc committees and the proceess works well. I would like to meet my fellow committee members in person someday though.

Bob, when I was on the F/SR Advisory Committee we met face-to-face at the Runoffs with our CRB Liaisons. Not every member was there, of course, but most were and we found that getting together to meet each other was very productive. Stan

[RussMcB]

What are the reasons why a meeting should not be open to the public (assuming that a method could be used so that the non-active viewers could not interupt the process)?

In other words, if people can dial in and listen but not talk, are there any valid reasons to prevent it?

Perhaps if there is a particular sensitive agenda topic not appropriate for public, it could be isolated from the other agenda items (i.e., handled by a second conference call).

[TimW]

How about even just timely posting of minutes that are more useful than 'such and such was discussed?'

[GrandMarnier]

I would think that situation would arise from time to time, and could be handled just as you stated Russ. In thinking about this more it might be appropriate to publish an agenda for the meeting as well; i.e. maybe send an email with the meeting date/time, bridge #/code, and a simple agenda so that people could know the subjects of and follow the discussion. If there were sensitive matters, these could be discussed in a closed(private) session/call after the public meeting. I do think it would be appropriate still to know when those closed meetings were occuring though just for the sake of openness and accountability. It seems if any of this happened and the private meetings became the main forum for decision making no one would be better off than the way it is today.

[GrandMarnier]

I think from some of the things I've seen and heard that timely posting of accurate minutes may be a significant issue. In anything like this I've ever done that was governed by rules of order minutes generally didn't have to go through multiple revisions before they could be released for viewing by the membership.

[TimW]

I think from some of the things I've seen and heard that timely posting of accurate minutes may be a significant issue. In anything like this I've ever done that was governed by rules of order minutes generally didn't have to go through multiple revisions before they could be released for viewing by the membership.

If you open up the phone call to listening you'll have the minutes on the internet within minutes likely by someone listening in. Obviously not the official minutes, but it will be transcribed nonetheless. Might as well manage what is in the minutes than rely on possible error and omissions (& likely interpretations) by someone listening in...

Tim

[GrandMarnier]

That's a very good point as well, and I'm sure there are people who would love to transcribe their own "versions" of the minutes just as you said.If that was the case at some point it would become obvious who and who couldn't be trusted as an accurate source for these things. Personally I think the official minutes would still be the only souce I'd trust absolutely, but I would love to be able to hear the conversations that lead to those official minutes that are published.

If there are concerns about the implications of opening up these meetings I think those should be discussed as well. Thanks Tim!

[GrandMarnier]

I guess now that the latest crisis has been averted with the reversal of the previous motions to combine classes we can all go back to being quiet and waiting on the next horrible decision that is made with no input from the membership beforehand that will cause yet another massive uproar.

I am glad that the voices/comments/suggestions got that situation resolved, it shows that at least part of the process is working.

I'm still hoping that some of the many people reading this thread could contribute useful suggestions on how to help prevent situations such as the one above in the first place. Nothing about this process is going to change until the people involved force it to. People who don't care to be involved in the decision making process of a sport they love don't get an awful lot of leeway to complain about the decisions they're handed in my opinion. Saying that you were wronged by a group of people after the fact is all fine, but not concerning yourself with that group and thier processes until they've wronged you is just slack.


Thanks again for your time,

William