Re: Fiduciary Responsibilities - Taking Care of the Community
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2012 05:40:54 -0700 (PDT)
On 5 Jul 2012, at 8:15 AM, David Clements and Evan Richardson wrote:

> We have had conflicts related to the Board being perceived as doing "too 
> much," when it exercises the authority given to it in the bylaws, and doing 
> "too little," when members of the Board assume that they do not have the 
> authority, and fail to act or defer to members.


Between a rock and a hard place. Aside from the boring repetition of people 
have different ideas about things, what is happening is that both groups, the 
do mores and the do lessers, are pushing from the sidelines. The Board is doing 
its best (we can assume) to be responsible and address the needs of the 
community as it sees them and others are critiquing their actions but are 
staying uninvolved in the actual decision-making.

If you think of the decision-making field as flat, rather than hierarchical, it 
is easier to see how to get the sidelines involved in the decisions. The 
gardening people have their responsibilities and decisions to make, each other 
group theirs — buildings, grounds, interiors, meals, social activities, 
children's groups.

Where those groups come together or overlap should be the board. If this is 
true, it much harder for these groups or for individuals to say the board is 
doing too little or too much because they are participating in the board. They 
should be contributing information to the decisions and participating in 
evaluating that information before and after a decision is made whether they 
are actually in the room or not.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines, Washington DC
"Design is the first sign of human intention." William McDonough




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