Quarterly Governors' On-line Meetings - Open to Public?

[Bob Armstrong]

Right now, Quarterly Governors' On-line Meetings are " confidential " - they are not open to the public. This is because the CFC Handbook states that they are to be held on the Governors' Discussion Board, which is confidential.

Do you think they should be open to the membership/public?

One option is to have the on-line meeting in a special public discussion forum, like this one, where all could attend. The limitation would be that only the Governors could post. Members/Public could then see the posts/replies/polls, but it would be " public view-only " - the members/public could not post.

If this option was implemented, would you be interested enough in what the goverrnors are doing, to attend the on-line meeting? Please answer the poll, to give the governors some indication of whether the membership cares about this at all.

Thanks.

Bob

[Kevin Pacey]

Hi Bob

I voted yes because I think this is a good option for CFC members to have, even if I don't attend online Governors meetings all the time as a non-Governor.

I think it might be good also to have a prominent reminder someplace(s) (online and/or in the CFC newsletter/website) for non-Governors that they have the option, as always, to email one or more Governors about anything, including while an online Governors meeting is in progress.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Kevin:

I appreciate your interest. And certainly, members are always free to get their governors to raise issues for them. And re the meeting itself, I posted the agenda here, with the schedule, and made a few supplementary posts, bringing it back to the top.

But I fear the membership is not interested - very few voting to come to the meeting, given the large number of views. And there are negatives to a " public view-only " meeting, and so these will take precedence in the face of member apathy. I think that the governors will not take this step now.

Bob

[Kevin Pacey]

In the past I've found that a 10% response rate to any poll is about normal, so the 5 votes so far is not too sub-par considering just over 100 views so far have been made of this thread. A bit of a pity the poll isn't open indefinitely. It can take a long time for any front page thread to go to page 2 too, on this discussion board at least.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Kevin:

I'm afraid I can't make any progress with the goverors on this issue with only 5 members ( out of 122 views = 4% if there are no duplicate views yet ) saying they'd bother to come.

Bob

[Peter McKillop]

Right now, Quarterly Governors' On-line Meetings are " confidential " - they are not open to the public. This is because the CFC Handbook states that they are to be held on the Governors' Discussion Board, which is confidential.

Do you think they should be open to the membership/public? ...

I voted no. I don't think the people managing the organization should be forced to have all of their discussions/deliberations in a goldfish bowl so long as an accurate set of minutes is published for members' review within some reasonable time frame following online meetings.

p.s. If good minutes are available, then I also don't think a governor should go running to the discussion boards to 'tattle' on his fellow governors regarding what they're saying during online meetings.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Peter:

There are " summaries " of the meetings made public, not " Minutes " as we regularly know them. You can see the " Summaries " of the Spring Quarterly meeting on the CFC website under Governors' Letters, labelled " On-line ".

The summaries done for this Fall Quarterly meeting were even more truncated.

I don't know if they would satisfy your requirement of disclosure. They don't satisfy mine. I think the members' should be able to see their governors in action, and who is saying what.

Also, the AGM is an open meeting. Why not the on-line meeting?

Bob

P.S. I agree that if the Governors' Discussion Board is " confidential ", then matters there are not to be disclosed.