The question is whether you would like the board of directors to increase the size of the CFC board by adding the Women's Coordinator as a ninth member of the board.
The question is whether you would like the board of directors to increase the size of the CFC board by adding the Women's Coordinator as a ninth member of the board.
In general I am _strongly_ opposed to increasing the size of the board if it means more "Directors at Large". While DALs may bring useful skills / access to facilities to the board I have two comments: (1) a board is more effective if every member has specific responsibilities - a "portfolio" if you will and (2) larger boards take longer to get things done.
Vlad's motivation in asking this question is that the International Olympic Committee (with whom the CFC has an affiliation) wants greater female representation on governing boards. Which is fine but often problematic in sports with heavily male or heavily female participation.
My objection isn't based on "we don't want women" or "we dont' want men" but rather what is the best size for a board in terms of actually getting things done and I do feel the CFC's three tiered collection of executives, officers and committees have served the Federation well.
I served on one board where one year they had a surfeit of "Members at Large" (total membership 13) with 4 or 5 MALs who had no specific duties but whose input had to be sought and taken into account on every issue where some of them were very very slow to respond when questions were asked. I was so glad when that year was over and the next AGM elected a new board. Please understand that this is nothing against the individuals (who on a personal level were great) but rather the overwhelming overhead it took to get the work done that year.
(As a caveat with one exception I have NEVER been a Member at Large in any organization for that reason. The caveat is that the BC Chess Federation automatically makes any CFC Governor/VM a member at large on their board if they do not hold another executive position. My experience is that our VMs provide infrequent but useful input to the board both in terms of what is happening nationally and what other provinces are doing - and besides VMs the BCCF board includes two CFC executives (myself and Mark). Speaking for myself I was a BCCF executive for 20+ years so they are of the opinion I have opinions to share which when relevant I do which isn't constantly)
Again - I believe the 7 person CFC board served the CFC well and I'm not convinced 8 or 9 has or will improve things. Particularly when our Executive Director is asked for input on many issues.
It's not clear if we should post here instead. In case yes, I posted something quite similar elsewhere, that we aim for a tighter Executive of 7, as follows:
7 = President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, FIDE Representative, Youth Coordinator, Women's Coordinator.
I'm not a big fan of Directors "at Large". If we do this, it should be planned a year out, so that the Directors at Large can be repositioned as applicable.
In general, I agree with Lyle's sentiments about the danger of slowed decision-making with bigger boards but in this particular case I think we can mitigate those effects by time limiting responses when a decision has to be quickly provided. If non-responses are treated as abstentions then decision-making won't be slowed down at all. We can have monthly meetings for most matters with either emergency meetings or email meetings where things are rushed and require a quick decision. In most cases, everyone responds within three days without prompting. For example, we had a Zoom meeting eight days before the start of this meeting (thank you Patricia Gamliel for introducing this idea into our CFC board practice). A day or two after this meeting, FIDE announced that Maili Jade Ouellet had been selected for the Women's World Team Championship 2021 to be held in Sitges, Spain in late September and early October. FIDE through Pavel Tregubov the FIDE GSC Secretary asked the CFC to pay for her transportation costs while they would cover accommodations and food. We agreed to cover up to $1000 Canadian which is sufficient to fly out and back according to Maili Jade and confirmed by a quick internet search.
I think that the mandate for more female participation comes from the IOC, the COC, FIDE and our Canadian government. The elections are ongoing so it is unclear whether the result will be more female participation. Given the great effectiveness of the two women on our board, I would like to see more involvement of women in our board as it seems to lead to increased capabilities.
Note that this poll closes earlier than the election threads and the other poll on renaming the Executive Director position. If you try to vote at 1:00 PM EDT tomorrow (Saturday), you will be too late as this poll closes at 12:56 pm EDT.