APG-L Archives

Archiver > APG > 2007-12 > 1196875781


From: "Melinde Sanborn" <>
Subject: [APG] Ethical Membership
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 12:29:41 -0500
In-Reply-To: <47539709.3050101@ancestralmanor.com>


I rarely ask questions on this list, but I hope every reader will respond to
this one.

Membership in APG, like that in almost any group, is a contract between the
organization and the individual. I make the membership decision carefully,
picking only groups with acceptable goals AND methods. When these change,
sometimes my choice (or theirs) changes.

For me membership entails responsibilities. APG (specifically) should permit
me to exercise those responsibilities by allowing me to vote, to speak up
respectfully when I disagree, to demand accountability and transparency, and
to correct injustices by forcing an issue.

I choose to ask this question on the open list, not in the forums. I choose
to be discreet, although readers can "out" instances from the recent past.

APG's bylaws give control to the EC. A strong EC can rule by edict, and
does. A weak EC can abdicate responsibilities, and has.

At the Chapter Reps' gathering in Richmond this year, I spoke twice to the
same point - that the EC should give more weight to members' opinions and
that members should be kept informed. In retrospect, it was a little silly -
if you aren't heard in the first place, who hears you when you object?

Have we given our EC too much control? Is it proper for a member of my
Chapter who has participated materially and constructively in APG to be
accused, tried, convicted, and suspended in absentia behind closed doors? Do
we really want the focus of our EC to be the micromanagement of logos? Did
we really elect these people of good will to spend their time on this and
other invisible things, while major projects undertaken in good faith
languish for six months or more?

It is the invisible that may be a deal buster for me. Specifically, readers,
lurkers, members - anybody with a thoughtful opinion - what if your APG EC
took an email sent to this list and censored it so that it never appeared,
what would you think? If a well respected author wrote an article for the
APGQ and it was pulled after months of work - after typesetting -because the
EC didn't like it, what would you think? If a nationally known speaker was
pulled out of a banquet talk - after the publicity and syllabus was out -
because something s/he was expected to say was "unapproved" by the APG EC,
what would you think?

Yes, there are multiple hypothetical questions in this email, but they are
all really one. Should we accept invisible micromanagement from the APG EC?

Melinde Lutz Sanborn
Chapter Rep., Greater Boston Area APG aka New England Chapter
Fellow, American Society of Genealogists
Editor, New Hampshire Genealogical Record
co-Editor, National Genealogical Society Quarterly
Tri-Chair, New England Regional Genealogical Conference 2009
Vice President elect, American Society of Genealogists
Vice President, Massachusetts Genealogical Council
Director, New England Regional Genealogical Consortium, Inc.
Managing Director, Athena Business Associates, LLC
CEO, The Graceful Companies






This thread: