Writes An Anonymous ABA Member:
By“I appreciate your post and those of Nate and Kenn on their blogs as well. Having read all three, plus the BirdChat comments, I find myself in an interesting position. A huge flap is underway, well-known and respected birders are calling for the Board to resign en masse, the president has been fired, and people are suggesting that the organization may be in jeopardy.
“And yet, I cannot find any explanation of what has actually happened. These posts all clearly imply that they are in the loop, know what is going on, yet choose not to tell us. Is this a case of being afraid of being accused of libel? Or is it something else? Why can’t “we” be told what happened? Why should I keep up my membership, terribly overpriced and worthless as it currently is, and give the benefit of the doubt to a new administration, if I’m not even going to be told what sank the previous one?
“I’ll repeat what I regularly tell people who ask me about ABA: it isn’t an organization that I belong to, it’s a magazine that I subscribe to. If I could get Birding without being a member, I would do it. This whole situation only reinforces that feeling, and I’m about done paying $45 for a magazine subscription.”
And I reply:
Yes, precisely. The staff is, I suspect, under a sort of gag order imposed by the board (the board has the power to hire and fire, to loose and to bind). The board steadfastly refuses to reveal anything to the membership. None of us is fully informed as to what happened, but my reconstruction is that the organization is in financial trouble, that the recently departed president engaged in behaviors inappropriate to his office, and that the board fears informing the membership what a mess it’s made of things.
For the board to issue a clear summary of the organization’s financial state, to explain in brief and non-actionable detail the reasons it hired and then fired the most recent president, and to participate in making the changes necessary to restore the members’ voice in the organization might not solve any of its problems. But it would go a fair distance towards making those problems seem worth solving.
1 Comments
July 20th, 2010 at 9:44 am
Here’s my take to Anon ABA Member, as I see myself as little more than a regular member as well, though one with an internet mouthpiece and whatever credibility that entails.
Three weeks ago, after receiving the cryptic e-mail to the membership from Board Chairman Dick Ashford, I wrote on my blog a little ditty about the shake-up and what it could possibly mean. At that point I was in the dark as to the true nature of what was going on, I only thought it was odd that the new CEO was out not even a year after he’d been hired. I imagine something on the mind of most of the membership too if the google searches that started coming to my blog were any indication. Lots of ABA + Robinson stuff meant this was a trending topic.
At that point I was contacted by Paul Baicich (he commented on Kenn’s blog so I assume he’s ok with the name-drop) who put me “in the loop” and privy to some of the e-mails that prominent members of the birding community, notably Jon Dunn, as well as other long-time members are sending to the Board that are more explicit about what went wrong than anything that is public at this point.
Jon Dunn did not seem to be concerned about what he wrote gaining greater exposure, in fact there was a note specifically saying he wanted his words to get greater exposure among a broad spectrum of fellow birders and I can only speak for myself here, but because it was pretty damning, personally embarrassing and uncomfortable to Robinson and such, I was somewhat uncomfortable passing it along and potentially torching those bridges. At least it didn’t seem like my place.
Beyond that, the gist of the concern has resonated in much of what Rick and Kenn have to say regarding the absolute necessity of accountability from the Board. That said, if culpable members of the Board seem unwilling to take that responsibility, along with a public mea culpa as Rick suggests, then it may be that the specifics need to be aired because at this point there’s a serious trust issue at stake that is larger than anything Robinson did.
That’s just my opinion.