NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/bit/listserv/sedsl/241

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Subject:      CBL PART 2
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DAVE's CHRISTMAS BITCH LIST

Yup, here it is, my annual Christmas bitch list ... instead of waiting til New
Year to see what resolutions for improving life can be made, I try to do it for
Christmas, so I can get solutions as Xmas gifts ... (I am still hoping for a
real life, a job, a girlfriend, etc.  so please send them!).

I have been active in SEDS for 2.5 years now, and active on the national scene
for the last 1.5 of those years.  I remember the great comraderie that existed
at the Albuquerque conference (despite the faults in the organization), and I
remember how SEDS pulled together, and everyone was willing to help out each
other.  I no longer see this in SEDS ... SEDS has become factionalized, with
different power hungry groups competing against each other, instead of helping
out each other.  PEOPLE, lets stop this!!

Here are some of the programs that SEDS is undertaking that have aroused
problems (as I see them).   The personalities that may underlie the causes of
these problems I originally said I would discuss in Part II, but I have changed
my mind for now.  There may be hints as to the personality problems, and I may
write on this later, but for now I will concentrate on the major SEDS
projects/problems.


EVERYONE, please read this entire bitch-list completely, before posting any
piece-meal responses.  Yes, it is extremely long, but I explain many things for
different viewpoints throughout the article(s), and some things that might not
be adequately addressed in one area might be covered in another.  Thus, please
post your response all at once to the entire message, and do not get so caught
up with the particular wording in a single section.  Take your time to fully
consider your responses, and try to make your arguments as complete as possible
(as I have tried to do).  Hopefully, after reading this entire document, people
will realize that I am not 'dumping' on SEDS, but honestly hope that this
article will be the impulse needed to improve SEDS for this upcoming semester.


COMMUNICATIONS


1. Natl. Communication/MIT.  There is little to no communications of what
different groups are doing, who is taking charge of what, etc.  There are some
exceptions, but for the most part, no one is communicating what they are doing
so anyone knows what is going on.

Lead among this is the lack of info coming out of MIT.  I hear now that despite
what MIT has repeatedly said, the scholarship money has not been delivered, MIT
refuses to talk to CalSEDS or the board and will only talk by phone to certain
national board members (leaving the rest of the board left out), no info on
what mail has come in, no updates on the budget, etc.

LACK OF MANPOWER IS NO EXCUSE!!!  If the national headquarter cannot fulfill
their everyday duties, as specified both for the HQ (as being the official
mail stop) in the SEDS constitution and by their promises made to other
national board members, it should not be working exclusively on pet
projects!!!  Every time I have tried to talk to nationals (MIT, not Caltech),
Lisa and the others
have given me the cold shoulder.   Simple budget statements, notices of how
many chapter renewals there have been, sending out chapter registration forms,
responding to requests from schools or individuals for more SEDS info;  these
are the activities that the HQ should concentrate on!!  If MIT cannot handle
(or does not have the desire to handle) these details, then the HQ should be
move, and MIT should only be known as the official SEDS mail stop ... that's
all!!!

MIT now has three national board members ... hopefully, things will improve due
to this added help.  Unfortunately, I am tired of making excuses for the MIT
HQ, and when they plain out-right LIE about something like the scholarship, it
totally PISSES ME OFF!  They have been promising to do better for months now,
and I am still waiting to see results.


2. Natl. Communication/Flame Wars.  This is the second biggest problem I see on
the L.  What little discussions there were this semester, they degenerated
into flame wars.   IDM had no real debate, until the tcon, and then MIT and UAH
refused to post on their objections to the validity of the idea of IDMs
(something that both schools said they would do).  I took time out of my
extremely busy second wave of tests and project to post, why didn't they?

The refund policy ended up with questions being raised about what are legitimate
expenses, and how much is considered legitimate, but after that, it degenerated
into flame wars again, and Jeff has REFUSED to post a debate and vote call to
resolve this issue, despite constant prodding from both myself and Irwin.

Finally, on many of the discussions, arguments arose as to what was decided at
the DC conference.  Lisa and others had the audacity of telling me to just shut
up and not concern myself with some of the debate, because I was unable to
attended that conference (due to school here).  I TAKE GREAT OFFENSE TO THIS!!
All national board members should have the information and right to discuss
facts, in order to make good voting decision.  Furthermore,  these same people
claimed that I was totally wrong on the information I was providing (especially
about what Bob S. had said at the conference), when I had spoken to Bob just
two days before!!  If I am unsure on facts, I say so, but I don't twist them
for my own uses!!   This kind of personal accusations are not called for, and
have caused many of the problems I see now.  EACH NATIONAL BOARD member should
take Richard Johnson's suggestion, and stop this, or if it is really eating you
up (like it is for me right now), send the personal complaints only to that
individual (which I have been doing all semester).  However, we must still
respect our opponents points of views, and listen POLITELY (hint, hint) to
these views, so we can make the informed decisions and votes, and get away
from making decisions based only on gut feelings or block-power votes.


3. Natl. Communication/UNM fiasco.  The lack of communication between different
SEDS groups was most vivid when the UNM fiasco raised its ugly head.  The
National Board could not get just one person to handle it, and instead we
created tons of headaches for Lew Newby.  Instead of rationally discussing this
problem, we instead got a flame war of finger pointing as to who was to blame.
I did not see one rational discussion of what SEDS as a group should do until
Lew himself posted!!!  Instead, we had a ton of people going off half-cocked,
and we are lucky we didn't do further harm to this delicate situation.

Dennis did a good job of getting the legal details of the lawsuit, and
supposedly he and Jeff worked well together in organizing the SEDS response.
However, none of this work or info was revealed to the rest of SEDS until Lew
spoke up.  It is worthless to have two Natl. Board members coordinating the
SEDS response if they don't tell SEDS!!!  In affect, this was two people
handling the situation, and leaving everyone else out in the cold.

I personally would have expected better leadership from both of the co-chairs,
and an official statement of who was to do what, and when reports were to be
made to the L.  If this would have happened, many of the problem cause by
having no uniform SEDS response.

Basically, what this whole fiasco has shown is that there needs to be definite
clauses in the SEDS Natl. Constitution to prevent this from happening again,
that you can't always trust everyone (namely Burkhardt, who despite taking total
responsibility for the debt, still has drug Lew Newby and others into court),
and that, in general, most of SEDS is caring and compassionate, and wanted to
do whatever was necessary to help extract the innocents from this problem.
SEDS showed character and personality, but not much coordination here.


4. Communications/everyone else.  I though it was required by SEDS for each
chapter to send monthly updates (article 3, line 2, of suggested constitution?)
to nationals, or to SEDS-L.  From my counting (and I may have missed a few),
there was one update from Caltech, one on SEDSat, a few on other SEDS UAH
activities, and that was about all.  I posted one for UCCS (what little there
was on UCCS, it was more on what I had been up to), but MIT sent none, George
Washington, Northeastern, U. Houston, etc. sent none.  Purdue was the only
campus that sent out regular updates, and that was because they were in the
gradual process of forming a chapter!!  Florida had a good start on what they
were doing, and Amy's lists of contacts were great, but once again, this
appeared to be a one time thing.

The purpose for the L is to give other chapters idea of what to do to keep
their members interested in SEDS.  It is also to give other chapters other
ideas of what goes well and what does, and different ideas that some schools
might never think of (like the art contest).   EVERY CHAPTER has an obligation
to contribute to nationals by at least sending in this info.


5. Communications/ Board members.  I thought that the idea was for each board
member to post monthly progress reports on their pet projects.  What happened
to this?  I have heard nothing about ERG (education resource guide) or CSK
(Chapter Survivability Kit), nothing on hunts to locate former chapters
(MIT said they would do this, and I shouldn't, since I am not at the OFFICIAL
MAIL STOP), there has only been one update on the Non-Profit Status.  Drew has
posted updates on the business plan, which is good, but where is everyone else?
My chapter lists are self-explanatory, but I haven't had time to work on
jobs-database, Irwin hasn't been able to get any budget info to give out, etc.
etc.   EVERY BOARD MEMBER should post monthly a complete status report, not
only his special projects, but on general SEDS work (like chapter expansion,
views on topics, media contacts, upcoming conferences, etc.)., and if they
cannot fulfill their promises on their projects, they should explain why, and
see who can help them!   If they cannot do this or are unwilling to
do this, they should resign, or be kicked off the board ... punted QUITE HARD,
in fact :).

Furthermore, I haven't seen anything from some board members.  Sam Coniglio is
one (although I hear he is working with Amy).  Sam, can you post?   I've heard
nothing from Kevin Knoedler since he was elected, and Doug Childs has gotten
extremely quiet during the past few months as well.  Mark resigned from the
national board because he was unable to fulfill his duties, and unable to post
progress reports asking for help.  If others are in a similar position, I
suggest you too resign, so people like Carlos Niederstrasser can join the
board.  At least then, we have only those truly involved with SEDS voting on
the future of the group, instead of a bunch of people who are riding SEDS's
reputation determining what is best for SEDS.

Even more striking is the lack of communications between US SEDS and the other
national SEDS bodies.  There has been minimal contact with UK SEDS this year,
and much less contact with SEDS Canada as well.  Some, I am sure, has to do
with our own lack of communications when they ask for something, but we should
all work to further a worldwide SEDS environment.  Is there something that USA
SEDS can do to help with this?  We should all be working together to held out
our respective organizations.