One Members Thoughts on the Recent Direct Letter to the Membership by Andy Lingras
Donna Oswald
salvo in a re-election campaign. There is a statement of vague
qualifications. A listing of goals. An attempt to appear as if
trying to connect with the membership. Maybe Andy feels the need to
do this because he realizes that that he was not “elected” by the
membership to be president, nor to even be on the board. He is on the
board, as were many of his predecessors, as a result of a non-
contested election in 2008, so can he really say he was “elected” to
the board? He is on the board by virtue of apathy on the part of the
general membership. He never had to put together a position statement
to define his interest in the board before joining it. There is no
mandate from the membership for him to implement radical changes in
the remaining 4 months of his term.
He presents vague qualifications to be president due to his having run
part (which part?) of a non-profit (which one?) for 7 years with a
budget of almost $10million. Attempts on the part of a member to
inquire what non-profit he had been involved with have been met with a
blatant refusal to provide more information until & unless Andy
decides to run for re-election. He brought up the topic of his non-
profit experience yet remains coy when asked for specifics. Why is he
being so disingenuous about his qualifications? On the basis of his
apparent logic, I can similarly state that I have over a decades worth
of experience running non-profit theatres since I have been a company
member at Circle Theatre for a decade which included responsibilities
in the management of certain areas there as well as 5 years of prior
similar experience at Village Players Theatre.
Then there is the statement of “his personal goals”. He stated that
it was beyond the scope of responsibilities of the Secretary for him
to have goals, but supposedly it’s within the scope of responsibility
of the president to have personal goals? Aren’t we supposed to be
run by a board not a party of 1? Why these goals? He claims that no
one on the current board has seen the need to address these items so
it was left to him to come to the rescue:
1. Ensure that the financial records of the Saints are in order.
Wouldn’t the time to have done that been when he was the Treasurer – 2
boards ago? After apparently leaving the records in less than orderly
condition, isn’t it a little late now to be concerned with the status
of the records? Or is the stated interest due to knowing the
condition he left the records in & that his immediate predecessor
wasn’t able to fix the mess he now feels guilty about his contribution
to the mess that Linda inherited. Contrary to his statement that no
one was taking this issue to heart, at multiple membership & board
meetings Linda has stated that she was diligently working on
straightening out the Saints records, so this process was being
addressed, perhaps not as quickly as some would like but it was
certainly not being ignored as suggested by Andy. If this is truly his
number 1 goal (since it is stated first) I would have thought that he
would have stayed on in the less demanding role as the Secretary & so
that he could dedicate more attention to fixing this problem.
2. Preserve the printed Spotlight for those that are willing to pay
for it. The board has been discussing this issue for the last 4
board meetings & it was a topic of considerable discussion by the
previous board, so again this was not a subject that was being ignored
by the board.
3. Split the Saints membership dues up into a Chinese menu of options
& start the process of eliminating the grants program. I find this
an incredibly disturbing goal especially as the membership has not
been asked their feelings on this. This is a radical change, not to
be taken lightly, nor to be rushed (as the rewriting of the bylaws
were last year). In order for such substantial changes to the dues
structure to have validity, the membership must be asked to weigh in &
this process cannot be rammed through without due consideration from
all involved. It also can’t be based on the vote of the 50 people
required for a quorum at a membership meeting. Not when the
membership exceeds 2000 people. The majority of the people I have
spoken to are extremely PROUD of the level of financial support the
Saints are able to provide to the performing arts community in
addition to our volunteering support. I seriously doubt that the
current level of dues (which provides for generous financial support
in the form of grants/donations to theatres) is preventing people from
joining or continuing on as members of the Saints. Every Spotlight
advertises our ever increasing membership! So I don’t see the big
need to change “what ain’t broken”. Why is there such a pressing need
to address this now & in such a short time-span? Just because another
board member has expressed the opinion that they “just want to usher”
& “not provide financial support to the arts community” as the Saints
have done for as long as I have been a member, does not make a
persuasive argument for nor justify a radical departure from what has
been the Saint’s mission from day 1 – provide support to the arts
community. In the beginning it was just our time & effort, next it
became small grants & as ways were found to economize by providing the
Spotlight online, more substantial grants. If he was so concerned
about the fiscal issues, how could he possibly have supported a budget
of $30,000 to throw an anniversary party that only a small portion of
the membership would have/could have attended? That to me was a far
more wasteful allocation of our resources.
Lastly, he claims that as this is a democratic organization, he is
seeking input from membership on any & all topics, yet he is
requesting that input be sent only to him at a private email address.
In correspondence with another member he has stated that he will only
share information received at that address with the rest of the board
as he sees fit. Where is the transparency? Why does he need yet
another separate email address? Will only opinions that concur with
his be shared with the board? What is really needed is a single link
on the website that will send an email to the ENTIRE board so that
they can be equally informed about membership concerns not subject to
filtering by Andy. If they don’t want to hear from the membership on
issues that concern them, then perhaps that person shouldn’t be on the
board & they should resign accordingly. It appears that he feels that
the board input on these matters is irrelevant to his personal goals &
might hinder his plans for the future. Ironically, when Deb Granite,
in her role as a newly re-elected board member, sought to do a similar
thing by polling a subset of the membership, the coordinators, (who by
their willingness to perform this extra duty have an increased vested
interest in the organization as well as greater one on one contact
with members than the board) as an substitute for the entire
membership, about their views on the importance of certain topics to
them, she found herself booted off the board & banned from the
organization. Now Andy is using his access to the membership mailing
list through Cyberline as his exclusive bully pulpit to advance his
agenda. No other board member has the ability to directly address the
membership without first going through the Andy filter.
It has been stated that leadership is the “process of social influence
in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the
accomplishment of a common task”. The key element missing in Andy’s
stated goals are the “common task”. They are his goals, not those of
the membership, without listening to the goals of the membership &
carefully considering them with input from the entire board, we do not
have a democratically led organization, we have one run by a despot.
So voice your opinion, but not to that "private"email address. Send
concerns to the entire board. Let your voice be heard. This is an
organization belonging to >2000 members, not one board member with his
own agenda.