Response to Andy Lingras
msd
sent to Andy Lingras 12:29 pm 3-3-10
Hello Andy,
The President or any Board member who has signed the Confidentiality [CA] statement is bound as follows:
"I understand that this information is strictly confidential to the Saints' organization and I am required to protect this information from misuse. I also understand that I may not copy, alter or delete this information and may not release, disseminate, share or use this information for purposes other than those for which I am specifically authorized"
Having sat in on all the Board meetings for many many many months I know that the material that was sent out by you on 3-3-10 to all 2000+ members was not presented or discussed in a Board meeting as it should have been and thus it was certainly not approved. You were not "specifically authorized" to do what you did, thus you "misused information".
The President should be working with the Board and the Board should make the decision about making/posting such a query on line to all members as well as the accuracy of what was presented, how the material / options should be presented, and method for collecting responses and how it should be monitored and collated.
The Board should be reviewing the financials before any are communicated to members and agree on them in addition to everything else in the communiqué. The Board determines policy and action related to policy development not the President.
Earlier you sent out another personal email, which was not authorized by the Board, to all members stating your personal agenda. You have now moved on your personal agenda with your 3-3-10 email. While each board member has the right to advance a personal agenda it should be discussed within the Board framework of the Saints. This perhaps could be extended from time to time to seek opinions from "management" positions, i.e. coordinators to broaden the commentary pool for policy considerations. However you personally jumped despite lack of open Board consideration and with knowledge of disapproval of the Board majority to communicate to the entire membership. As President, you only vote in the case of a tie, this is clearly an attempt to circumvent those rules as the voting majority did not authorize you to do this
A President, as president, has no authority on his own to do as you did. You used the Saints communication system over which you have control inappropriately by not allowing the Board to exercise its authority. You overstepped the bounds of the office, you abused your office, and you violated the CA.
This is not the first time that you have done this. The only relationship I have with you is through the Saints "organization" It is not a personal relationship. Yet I was invited to join your face book page. You used my personal information entrusted to the Saints for Saints business purposes for clearly what was a personal benefit. I did not respond to the inappropriate email and let it go. There may be other violations as well, I do not know.
However your action of 3-3-10 cannot be ignored.
In abusing your position as President you even involved [used] another Board member in the inappropriate activity by having them receive the unapproved communications.
The last part of the CA states: "I agree that if I violate any of the above requirements to any extent, such a violation is sufficient cause for the board of Directors to take disciplinary actions against me, including, but not limited to, relieving me of my responsibilities within the organization and terminating my membership in the Saints."
The Board should step up to the plate and exercise its authority to govern in accordance with its own rules, the law, and standard good governance practices. According to the bylaws [the Board elects the Board officers] and the Illinois Not For profit Act [the membership elects the Board] the Board should immediately remove you from the position of President.
There is a Board meeting this Saturday March 6th at 10 am, I would hope the Board would fulfill its responsibility and act accordingly. To not act is to not apply the governing documents equitably. To act is to follow the governing documents and fulfill its responsibility to the membership.
I am well aware that by publicly stating this I am risking the ability to usher at the CSO. Actually....perhaps in following the CA's directive stated above: ”relieving me of my responsibilities within the organization”, removing you as CSO coordinator might now also be appropriate--especially as so many ushers have had multiple problems with you in this role over a long period of time. Additionally, it would only be correct to remove you from the cyberline as well as that is a vehicle you have abused multiple times to communicate personal (not board approved) statements to the membership and lastly to remove you from unlimited club express access to emails of all Saints members—if you have not already downloaded them.
Meryl |
Donna Oswald
by Andy Lingras on 3/3.
I have already communicated to the board my feelings on the importance
of the grants program & will not bore you by repeating it. I wish to
address the latest salvo on the integrity of the Saints organization.
Why set up new emails to poll the membership? ClubExpress certainly
can provide this feature for us. We pay money for them to host a
website for us, yet don’t even begin to scratch the surface to tap
into the things they can do for us. One could conclude that, like the
Saintsvoice private email, it’s to limit the board's access to
membership views. Well, I won't use those emails, I won't even
dignify his email by responding to him as I no longer recognize him as
"a representative" on the board.
Today we were subjected to a most egregious abuse of Saints privileged
membership information. Andy bombarded the membership with an email
to advance his personal agenda for his assault on the Saints mission.
He sent out an email where he admitted that he was not acting with
board directive but for his own personal agenda. This is not the
action of a democratic organization but those of a dictator. He
throws around the terms democracy & transparency continuously, but it
is obvious that he is just mocking those who believe in these
principles. Were any other board member to use the Saints mailing
list for their own personal agenda he would be first in line to
censure them & strip them of board responsiblities.
At the February membership meeting we were promised by Andy that there
would be a discussion on the matter (changes to the dues structure &
grants program) before any decisions were made. Telling us to send an
email to either the “yes” or “no” special email accounts – no comments
required - hardly meets the definition of “discussion”. What about
the ~150 members who have not provided the Saints with an email
address? Not only were they not invited to the “non-discussion”, if
they were to find out about it, how would they get their 2cents worth
in? Presumably only emails from addresses provided to the Saints
would be counted, these poor souls would then have effectively been
muzzled. But then again, why trouble yourself with discussion, when
you’ve already decided what your action will be, regardless of the
input of others?
He has made use of the Saints mailing list for PERSONAL reasons to
send out invitations from his personal Facebook account. I was one of
those recipients, yet at the time I had never laid eyes on Andy,
communicated with him, ushered for the CSO or ever received any usher
request from him, not only were we not friends, we weren’t even
acquainted. This was clearly personal use of the Saints private
information, yet another abuse of the confidentiality agreement.
As a coordinator, it is required of me that I respect the
confidentiality of membership information that I have been entrusted
with & not use it for personal gain. My expectation is that it
applies to the board as well – ALL OF THE BOARD. You have used this
very confidentiality agreement to muzzle two duly elected members of
the board because they could not in good conscience sign what was
presented to them, not because they disagreed with the concept but
because there was no reason to sign another (basically unenforceable )
one when they had not revoked the previous one.
As every component of the Confidentiality Agreement was violated by
Andy, the board must act to remove him of all responsibilities
entrusted to him as well as access to privileged Saints information.
The ability to have access to this information is a privilege that is
earned, not a right. His actions have shown that he cannot be trusted
with this information. While I understand that only the membership
can remove him from the board (something he & some of the board
clearly did not understand based on your actions of last summer), you
can insure he does no more damage until we, the members of the Saints,
can act to legally remove him from the board.