President's Newspage (1)

[Administrator (Tony)]

On behalf of Gilly, the first of her 'President's Newspages' is available for viewing, commenting, replying ...
Newspage (1)

[Alan Screen]

Very Good

[Simon Richards]

A good communication

[Tony Haworth]

In the Newspage, Gilly says 'We have a Council, as well as the MC,
selectors and L&E and I have no idea who is on it or why, so that should go...'

I trust that she doesn't mean that the Council should go!!

[gwynndavis]

Council should probably be retained, but we do not need, in addition, area reps on the Management Committee. That clogs everything up and blurs accountability. The MC should be officers and President only. Unfortunately the Constitution says otherwise, so that would need to be changed.

[Mike Tedd]

The structure of Council and Management Committee is a delicate balance.
 
The officers need effective authority but also need to be able to get support when needed for the most important decisions.  Before the MC was established, Council was unable to perform that role and sometimes undermined the officers (through inconsistency of membership and opinions).  If the MC had only the officers as members it would again not provide the officers with enough support for their major decisions.
 
The change I would like to see (a battle lost when the MC was established) is that the lay members of the MC should be chosen for their expertise and commitment, not as area representatives.

The Council has to continue as the body repreenting areas and members but its main (only?) function should be to appoint (and if necessary fire) the officers and lay members of the MC.

[Neville Richards]

Thanks Mike
I am in complete agreement with your appraisal.

[Gilly Clench]

Thanks for your input and comments, however I am still not at all convinced of the need for a Council.  I feel the MC is enough to run our small Union.  It could certainly be expanded to include people with "the expertise required", (or who are, quite simply, workers) but the need for yet another committee is beyond me.  When I asked who was on the Council at the last MC meeting - no one even knew.  Do we really need a committee to "fire officers"?  Surely a vote amongst the rest of the committee would suffice and I have never known this facility to be used anyway -it sounds horrid.