October 2018 web.pub

The Cool Stuff I wish I could take credit for this idea, and though its brilliance is beyond my capabilities, I am grateful in my ability at least to see how smart it is. Going back to my dinner with my friend back in May: this gentleman is very quiet but has some really good ideas about how to promote model boating. When he explained his idea for reorganizing our district, I begged him to propose it but he was not willing to put himself out there, as he had seen how viciously, people can be attacked for their ideas (you will see the irony in this shortly). What my friend had expressed to me was that we needed to organize our district the way NAMBA organizes all its districts. Our district needed to be organized with a board of directors that take on all of the decision-making responsibilities of the district. The Board of Directors would be led by the District Director, who would serve as the spokesman for the board and be the deciding vote in a tie. The board would be formed by the Presidents/Commodores of all the clubs in the district that have five paid NAMBA members or more and the District Director. This makes perfect sense, since these are the guys that do the heavy lifting. Remember that districts do not put on races, clubs do. This creates a situation where all the active elements of the district are in the mix making the decisions for the district and helps to prevent one individual or group from heavy handedly steering the district. It also promotes membership at the club level. If you want to have a voice in the district, you have to be a member of a club. Let’s really get down to why this makes so much sense! This way of organizing the district now provides a governing body that make decisions based on what is best for the district. When decisions are made, no one individual is responsible for that decision, so those who are unhappy with it cannot take it out on the District Director. This becomes very empowering for our District Directors. They no longer have to play referee in conflicts or be attacked for new and progressive ideas. Furthermore, this creates a support structure for the District Director by his board that provide a wealth of experience and strength to deal with the unpleasant elements of being District Director. This is a system for developing and grooming new District Directors by providing them with the support to make the tough and sometimes unpopular decisions, as these will now be made by the board. This helps to eliminate the situation where a District Director is the target for those who are not happy with these decisions and frees the board to take action where it is needed, however unpopular a decision may be. By keeping the board limited to just the District Director and the club Presidents and Commodores, the districts can avoid the stacking of the board to favor any particular group and it keeps the board representative of the District. It is my opinion that we as an organization are tired in a lot of respects. It is imperative to our survival and growth that the organization flourish with new talent and ideas. This can only come when we provide an environment that welcomes and nurtures new leaders. An environment where those who have something to contribute are given every opportunity to bring their talents and energy to NAMBA. At this point, let me say that there was a lot of forethought and there is what I would call brilliance in the way our organization is formed and structured at the national level with the District Directors comprising our Board of Directors. This approach ensures the culture and needs of each district are represented and creates a small decision making group that is mobile enough to make decisions for the benefit of the membership as needed. It prevents an individual or a couple of individuals from taking over the organization and doing things “their way”. However this is all highly dependent on our District Directors being engaged and involved. Like so many other organizations, if only a few are engaged, those few will make policy for everyone else and that is not good for membership. In my workings with NAMBA over the last seven years I have worked extensively with the top levels of the organization and I have had a rather unique outside view of the inner workings of the clock. It appears to me that our Board of Directors is tired. The participation of our District Directors is very limited and only a few are involved in helping our organization to grow. This is a very difficult situation in that we need an active and engaged Board of Directors to make sure our organization continues to grow and serve its membership. The good news is that I have had the privilege of seeing a couple of really impressive situations where a new District Director was elected and brought amazing changes, growth and a re-energizing effect to the district. I will mention one of the latest because I think it is so noteworthy and because I believe this is what needs to be happing everywhere in NAMBA. Chris Wittrig of District 9 was elected last year. For those of you who didn’t know, District9 had been struggling for a few years. There were some personality issues and all that it brings. Chris has stepped into his new role and he has been incredibly active in promoting model boating in his district and very engaged as a NAMBA Board Member. While there will always be some bickering between boaters, quite honestly the members in District 9 are just having fun. Chris’s new perspective on the board has been phenomenal, to say the least. My understanding is that he has been pragmatic, positive and mature in contri- butions and that can only be good for NAMBA. NAMBA does not have a formal process for training or preparing District Directors for their job. This makes the prospect of being a District Director a very scary and daunting proposition. When you add that many of the tasks that the District Director may deal with involve conflict and puts them right in the middle of their friends and peers, you can see why it is difficult to recruit new blood into these key positions. Nobody wants to be in a no-win position. The last area we need to cover before I get to the really cool stuff is this: while the NAMBA Board and voting structure is fairly well defined, it is not so much at the district level. While the rulebook specifies how districts are to be organized and how they will vote, over the years each district has developed its own voting rules and procedures. I am sure at one point as this process began to dilute from the original rules the idea was to allow districts to develop an organization that best serves their needs. However, as in so many similar cases, this has led to some practices within the districts that have become one-sided, distorted, and certainly misaligned with the national structure. I see now where many geographically diverse districts have voting policies that favor one area over another or one group they have deemed “the ones who get it done” over others. In any case, I believe this is an area we need to definitely look at for improvement. PROPWASH Even Page # Month Year