From merope@Radix.Net Mon Dec 11 13:15:17 2000
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 13:15:15 -0500 (EST)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
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Chock full o' holiday spirit...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Sunday 10 December 2000:
Tina Vickery urges Tim Stowell to forward the email soliciting volunteers
for the standing Election Committee to the project mailing lists.
Voting on Motion 00-29 [to apply for a service mark] proceeds. Thus far,
11 Board members have voted "yes" [this motion has passed; now lets see
what they do or, more likely, don't do with it].
===
Trouble In Paradise Corner: A rather interesting email has made its way
to the DBS newscube via the usual channels. Originally posted to the
TNGenWeb mailing list, it lists a litany of charges against our own Dear
Leader, Tim Stowell. The message is from former TNGenNet board member
Chip Brown [with whom I recently had the pleasure of serving on the ESC]
and begins with the observation that Tim clearly is unfamiliar with the
bylaws of TNGenNet even though he sits on its board and remarks
on his inability to keep up with even the barest minimum of his duties as
USGenWeb National Coordinator. It ends with the not-too-surprising
revelation that he actively promised to "get rid of" several USGW members
and organizations affiliated with or supportive of the USGenWeb in
exchange for the help of his supporters in getting elected [this "help"
included harvesting email addresses so that Tim could send last-minute
spam to USGW voters]. Those targeted for purging include Fred Smoot,
Carole Hammett, USGenNet, and surprisingly [for a board member] TNGenNet
itself. The message also accuses Tim of instigating many of the major
problems through which TNGW has recently struggled. Chip now regrets
anything he did that helped Tim get re-elected as NC and has called for
Tim's immediate resignation. He has also indicated that his complaints
and concerns will go before the USGW Advisory Board [where it will no
doubt be fast-tracked to the 90 or 120 day schedule].
In a related area, we have also received information from other sources
that current TNGenWeb SC Nancy Cole has suggested that she will personally
alter the bylaws of TNGenNet in order to avoid calling elections in 2000.
The bylaws currently require that TNGenNet hold elections in even numbered
years, but time is rapidly running out on that clock.
===
"It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you
can fool enough of them to rule a large country."
---Will Durant
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
-------
Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Tue Dec 12 16:34:25 2000
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 16:34:25 -0500 (EST)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: Daily Board Show
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Paddle your own canoe...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Monday 11 December 2000:
Tina Vickery, in her capacity at "NE/NC County Coordinator
Representative, and as a member of the ESC committee," asks Tim Stowell to
forward the solicitation for volunteers for the Election Committee to all
project mailing lists and post it to the USGW home page. She also
requests "that the ESC be thanked for a hard job well done, and that all
USGenWeb volunteers be encouraged to take an active role in the future of
the USGenWeb Project elections."
Shari Handly says she will personally forward the message to the SE/MA
regional list. Tina thanks Shari but notes that it is her hope "that it
will go to the Project from the National Coordinator."
Holly Timm notes that since Tim appears to be having ongoing email
problems, she has forwarded the call for volunteers to the lists herself.
Tim Stowell [finally chiming in] notes that he will send it where he can,
but he does not subscribe to all the lists.
===
Call For Volunteers Corner: The following has gone out to all the
central project mailing lists; you are welcome to forward it wherever
else it might be appropriate [state and county lists, for example]:
"The USGenWeb Project Advisory Board is recruiting volunteers to serve on
the Standing Election Committee! This subCommittee will operate year round
and members serve a two-year term. Representative duties of the
subCommittee include conducting all
national level elections; maintaining current voter rolls; and researching
voter software. The Advisory Board, along with members of the Election
Study Committee, encourage all USGenWeb Project members to visit
http://www.timmweb.pair.com/esc/report.html for more details of this very
important committee within the USGenWeb Project. If you are interested in
participating on this committee, please contact Tim Stowell
tstowell@chattanooga.net, National Coordinator AND Holly Timm,
Representative at Large hollyft@bright.net by December 22, 2000."
Nest of Vipers Corner: The article yesterday on the latests doings in
TNGenWeb has lured some interesting critters out of the woodwork. A
correspondent has explained to us that the TNGenNet bylaws are in
conflict, as they both order new elections every even numbered year and
grant elected officers two year terms. Since the bylaws were not enacted
until 1999, the current SC has decided to honor the portion of the bylaws
that grant two year terms and will call elections in 2001. This will of
course result in a continual failure to honor the provision in the bylaws
the requires that elections be held in even numbered years. [Actually,
the TNGenNet bylaws require only that new slates of candidates be proposed
in even numbered years and that elections follow. They could conceivably
publish a new slate now and hold elections in 2001. Perhaps not what the
authors of the bylaws intended, but we have our own Glorious Leader to
thank for demonstrating what can be done with a little wiggle room.]
Another source claims that Chip Brown is using this contradiction in the
bylaws to destroy TNGenNet, since Tim Stowell has failed to do so as
promised. And its even been intimated that Tim himself is behind this,
since it would be more than a little unseemly for a sitting board member
to actively work to destroy the organization he was elected to serve. We
hear from Chip's own words that he's been happy to do Tim's dirty work in
the past; is this just more of the same?
===
.. they do not mean to lie; but, taking no pains to be exact, they give
you very false accounts."
---Samuel Johnson
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
-------
Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Fri Dec 15 13:34:16 2000
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 13:34:16 -0500 (EST)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>
Subject: Daily Board Show
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Wouldn't you know...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Thursday 14 December 2000:
Tim Stowell announces that Motion 00-39, to obtain the service mark for
"USGenWeb", has passed with 11 yes votes.
Teri Pettit notes that the Election Study Committee Report did "not
specify whether the Board motion for approval or disapproval should be
phrased such that a "Yes" vote approves the slate, or such that a "Yes"
vote rejects it (thereby requiring 2/3 dissatisfaction to force a return
to the drawing board), and when probed for clarification on this point the
ESC declined to specify and left it to the Board's discretion..." She
suggests that the Board discuss this now and "agree among ourselves which
it should be, and make that a matter of policy," noting that otherwise,
"it depends on the whim of the first person to submit a motion about it."
She notes some obvious advantages and disadvantages to phrasing the
motions one way or another, most notably the ability of a small group of
people to repeatedly reject any slate of volunteers forwarded for one
reason or another and thus unreasonably delay indefinitely the seating of
a standing Election Committee.
===
The Devil In The Details Corner: A reader the other day alerted us to the
fact that GenTech has posted the program for its upcoming GenTech 2001
conference, to be held Feb 2-3, 2001 in Mesquite, TX. While perusing the
brochure we found the following:
"Mark your schedule to include the first-ever RootsWeb and USGenWeb
nationwide group meetings on Saturday at 5:00. Activists, prospective
volunteers and users have the opportunity to network and sound off with
ideas, improvements and plans. Meet the movers and shakers and let
yourself be heard."
[source: http://www.gentech.org/2001brochure/special.htm]
Not recalling any formal announcement that the USGenWeb was holding its
"first-ever nationwide group meeting" at GenTech 2001 or at any other
conference, we queried the Board about this. As it turns out, they didn't
know about it either. Thus far, six Board members have written to say
that they have no prior knowledge of this, they don't know who the "movers
and shakers" attending the session might be, and they are more than a
little perturbed that either 1) GenTech is using USGenWeb's name as a draw
to its conference without the formality of asking its permission first; or
2) some members of USGW [Board members Tim Stowell, Babs Dore and Ken
Short, perhaps?] were notified and/or gave their permission and failed to
notify the rest of their colleagues or the project membership. One of the
Board members who responded notes "it is quite troubling to me that any
group is touting a very "official-sounding" USGenWeb meeting without
official sanction, or even official *notification*."
Given that the meeting is only about a month and a half away and time for
making arrangements to attend is running short, one would reasonably
expect that an announcement of some sort would have been made to the
membership so that we might be able to plan to attend. [For what its
worth, we have heard so many rumors of financial irregularities,
mismanagement, and member unhappiness in regards to GenTech, that we
actually think its more likely that the GT management messed up than that
USGW management did. <g>]
On a slightly different topic, one session planned for the conference will
be presented on Saturday at 11am by Barbara Renick and is entitled "GenWeb
Projects and Webrings." It is described thusly: "Explore the differences
between the U.S. and World GenWeb Projects and the more loosely associated
webrings that are springing up all over the Internet to help
genealogists." Ms. Renick appears to have nothing to do with USGenWeb,
but she did recently co-author a book on internet genealogy with Richard
S. Wilson, who I believe is the SC of CAGenWeb. Richard will be speaking
on genealogy software programs and on digitally restoring old photos at
the conference. There is also a talk called "RootsWeb Revealed", but
unfortunately its not the expose' one might expect. <g>
The conference's website is at: http://www.gentech.org/2001home.htm and
you can get the full brochure,contact info, registration info, etc there.
===
"The humblest citizen of all the land when clad in the armor of a
righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of Error."
---William Jennings Bryan
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
-------
Daily Board Show, (c) 2000 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.