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Archiver > APG > 2007-07 > 1183936005


From: "Tom Morris" <>
Subject: Re: [APG] Why do genealogists disenfranchise themselves?
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 19:06:45 -0400
In-Reply-To: <200707051828.l65ISC7e020352@mail.rootsweb.com>


I'm as amazed as Melinde. Four years ago when NEHGS revoked member voting
rights I cancelled my membership and put NEHGS in the same bucket as
Ancestry (not a good bucket to be in). They now compete for my dollars like
any other commercial organization and get $0 in charitable contributions.
Actually, after the final member vote, I wasn't even a member any more, just
a subscriber. The only real members are the 50 or so "council" members.

I now work to actively minimize the amount of money I have to pay NEHGS the
same as I would any other vendor. If I've accumulated a days worth of
research to do on Newbury St., I'll buy a day pass. I'll consider
purchasing a year's subscription if the member discounts for things I want
to purchase total more than the cost of a membership or if I need access to
things that require a subscription like the manuscript collection or online
databases, but I would never just blindly renew like I used to.

As an aside, Joan Lowry mentioned that the NEHGS governance by a council of
50 was better than the NYG&B committee of 15, but council's initial
membership was appointed by the board and all replacements are elected by
the council itself -- not exactly an exercise in openness.

The sad fact is that once this has reached the proxy stage, it's very
difficult to defeat. People who return the proxy typically vote a "straight
ticket" as recommended by the board. As an example, the NEHGS ballot had a
19% return rate and 96-98% of those votes went to the board recommended
candidates. The board recommended disenfranchisement vote did only slightly
worse with a 90% approval rate. Those who are in power and stand to benefit
also control the nominating committee as well as the writing of the cover
letter, the proxy statement, and the proxy ballot itself. For example in
the NEHGS case, the proxy statement summary by president David Kruger
emphasized the expense of elections, while the new by-laws approved
electronic voting for the 50 remaining members. How much cheaper would
electronic voting have been for the 21,000 members who's voting rights were
eliminated?

There's a prolific online genealogy journalist who writes about the most
trivial topics which are even tangentially related to genealogy yet the
NEHGS issue received not a single word in "print" from him although he was
fully aware of it. Turns out that he became one of last 50 real NEHGS
members. There's a strong incentive for insiders to not rock the boat.

What did I do? Well I did do some last minute letter writing campaign, but
I, like so many others, left the proxy statement sitting on my desk unread
long after its arrival, so it was very late in the day by the time I got
started.

When I wrote NEHGS expressing my disapproval, they assumed that I had been
contacted by the lone opposition trustee candidate. I actually never heard
from this guy, but they sent me a smear campaign letter about the poor guy
anyway, informing me that he had had "a brief and unsuccessful tenure as an
employee of the Society." Nice! Such fine upstanding behavior, airing
personnel employment issues as part of a proxy fight -- and signed by both
the president and executive director, no less.

The revocation of voting rights was what got my attention initially, but the
lack of honesty and ethics during the proxy contest really sealed the deal
for me. With their current governance structure, NEHGS will never get a
penny they don't earn from me and I make a point to mention the issue to
anyone with whom I discuss the organization. Most people think it's much
ado about nothing, but I mention it anyway. At the end of the day, money is
the only thing that will make organizations like NEHGS and NYG&B change
their behavior.

Tom

ps. Sorry about the length of this, but the topic is one of my hot buttons
(maybe it's something in the air up where Melinde and I live).


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