SOG-UK-L Archives

Archiver > SOG-UK > 2001-06 > 0991649357


From: Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake <>
Subject: [SoG] Committees (was Lower Library)
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 11:09:17 +0100
In-Reply-To: <200106031750_MC3-D489-C108@compuserve.com>


In message <>, Jeanne Bunting
UK <> writes
>Barney,
>
>>and downright rudeness of the Society in abolishing the Computers
>Committee and not even writing
>to the members thereof to inform them that that Committee was disbanded and
>their services were no longer needed. <
>
>I am sorry, but you have got that wrong! The Computer Committee was not
>abolished, its functions were "...... consolidated within those of the
>three continuing committees...... and the Executive Committee" or so it
>says in the Annual Report (which you should have received with your latest
>GM).

Sorry Jeanne, but this is just sophistry and circumlocution by the Exec.
It reminds me of businessmen who think they are being very advanced when
they use phrases like 'business process re-engineering' which means
redundancy to you and I. The Computers Committee functions may have been
absorbed into other committees, but due to the pathetic way in which it
was handled, its people were not all so absorbed, and as you say below,
it is people not functions that the Society needs.
>The Annual Report is for the year ended December 2000 but for some
>reason, the Committee year is only from the previous AGM, thus the Computer
>Committee does not get a mention in "Who's Who at the SoG: Governance" (p
>14 in my draft copy).
>
>>>It was strange to receive a letter from the former Director thanking me
>for volunteering and welcoming me to the Computers Committee then nothing
>but silence from the present Director on its abolition.<<
>
>How do you think I felt after 13 years on that Committee!
>
Worse than I did obviously.
>>>What you suggest the Society does is praiseworthy and would have been
>just the type of challenge the Computers Committee would have risen to.<<
>
>Provided it could have found an organiser. We have plenty of Indians - it
>is the Chiefs we are short of!
So, if you are short of them, one would hope that the first thing on the
Executive's agenda in pushing through such changes was to keep people
continuing to volunteer for the Society. Au contraire they practised
mushroom management (keep them in the dark and feed them on shit, for
those unfamiliar with the expression) and then wondered why some key
volunteers slung their hooks and mixed their metaphors.

I for one have never questioned the desirability of getting members of
the former Computers Committee active on other Committees since I see IT
as an enabling technology for those other disciplines, and within this
Society we are all genealogists first and IT persons second. I believe
that those members of the Executive who engineered this change had
objections to the former Computers Committee because they saw it as a
clique. Indeed it was a clique, if you define a clique as a close-knit
group of friends who are capable of working together for the benefit of
all. Why a clique should represent a threat to anyone escapes me. It
probably tells you more about personal inadequacy on the part of those
that feel threatened by it than anything else. To me the great things
about this clique called the Computers Committee were:

1) it was open to all. All you needed to be was a member of the SoG with
the appropriate skills and you were in. In the short time that I was a
member I believe we even recruited two people who were not SoG members
and then got them to sign up!

2) it rolled up its sleeves and got things done. Action not spin was its
motto.

3)It was the sole forum within the Society where technical issues could
be discussed between peers, following which action would be taken on a
sound technical basis.

John Addis-Smith was kind enough to mention the role I played as a
Computers Committee member in getting the SoG Bookshop online. Members
may be interested in knowing the sequence of events that occurred here.

1) A request came from the Executive and Bookshop Manager to the
Computers Committee for the latter to create an online bookshop for the
Society.

2) The Chairman of the Computers Committee raised this at the next
Computers Committee meeting and I broke the first rule of Army life,
stuck up my hand and volunteered.

3) No functional requirement specification (FRS) had been drawn up by
the Executive (who at that time I suspect did not know what one was), so
I was left to my own devices.

4) In the absence of an FRS I interviewed the Bookshop Manager and
learned from him what was required.

5) I went home and researched the market for suitable software, obtained
evaluation versions and tested them against the Bookshop Manager's
needs.

6) I wrote a short technical paper that was presented and discussed at
the next Computers Committee meeting. As a result of this discussion we
agreed that the Actinic Catalog software was the most suited to the
Society's needs. Rather than then being able to get on with it, I was
told that I would have to wait indefinitely while the General Purposes
Committee looked at this recommendation to purchase and configure
Actinic Catalog software and gave a decision. Frankly the GP Committee
did not then have the skills to understand the issues, so I was in for a
long wait.

7) This is where the action not words bit comes in. I went out and spent
my own money (over 400 pounds) to buy the software and started working
the next week with the Bookshop Manager to configure it. Two weeks later
we had a working system and two months later the Society was selling
more publications online than it was through the physical bookshop.

8) I submitted a bill for the software (my time as a volunteer came
free) and was reimbursed within a week.

The two key things in this process were

a) action happened.

b) the decision to purchase suitable software was taken as a result of
informed discussion in a forum of technical expertise.

One weakness that has since been resolved is that the Executive now has
sufficient members on it with IT experience that it can now understand
the technical issues involved and maybe even produce an FRS. That's what
the Executive wanted to achieve in bringing people with IT experience
from the Computers Committee onto other Committees, which is good.
Unfortunately they have thrown out the baby with the bath water by
sacrificing a) and b) above. They could have kept all the volunteers
onside by asking them to continue on the Computers Committee but also
join other Committees. To my certain knowledge they did not do so, and
when I wrote to the Director suggesting that the Executive do just that
he did not even deign to send me a reply.

Can you understand why I am demotivated?

What would it take to get me working as an active volunteer again? Three
things:

1- a written apology from the Director and the Executive to all members
of the former Computers Committee for the way in which this whole affair
was mismanaged.

2- a request for me to meet with the Chairman of whatever Committee was
deemed appropriate if they want me to work on it.

3- a decision at the next Executive Committee to reinstate the Computers
Committee under its previous Chairman with defined responsibilities and
terms of reference.

I realise that 1 and 3 above may stick in the throat for some Executive
members, but that's the price to pay for making mistakes. I will be at
the AGM if anyone wants to discuss any of this with me privately, but
have no intention of raising it there as an issue as I expect it would
generate far more heat than light. If anyone else chooses to raise it,
that is their prerogative, and they have my permission to quote from
this message provided that they do so in context.
--
Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake

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