SPA population elections fairness affordability

IDEAS ON CHANGING THE STRUCTURE OF GOVERNANCE IN SPA “The increasing conflict in SPA in recent years, the slow membership growth and lack of effectiveness in achieving our aims, are all indicators of an inefficient organization. This year a huge amount of time was spent in dispute, which some dismissed as personality conflict. A more realistic view is that the conflict was a result of mounting irritations over recent years resulting from a structure that served SPA/AESP well in its early days but which is inadequate for today’s larger membership spread across the nation. The current Committee is too large. Seventeen members is too many for a face to face meeting. For teleconferencing it is both too large and too costly. Meetings tend to be dominated by a small number of members with some having nothing to say. Eight members are representatives nominated by each branch. Nine are elected members. We could reduce conflicts over elections if all members of the national Executive were elected by the individual Branches. There would be no need for elections at the AGM. Branch members are more likely to know local candidates and participation in elections would be more evenly distributed among our members. At present using the proxy system only a small portion of members apart from those attending the AGM get to vote. Elections within the elected delegate body would assign office holding to particular delegates. […] AGMs could be used as a conference platform rather than a requirement for holding an election which serves to disenfranchise the bulk of our members. The sheer size of membership and the tasks to be undertaken overwhelms a structure based on 4 Office bearer positions with most tasks involving the President or Secretary. It is time for a wider distribution of responsibilities, For a President as a national leader and spokesman, for a Chairman to lead the meetings, for a Minutes Secretary and a Correspondence Secretary, for a Membership Officer to deal with the needs of our members and tasks such as dealing with new membership forms, for a PR Officer to coordinate media activities and to assist the Branches in their media efforts, a Communications/Publications Officer to oversee the newsletter, occasional papers, info sheets, and the ‘how to’ empowerment documents (on newspaper letters, lobbying etc) and the collection of videos and DVDs that are now being collected for loan to the branches. I would like to see an information officer/librarian to keep track of ABS data and the flood of reports from around the world that are so essential in making submissions. Not all of these roles can be filled in the Executive Committee, but with clear roles for individual Committee members we have a better chance of involving members in these activities and developing a powerful membership base. Certainly any new structure is unlikely to be less efficient than the one we have now: any new approach to be less effective than the past year’s efforts. Our members are our strength but it takes a different approach to fully utilize that strength. (…)” Paddy Weaver