NCUC elections for Chair and EC

[Robin Gross]

It seems you misunderstand those emails below.  I had asked the constituency chairs to reconfirm appointments that had been made - about a month ago to you - since I was creating a new email list and needed to be sure I had the proper email addresses on the list.  I was not asking the constituency chairs to open-up a decision that had been made a month ago and potentially kick out new appointments that had been made a month ago to the NCSG.   Sorry if you thought this was a new call for new appointments and an opportunity to take one of those new appointments for yourself.   I don't think it is fair to criticize Konstantinos for not selecting you for one of the appointments since you had more than a year to do the job yourself already.  

Robin


On Nov 14, 2011, at 2:04 PM, Avri Doria wrote:

> Dear fellow NCUC members, with apologies to NPOC members and Independent NCSG members, 
> 
> With the election upcoming, I want to bring up an issue related to the transparency in the NCUC.
> 
> I tried to put this issue on the Dakar agenda but other issues were deemed to be of greater importance.  My concern stems from the appointments the NCUC has been making and the lack of participation and transparency in these appointments.
> 
> Over the last half year, the NCUC Executive Committee allegedly made decisions about who to nominate for NCSG Chair and who to appoint to the NCSG-EC, the NCSG-PC and the NCSG-FC.  Yet there is no evidence of discussions having been held among the entire NCUC Executive Committee, let alone among the entire NCUC membership.  I have spoken to several NCUC EC members and none of the ones I spoke to were able to say that they were involved in such discussions.  I can only surmise that the NCUC Chair made the decisions on his own, perhaps in consultation with a few friends.  If I am wrong, I am sure the NCUC EC members who participated in these decisions should speak up. In any case, the issues were never brought to the membership.
> 
> Just recently, there was a conversation in the NCUC-EC, which due to an archive having finally been made available, can be seen where:
> 
> <http://mailman.ctyme.com/pipermail/ec-ncuc/2011-November/000121.html> Milton asks whether Konstantinos can make a public call before making any appointment final to the NCSG-EC, NCSG-PC and NCSG-FC
> 
> <http://mailman.ctyme.com/pipermail/ec-ncuc/2011-November/000122.html> Konstantinos say that goes without saying.
> 
> And yet there was never any outreach.  I wrote a private email to Konstantinos indicating my interest, but got back email saying the issue was closed.  Hence this note to the NCUC membership.  I think the way the NCUC is being run is problematic and am thus bringing the issue to the full discuss list.
> 
> For full disclosure, I admit this bothers me for several reasons. One, as mentioned above, I would have liked for the NCUC to have considered me as a candidate for NCSG-EC or NCSG-PC and the fact that it was all done opaquely is disturbing on a personal level. I also expect that there are many NCUC members who might have asked to be considered for any of these tasks. But since a call never went out at any time, there were no volunteers. But more than the personal disappointment, which I reveal for full disclosure, I am very concerned that the NCUC is losing its democratic nature and is becoming a group controlled by a small handful of people in a non-transparent manner.
> 
> I doubt anything can be done to fix the past, it is as it was.  But as we approach an election for a new NCUC Chair and Executive Committee, it is important we know what it is that our NCUC-EC  does and to what extent they are involved in transparently making NCUC decisions?  I would also like to know more about what intentions the candidates for these posts have in bringing issues to the list for discussion before decisions are made and in increasing transparency and accountability in the NCUC.  I do not beleive we can have single officers, or a small group of friends, making decisions in the name of NCUC any longer.
> 
> A related issue to this one.  It was my impression that in the past, the NCUC had a practice where it tried to spread around the tasks and not concentrate all of the officer roles in a few hands.  At the moment, we have several people who occupy several roles; ie. one is both NCUC chair and a NCUC appointed member of the NCSG-PC (a self appointment by all appearances), one is a member of both the NCSG-EC and the NCSG-PC,  and one is an elected council member and a NCSG-EC member.  While there are no NCUC charter rules against this to my knowledge, I do think it was previous practice to avoid it.  Certainly as a constituency with over 100 active members, we should be able to find suitable officers for all roles without duplication. Again nothing can probably be done about this at the moment, the past being the past, but I do think it is an unsatisfactory way for the Constituency to make appointments - we should strive for as much of a cross-section of our membership as possible and should share the responsibilities.  As the NCUC charter currently needs to be revised to bring it into accordance with the NCSG Charter, at least I beleive that is the case, it might be good for us to look at codifying this practice.
> 
> Again apologies to the NPOC members and NCSG independent members who find the airing of NCUC internal laundry disturbing, but it is only slightly different from a public archive - we can put NCUC in the subject and you all can avoid reading these messages.  As a constituency the NCUC decided not have a NCUC only list, which I beleive the NCSG charter allows, so this is the only way to bring up internal NCUC issues.
> 
> avri
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 14 Nov 2011, at 13:57, Konstantinos Komaitis wrote:
> 
>> Dear all,
>> 
>> Yes! It has been a year and elections are upon us. We need to elect an NCUC Chair and an NCUC Executive Committee.
>> 
> 




IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
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