Dear John;
I am
disappointed that you still have not directly responded to my question;
It is a
simple question.
Are you
disbanding our search committee?
In the
absence of a direct response from you, I have concluded based on my
conversations today with 2 Executive Committee members that your unequivocal intention
is to disband the committee. A
simple response to my question would not have been out of order.
Your comments
below are disingenuous. At no time
did I state that the search committee would not continue its work. The fact that I indicated to you that
If you look
at the minutes of my last board meeting as Commodore (of which I believe you
were in attendance) the board asked me to continue my work as Chairman of the
Search Committee and I indicated I would do so until the work was complete.
In fact, if
you will recall, I advised you and the Executive Committee that I had recently received
the commitment of the entire search committee to continue its work unabated, and until the process was complete. Your comment that we would not "locate
more candidates" appears to be entirely taken out of context. You will recall, you asked me to task the
committee with going back and re-reviewing the resumes received to date to see
if we could produce a suitable applicant from those we had received and
previously rejected. I informed you
we subsequently fulfilled your request, and were unable to identify a single
acceptable candidate from the group we had already rejected. Your assumption that therefore we
"were done" and were unable to “locate more candidates” is
ludicrous.
At our
meeting, I indicated that we still have the website up and running, the burgee
continues its ads, Southwinds magazine continues its ads and no other website
ads have been taken down. You have
failed to provide any instruction as to whether to pull them down or keep them
up, so we have kept them up and continued to accept, review and vet additional
applications. We rejected two
this weekend and received another two that merit additional investigation. As I now believe you have disbanded our committee
we are “on hold” until I have further clarification.
How you can
now claim that three EC candidates seemed to understand that we were not
looking for more candidates is implausible at best. If only three thought this, what did the
other two think? Since only three
were still present when I told your committee that the Search Committee was
fully committed to continue its work (McCay, McCormack and Curry) is it
possible that two were under a different impression. And at least one of the three clearly
knew we had not quit this process.
If you were
not sure, and if you knew that at least two members may not have shared this
view, why did you not extend the courtesy of a phone call or an email inquiring
as to our intentions and to the state of the process at this point? Apparently you thought that your vague email
“dismissal” was more appropriate and preferable to inquiring as to
our intention in light of your confusion.
And incredibly,
one of your EC members at your Sunday meeting did in fact reject this premise that
I had at any time stated the Search Committee was finished, and it is my
understanding that this EC member read aloud at your meeting an email which I
sent to him and which clearly and specifically stated our intention to continue
the work for as long as the Squadron members wished us to and until the process
was complete. Why did you reject
this oral recitation and fail to investigate further?
You ask what
the problem is here and that does seem to be the question, doesn’t it.
Our committee
members have extended tremendous effort on behalf of this project. The impression you have created is that
you are more interested in derailing this process than in seeing it to its
completion.
Please
indicate if the impression you have created is inaccurate.
You will
recall that before you became Commodore, you and I had a phone conversation
about how you felt about the process of management transition which had been
going on at the Squadron for many months prior. You indicated you were largely unaware
of the process, but that your overriding concern as Commodore would be for the
welfare of
It is
apparent to me that we disagree on this fundamental premise.
You have made
allegations that the hiring process on which we have embarked upon is flawed. Yet you have never offered a single
specific reason on how you think it is flawed, nor have you made any offer to
improve it whatsoever. Your
response was to kill the committee.
Your implication
is that the efforts of the committee are inadequate. You have failed to familiarize yourself whatsoever
with the work of the search committee, or any of its fundamental documents
which all have been reviewed and unanimously approved by BOTH the Executive
Committee and the full Board of Directors.
Incredibly, you
asked me after January’s BOD meeting to immediately begin to run ads in
newspapers. You asked me to do this
immediately after my request for your EC to meet with an applicant which we
were recommending. You had not even
yet conducted your meeting to interview the candidate, yet you were asking that
we run newspaper ads. You clearly
did this without any thought as to the wishes of the Executive Committee or the
Board of Directors and without any consultation with them.
When I
advised you that we had worked on a fairly detailed list of specific ad venues and
had collectively determined that “newspaper ads” were at the bottom
or our list for anticipated effectiveness relative to expense, you made no
response or recommendation whatsoever.
It is disconcerting to have you come in at the 11th hour and
without having taken the time to review any of the work or documents that the
Search Committee has developed over the past seven months and to second guess
the work of our four talented and hard working committee members.
It has also
come to my attention that your EC has rejected one of the two applicants that
your committee has interviewed, and was trying to determine whether to hire the
second applicant. I was surprised
to hear that your committee had come up with the concept of a probationary period
of six months for this particular candidate given reservations you have about
this applicant.
If you had
made any attempt to look at the documents that had been approved and that are
on the website, you would have seen that there is already a probationary period
specified in the job description and it is for an initial period of far less
than six months. Once again, I am
disappointed that your committee failed to identify and understand the detail
that has gone into this process.
Yet the accusation of a flawed process remains.
Finally,
John, I must tell you I believe that the position of Commodore is to fulfill
the wishes of the majority of the members, and to carry out and execute the
Bylaws and Standing Rules. It is your prerogative as
Commodore to present as new business any changes in direction that you feel are
desirable. And the Board has the
right to discuss these proposals and to vote to approve or reject your
proposals. And important decisions should always
have the benefit of member comment.
You may not
be aware that although you won the election by 3 votes fairly, due to an error
by one of your current board members, approximately 30 to 35 ballots were
inadvertently not turned in until after the election was closed. Every one of these 30 plus ballots was cast
for Doug Kresge, your opponent and the “recommended” nominee for
Commodore. In fact, if this error was
not committed and had the ballots been turned in on Sunday, you would have lost
the election by over 24 votes. If I
had become aware that I had won an election as Commodore on this basis, I would
have tendered my resignation at the first Board meeting and cast my fate to the
Board of Directors in an attempt to have the will of the members done.
Either you
are unaware of this situation or you disagree with this position.
I raise this
issue now as you appear to have taken a very cavalier approach to your position
as Commodore and seem to have your own agenda with respect to the process of
management transition. I would
caution you that you would be well advised to take note of what the majority of
the membership believe is in the best interests of the Squadron, and to garner
the support of your board members prior to taking any action rather than to act
unilaterally. You are governing
without a mandate.
You appear to
be taking an ironfisted approach to committee appointments and it has become
apparent to many members that you are rejecting volunteers that you have
personally decided do not merit appointment to a committee. There seems to be some irony in this
given your call for volunteers to come forward in your most recent Burgee
article.
The Squadron
has always been about inclusion and not exclusion. This tack on your part is disconcerting
to many members.
So, what is
the problem John? If your intention
was to kill the process of management transition, your killing the committee is
a step in that direction. But
please do not make the mistake of mischaracterizing my statements or positions
in order to further your own agenda.
The Search Committee
remains ready and willing to complete its work and awaits further instruction
from the Executive Committee.
Sincerely
yours,
Search
Committee Chairman
-----Original Message-----
From: John MacKay [mailto:jamackay@aol.com]
Sent:
To: <alan@gulfharboryacht.com>
Subject: Re: Thank you for your hard work
I am confused all right. You told me after the interview with
(name deleted)
that your committee had furnished us with two qualified candidate
and
that we should not expect the committee to locate more candidates
based on the 1 in 100 comparison from Ronnie Bridges. Three of the
EC
members seemed to understand that you were not looking for more
candidates, so we assumed you were done. I spoke with Nancy
Carolan
today and she seems ready to continue, so what is it. There is a
problem here. What is it?
John MacKay
Greetings from planet iPhonia!
On Jan 14, 2008, at 7:43 AM, "Alan Pressman"
<alan@gulfharboryacht.com> wrote:
> John;
>
> I do not understand this message. Are you thanking us for our work or
> are you disbanding our committee?
>
> We have received two more resumes this weekend which have not
been
> voted
> on.
>
> They may have promise as one member has voted for a
preliminary
> meeting
> with our committee.
The other 3 members have not indicated their
> choice.
>
> Please clarify what you are indicating.
>
> Alan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John MacKay [mailto:jamackay@aol.com]
> Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 5:43 PM
> To: <alan@gulfharboryacht.com>
<alan@gulfharboryacht.com>
> Cc: Tom Dieter; Stan Zimmerman; Stephen McCormack; David Curry
> Subject: Thank you for your hard work
>
> Alan, The executive committee wishes me to thank your committee
for
> their work on the Search Committee. We realize that a great deal
of
> work has been done on our behalf. We are delaying our final
decision
> for a few more days, giving us more time to discuss the matter.
> Would you please do two more things. I would like to have a list
of
> all candidates you interviewed so that we may advise them of our
final
> decision and to thank them for applying. As a matter of record,
please
> furnish all resume's received for our files.
> We wish to thank all members of your committee with a gift
certificate
> or other item. Please let me know what you would think
appropriate.
> John MacKay
>
> Greetings from planet iPhonia!
>