Dear Esteemed Colleagues:

Having been recently elected with the majority of the votes, but not a majority of the members gives one pause to think about what that means. This conversation has been a real help. I see a lot of good suggestions, some that could easily be enacted. I love the idea of giving away a conference registration to some lucky voter, but I am only one vote on the board.

I want to list the issues I have seen so you all can correct or add to the list:

1) Chapter leadership is not, on the whole, active in promoting voting.

2) Some members perceive an "old boys (or girls!)" network that excludes better than it includes.

3) The election is not given appropriate "pride of place" within member notifications of ARMA activities.

4) The Election Management Committee is not trying hard enough.

5) The Candidate Forum is held opposite other important activities.

6) I would add something else: I believe the process takes way too long. Each candidate has put his or her life on hold for a minimum of 8 months--9 months this year, and members have no idea what is happening or when. 

My comments on the above:
1) Chapters: the eyes of my own chapter members glaze over when HQ, national, or regional issues are mentioned. We have very high participation levels, but we are a small chapter. At a minimum, I think it would be appropriate to at least let the chapter boards know what is going on and when so they can let members know, when they think the interest is there.

2) "Old boys" network: I think this may have had some validity some years back, but I found that anyone willing to work hard and contribute is valued. Part of our problem is a human one: making new friends is always hard to do. Part of our problem is a bad habit: sometimes we are not polite to each other. I believe one of the duties of any ARMA volunteer is to make new folks feel welcome. I love to be the last person to sit down because then I end up sitting next to some one I probably do not know at all, who is probably new. This gives me an opportunity to learn lots of cool new stuff as well as, I hope, make the other person feel welcome.

3) "Pride of place" for the election: I cannot count how many times my ARMA member friends called in between October and March to ask me when the election started and when it was over. We really don't advertise the election very well to ourselves, nor do we make clear what the election cycle is. 

4) Election Management Committee efforts: Those of us running for the board this year probably heard more from the EMC than candidates in any other election. They were scrupulous about fairness. They were asked to interpret the AL about campaigning in a new way, and they gave their ruling. My own belief is that they worked as hard as any EMC has ever worked. We have learned, however, that growth is incremental, and that maybe the EMC needs to communicate with the membership more, perhaps beginning with #3 above. Campaigning is a complex issue that has been well-discussed here.

5) Time for Candidate Forum: Our conference is so jam-packed with activities it is difficult to pry open further time for this. I think the suggestions for having a streaming video archive of the Forum is a great suggestion, as would be a transcript.

6) Time: discussed above.

Thank you all for your input. I will be anxiously awaiting further posts on this topic!

Best wishes,
Carol

Carol E.B. Choksy, Ph.D., CRM
CEO
IRAD Strategic Consulting, Inc.
(317)294-8329

Adjunct Professor
School of Library and Information Science
Indiana University, Bloomington

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