[arrl-odv:32456] Re: Volunteer Wanted-ARRL Standing Orders
Dear Carla, You appear to question my concept that the Standing Orders are "buried on the website," and ask where I found them. Glad you asked. Here's my story. I found the Standing Orders on the ARRL web site by going to www.arrl.org. I entered "standing orders" into "Website Search." This led me to a page of results (page 1), none of which was the actual standing orders. I clicked on "next" and nothing came up. So I returned and clicked on page 2, and nothing came up. So I decided to return to the original www.arrl.org page and guessed that I should click on "About ARRL." None of the choices there are "Articles of Association," "By-laws," or "Standing Orders." But I did spot "Organization Structure," and, taking a guess, clicked on it. "Organization Structure" has a second paragraph with links to the Articles of Association and By-Laws, but no link to Standing Orders. So, as a pure guess, I clicked on "ODV-Board Confidential." THERE, I saw for the first time, under "Miscellaneous ARRL Documents," I found a link to "Standing Orders." The URL is http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Standing%20Orders%204-27-21.pdf. BINGO! It took me 11 clicks to get to the Standing Orders, and they are on the ODV/Board Confidential page. You write below that "whatever you're looking at is likely to be very out of date." Yet the document says: "Update April 27, 2021." So that's a bit confusing. Yet I persisted. At this point, I found, on page 1: " [Secretary’s note: Because so many of the early Standing Orders have been deleted, and because the numbering system used prior to 1983 offers no information as to when the motion was adopted that resulted in the Standing Order, it would be appropriate to eliminate the references to the 92 deleted Standing Orders from prior to 1983 and to renumber the remaining 40 Standing Orders.]" [FH Comment: Whatever year that note was inserted by the Secretary, the referenced 92 deleted orders were never deleted.] Looking at the Standing Orders, I found that, as of today, 191 of them have been deleted, superceded, or rescinded. I remain unsure about the difference between "deleted" and "rescinded." So I decided that ARRL could do better. Rather than complain and create work for you, I asked the New England Division for help. About 10 people volunteered who appeared to be appropriate for the task. And two lawyers volunteered. As I am a fan of lawyers, I asked one of them to take a look. Not only was he, when in high career mode, a Vice Admiral and 35th Surgeon General of the Navy, but, after retirement, he went to Western New England Law School and graduated #1 in his class. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar. I judge K1DCA, now retired to Cape Cod, to be qualified. What happened to the other lawyer you may ask? He is expert at the law of Intellectual Property. I’ve referred him on to K3RF to help out on our intellectual property challenges. Back to K1DCA. He has already produced a rewrite for clarity on substance, with some good ideas, and a reorganization with Table of Contents. The copy he provided to me is both more readable, and more usable, and no longer includes the 191 Standing Orders that have no value to the current Board. The document is considerably shorter than the 24 pages I found hidden on the ARRL website. Now one might ask why the Standing Orders are hidden. Dave Sumner, K1ZZ, a former CEO of ARRL, upon reading my query for help, wrote to me: Hey Fred, I was amused by your message about the Standing Orders. They're certainly not secret; they are taken from published Board Minutes. They used to be organized by topic but that system was abandoned many years ago when the code created by Bob Schetgen, KU7G (SK) was added that identifies the meeting and minute number so the original source can be easily located. . . . I agree that there's no reason to keep them behind the wall . . . So here are the bottom lines: 1. I stand by my description of the Standing Orders as “well-hidden web page not available to the membership at large.” In my view, requiring eleven clicks and two guesses qualifies as “well-hidden.” Posting only to "ODV-Board Confidential" qualifies as “not available to the membership at large.” 2. I think the membership will be well served when the Standing Orders, each of which was once published in the public minutes, are findable and more readable. In the meantime, you can relax, as I am not placing any burden on you or the Office of the CEO. And I am glad you asked what I’m doing. When the project is ready for public display, I think the proper procedure will be to send it to the Legal Structure Committee, and onward from there to the Committee on Administration and Finance. Glad you asked. -----Original Message----- From: Pereira, Carla, KC1HSX [mailto:cpereira@arrl.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2021 10:05 AM To: Fred Hopengarten Subject: RE: Volunteer Wanted-ARRL Standing Orders Where did you find the standing orders you are referring to "buried on the website"? I need the path at the bottom of the page in order to locate it on our labyrinthian website. As far as we are aware the only place the Standing Orders are currently located is the ODV page, so whatever you're looking at is likely to be very out of date. Not a person in this office was even here in 2015. Those standing orders are reviewed by and updated as needed, most recently last month, which are the standing orders you'll find on the odv page and the only ones you, as a board member, should be referring to. -----Original Message----- From: ARRL Members Only Web site <memberlist@www.arrl.org> Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2021 7:12 PM To: Pereira, Carla, KC1HSX <cpereira@arrl.org> Subject: Volunteer Wanted-ARRL Standing Orders The Board of Directors of the ARRL has, on a well-hidden web page not available to the membership at large, a set of Standing Orders that "are Board actions that have lasting effect and are not otherwise incorporated into the working documents of the organization. Standing Orders are not Bylaws, so they may be amended or deleted at any time, either permanently or temporarily, by normal action of the Board or the Executive Committee." The last time they were reviewed was, as best I can tell, in 2015. The document listing them is 24 pages long, but much of the document is composed of Standing Orders that have been withdrawn or, by the terms of the order, expired. ARRL Standing Orders should be organized so that Board members, and the membership, can know what they are. There is no need for mystery. This means that they should be bunched into topic areas. Examples would be topics like these: * Membership recognitions * League business travel and expense reimbursement policies * Balloting and election procedures * Committee reports * Convention and hamfest rules * Investment and financial policies * Field organization matters and so forth. Once organized, the Standing Orders will be more readable, and I can then push to have them published where members can read them. I know of no reason for what I've seen to be secret. I'm a "transparency guy." The use of a volunteer is completely consistent with the concept found in Standing Order #63, to "endeavor to maximize the utilization of qualified volunteer services in conduct of League affairs, such volunteers to include the Officers, Board of Directors and members of the ARRL." If you are handy with Microsoft Word (Google Docs, WordPerfect, etc.), and know how to create a Table of Contents, you could do this job. The deadline for usefulness at the July meeting of the Board, is probably about June 25 (before Field Day). If you think you could spare 10-12 hours for the project, are you willing to volunteer to help out? I'll work closely with the chosen volunteer so that I can present the project to the Board at its July meeting. Can you help? -------------------------------------------------------------------- ARRL New England Division Director: Fred Hopengarten, K1VR k1vr@arrl.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from messages, go to: http://p1k.arrl.org/oo/71166e3b6821a9d4641d7a1ef58f8221
Hi Fred, Just to clarify my question, the Standing Orders you originally referred to are in fact the ones that are on the ODV page? Since you said they had been last updated 2015 I assumed an outdated doc was floating around somewhere on the website and needed to come down asap. It appears that is not the case, and you were referring to the current SO’s, so there is nothing that needs to come down at this time. I just needed to be sure that is the case. Thank you. Carla From: Fred Hopengarten <hopengarten@post.harvard.edu> Sent: Sunday, June 6, 2021 10:06 PM To: Pereira, Carla, KC1HSX <cpereira@arrl.org>; arrl-odv <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Subject: RE: Volunteer Wanted-ARRL Standing Orders Dear Carla, You appear to question my concept that the Standing Orders are "buried on the website," and ask where I found them. Glad you asked. Here's my story. I found the Standing Orders on the ARRL web site by going to www.arrl.org<http://www.arrl.org>. I entered "standing orders" into "Website Search." This led me to a page of results (page 1), none of which was the actual standing orders. I clicked on "next" and nothing came up. So I returned and clicked on page 2, and nothing came up. So I decided to return to the original www.arrl.org<http://www.arrl.org> page and guessed that I should click on "About ARRL." None of the choices there are "Articles of Association," "By-laws," or "Standing Orders." But I did spot "Organization Structure," and, taking a guess, clicked on it. "Organization Structure" has a second paragraph with links to the Articles of Association and By-Laws, but no link to Standing Orders. So, as a pure guess, I clicked on "ODV-Board Confidential." THERE, I saw for the first time, under "Miscellaneous ARRL Documents," I found a link to "Standing Orders." The URL is http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Standing%20Orders%204-27-21.pdf. BINGO! It took me 11 clicks to get to the Standing Orders, and they are on the ODV/Board Confidential page. You write below that "whatever you're looking at is likely to be very out of date." Yet the document says: "Update April 27, 2021." So that's a bit confusing. Yet I persisted. At this point, I found, on page 1: " [Secretary’s note: Because so many of the early Standing Orders have been deleted, and because the numbering system used prior to 1983 offers no information as to when the motion was adopted that resulted in the Standing Order, it would be appropriate to eliminate the references to the 92 deleted Standing Orders from prior to 1983 and to renumber the remaining 40 Standing Orders.]" [FH Comment: Whatever year that note was inserted by the Secretary, the referenced 92 deleted orders were never deleted.] Looking at the Standing Orders, I found that, as of today, 191 of them have been deleted, superceded, or rescinded. I remain unsure about the difference between "deleted" and "rescinded." So I decided that ARRL could do better. Rather than complain and create work for you, I asked the New England Division for help. About 10 people volunteered who appeared to be appropriate for the task. And two lawyers volunteered. As I am a fan of lawyers, I asked one of them to take a look. Not only was he, when in high career mode, a Vice Admiral and 35th Surgeon General of the Navy, but, after retirement, he went to Western New England Law School and graduated #1 in his class. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar. I judge K1DCA, now retired to Cape Cod, to be qualified. What happened to the other lawyer you may ask? He is expert at the law of Intellectual Property. I’ve referred him on to K3RF to help out on our intellectual property challenges. Back to K1DCA. He has already produced a rewrite for clarity on substance, with some good ideas, and a reorganization with Table of Contents. The copy he provided to me is both more readable, and more usable, and no longer includes the 191 Standing Orders that have no value to the current Board. The document is considerably shorter than the 24 pages I found hidden on the ARRL website. Now one might ask why the Standing Orders are hidden. Dave Sumner, K1ZZ, a former CEO of ARRL, upon reading my query for help, wrote to me: Hey Fred, I was amused by your message about the Standing Orders. They're certainly not secret; they are taken from published Board Minutes. They used to be organized by topic but that system was abandoned many years ago when the code created by Bob Schetgen, KU7G (SK) was added that identifies the meeting and minute number so the original source can be easily located. . . . I agree that there's no reason to keep them behind the wall . . . So here are the bottom lines: 1. I stand by my description of the Standing Orders as “well-hidden web page not available to the membership at large.” In my view, requiring eleven clicks and two guesses qualifies as “well-hidden.” Posting only to "ODV-Board Confidential" qualifies as “not available to the membership at large.” 1. I think the membership will be well served when the Standing Orders, each of which was once published in the public minutes, are findable and more readable. In the meantime, you can relax, as I am not placing any burden on you or the Office of the CEO. And I am glad you asked what I’m doing. When the project is ready for public display, I think the proper procedure will be to send it to the Legal Structure Committee, and onward from there to the Committee on Administration and Finance. Glad you asked. -----Original Message----- From: Pereira, Carla, KC1HSX [mailto:cpereira@arrl.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2021 10:05 AM To: Fred Hopengarten Subject: RE: Volunteer Wanted-ARRL Standing Orders Where did you find the standing orders you are referring to "buried on the website"? I need the path at the bottom of the page in order to locate it on our labyrinthian website. As far as we are aware the only place the Standing Orders are currently located is the ODV page, so whatever you're looking at is likely to be very out of date. Not a person in this office was even here in 2015. Those standing orders are reviewed by and updated as needed, most recently last month, which are the standing orders you'll find on the odv page and the only ones you, as a board member, should be referring to. -----Original Message----- From: ARRL Members Only Web site <memberlist@www.arrl.org<mailto:memberlist@www.arrl.org>> Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2021 7:12 PM To: Pereira, Carla, KC1HSX <cpereira@arrl.org<mailto:cpereira@arrl.org>> Subject: Volunteer Wanted-ARRL Standing Orders The Board of Directors of the ARRL has, on a well-hidden web page not available to the membership at large, a set of Standing Orders that "are Board actions that have lasting effect and are not otherwise incorporated into the working documents of the organization. Standing Orders are not Bylaws, so they may be amended or deleted at any time, either permanently or temporarily, by normal action of the Board or the Executive Committee." The last time they were reviewed was, as best I can tell, in 2015. The document listing them is 24 pages long, but much of the document is composed of Standing Orders that have been withdrawn or, by the terms of the order, expired. ARRL Standing Orders should be organized so that Board members, and the membership, can know what they are. There is no need for mystery. This means that they should be bunched into topic areas. Examples would be topics like these: * Membership recognitions * League business travel and expense reimbursement policies * Balloting and election procedures * Committee reports * Convention and hamfest rules * Investment and financial policies * Field organization matters and so forth. Once organized, the Standing Orders will be more readable, and I can then push to have them published where members can read them. I know of no reason for what I've seen to be secret. I'm a "transparency guy." The use of a volunteer is completely consistent with the concept found in Standing Order #63, to "endeavor to maximize the utilization of qualified volunteer services in conduct of League affairs, such volunteers to include the Officers, Board of Directors and members of the ARRL." If you are handy with Microsoft Word (Google Docs, WordPerfect, etc.), and know how to create a Table of Contents, you could do this job. The deadline for usefulness at the July meeting of the Board, is probably about June 25 (before Field Day). If you think you could spare 10-12 hours for the project, are you willing to volunteer to help out? I'll work closely with the chosen volunteer so that I can present the project to the Board at its July meeting. Can you help? -------------------------------------------------------------------- ARRL New England Division Director: Fred Hopengarten, K1VR k1vr@arrl.org<mailto:k1vr@arrl.org> -------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from messages, go to: http://p1k.arrl.org/oo/71166e3b6821a9d4641d7a1ef58f8221
Carla, Please understand – you and I are not at war. Here’s the source of my confusion. The document in the “Director Workbook” is labelled “Update April 2, 2021.” That’s the label. But the text of the document says: “The Executive Committee conducted another review during 2015 that resulted in a significant reduction in the number of Standing Orders by Board action at its January 2016 meeting. A further review by the Executive Committee is expected during 2016 to update or otherwise amend additional Standing Orders.” This makes it hard to know if one is reading the 2015 Standing Orders, or the 2021 Standing Orders. If a 2016 review was done, the present document does not reflect it. The Legal Structure Committee is VERY busy at the moment. But we should be able to straighten this out between July and January. In the meantime, I shall be pushing to have the Standing Orders taken out from behind the “ODV access only” wall and made available to the members. Every single word in the Standing Orders is a result of a Board minute that has already been published to the world. There is no reason for them to be behind a wall. -Fred From: Pereira, Carla, KC1HSX [mailto:cpereira@arrl.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2021 10:23 AM To: hopengarten@post.harvard.edu Cc: arrl-odv Subject: RE: Volunteer Wanted-ARRL Standing Orders Hi Fred, Just to clarify my question, the Standing Orders you originally referred to are in fact the ones that are on the ODV page? Since you said they had been last updated 2015 I assumed an outdated doc was floating around somewhere on the website and needed to come down asap. It appears that is not the case, and you were referring to the current SO’s, so there is nothing that needs to come down at this time. I just needed to be sure that is the case. Thank you. Carla From: Fred Hopengarten <hopengarten@post.harvard.edu> Sent: Sunday, June 6, 2021 10:06 PM To: Pereira, Carla, KC1HSX <cpereira@arrl.org>; arrl-odv <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Subject: RE: Volunteer Wanted-ARRL Standing Orders Dear Carla, You appear to question my concept that the Standing Orders are "buried on the website," and ask where I found them. Glad you asked. Here's my story. I found the Standing Orders on the ARRL web site by going to www.arrl.org. I entered "standing orders" into "Website Search." This led me to a page of results (page 1), none of which was the actual standing orders. I clicked on "next" and nothing came up. So I returned and clicked on page 2, and nothing came up. So I decided to return to the original www.arrl.org page and guessed that I should click on "About ARRL." None of the choices there are "Articles of Association," "By-laws," or "Standing Orders." But I did spot "Organization Structure," and, taking a guess, clicked on it. "Organization Structure" has a second paragraph with links to the Articles of Association and By-Laws, but no link to Standing Orders. So, as a pure guess, I clicked on "ODV-Board Confidential." THERE, I saw for the first time, under "Miscellaneous ARRL Documents," I found a link to "Standing Orders." The URL is http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Standing%20Orders%204-27-21.pdf. BINGO! It took me 11 clicks to get to the Standing Orders, and they are on the ODV/Board Confidential page. You write below that "whatever you're looking at is likely to be very out of date." Yet the document says: "Update April 27, 2021." So that's a bit confusing. Yet I persisted. At this point, I found, on page 1: " [Secretary’s note: Because so many of the early Standing Orders have been deleted, and because the numbering system used prior to 1983 offers no information as to when the motion was adopted that resulted in the Standing Order, it would be appropriate to eliminate the references to the 92 deleted Standing Orders from prior to 1983 and to renumber the remaining 40 Standing Orders.]" [FH Comment: Whatever year that note was inserted by the Secretary, the referenced 92 deleted orders were never deleted.] Looking at the Standing Orders, I found that, as of today, 191 of them have been deleted, superceded, or rescinded. I remain unsure about the difference between "deleted" and "rescinded." So I decided that ARRL could do better. Rather than complain and create work for you, I asked the New England Division for help. About 10 people volunteered who appeared to be appropriate for the task. And two lawyers volunteered. As I am a fan of lawyers, I asked one of them to take a look. Not only was he, when in high career mode, a Vice Admiral and 35th Surgeon General of the Navy, but, after retirement, he went to Western New England Law School and graduated #1 in his class. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar. I judge K1DCA, now retired to Cape Cod, to be qualified. What happened to the other lawyer you may ask? He is expert at the law of Intellectual Property. I’ve referred him on to K3RF to help out on our intellectual property challenges. Back to K1DCA. He has already produced a rewrite for clarity on substance, with some good ideas, and a reorganization with Table of Contents. The copy he provided to me is both more readable, and more usable, and no longer includes the 191 Standing Orders that have no value to the current Board. The document is considerably shorter than the 24 pages I found hidden on the ARRL website. Now one might ask why the Standing Orders are hidden. Dave Sumner, K1ZZ, a former CEO of ARRL, upon reading my query for help, wrote to me: Hey Fred, I was amused by your message about the Standing Orders. They're certainly not secret; they are taken from published Board Minutes. They used to be organized by topic but that system was abandoned many years ago when the code created by Bob Schetgen, KU7G (SK) was added that identifies the meeting and minute number so the original source can be easily located. . . . I agree that there's no reason to keep them behind the wall . . . So here are the bottom lines: 1. I stand by my description of the Standing Orders as “well-hidden web page not available to the membership at large.” In my view, requiring eleven clicks and two guesses qualifies as “well-hidden.” Posting only to "ODV-Board Confidential" qualifies as “not available to the membership at large.” 2. I think the membership will be well served when the Standing Orders, each of which was once published in the public minutes, are findable and more readable. In the meantime, you can relax, as I am not placing any burden on you or the Office of the CEO. And I am glad you asked what I’m doing. When the project is ready for public display, I think the proper procedure will be to send it to the Legal Structure Committee, and onward from there to the Committee on Administration and Finance. Glad you asked. -----Original Message----- From: Pereira, Carla, KC1HSX [mailto:cpereira@arrl.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2021 10:05 AM To: Fred Hopengarten Subject: RE: Volunteer Wanted-ARRL Standing Orders Where did you find the standing orders you are referring to "buried on the website"? I need the path at the bottom of the page in order to locate it on our labyrinthian website. As far as we are aware the only place the Standing Orders are currently located is the ODV page, so whatever you're looking at is likely to be very out of date. Not a person in this office was even here in 2015. Those standing orders are reviewed by and updated as needed, most recently last month, which are the standing orders you'll find on the odv page and the only ones you, as a board member, should be referring to. -----Original Message----- From: ARRL Members Only Web site <memberlist@www.arrl.org> Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2021 7:12 PM To: Pereira, Carla, KC1HSX <cpereira@arrl.org> Subject: Volunteer Wanted-ARRL Standing Orders The Board of Directors of the ARRL has, on a well-hidden web page not available to the membership at large, a set of Standing Orders that "are Board actions that have lasting effect and are not otherwise incorporated into the working documents of the organization. Standing Orders are not Bylaws, so they may be amended or deleted at any time, either permanently or temporarily, by normal action of the Board or the Executive Committee." The last time they were reviewed was, as best I can tell, in 2015. The document listing them is 24 pages long, but much of the document is composed of Standing Orders that have been withdrawn or, by the terms of the order, expired. ARRL Standing Orders should be organized so that Board members, and the membership, can know what they are. There is no need for mystery. This means that they should be bunched into topic areas. Examples would be topics like these: * Membership recognitions * League business travel and expense reimbursement policies * Balloting and election procedures * Committee reports * Convention and hamfest rules * Investment and financial policies * Field organization matters and so forth. Once organized, the Standing Orders will be more readable, and I can then push to have them published where members can read them. I know of no reason for what I've seen to be secret. I'm a "transparency guy." The use of a volunteer is completely consistent with the concept found in Standing Order #63, to "endeavor to maximize the utilization of qualified volunteer services in conduct of League affairs, such volunteers to include the Officers, Board of Directors and members of the ARRL." If you are handy with Microsoft Word (Google Docs, WordPerfect, etc.), and know how to create a Table of Contents, you could do this job. The deadline for usefulness at the July meeting of the Board, is probably about June 25 (before Field Day). If you think you could spare 10-12 hours for the project, are you willing to volunteer to help out? I'll work closely with the chosen volunteer so that I can present the project to the Board at its July meeting. Can you help? -------------------------------------------------------------------- ARRL New England Division Director: Fred Hopengarten, K1VR k1vr@arrl.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from messages, go to: http://p1k.arrl.org/oo/71166e3b6821a9d4641d7a1ef58f8221
participants (2)
-
Fred Hopengarten -
Pereira, Carla, KC1HSX