[hackerspaces] Inclusivity, alienation and a lame duck

[michael howard]

TMI


Em quinta-feira, 19 de fevereiro de 2015, Morgan Gangwere <
morgan.gangwere at gmail.com> escreveu:

> My hackerspace has 3 problems that are feeding into each other:
>
> (This is somewhat scattered -- read all the parts or you'll lose context).
>
> 1. The board (you'll see a recurring theme soon) has declared that we must
> be "Inclusive" -- and so a task force (lead by a board member, who is also
> wife of the president of the board) reached out to people who had at one
> point expressed an interest in joining but had not yet. This came down to
> "inclusivity."
>
> Don't get me wrong, I'm far from being the typical cis-het-white-male, and
> I'd love to see more non cis-white-het-male folk in our space. The
> following note is *my view* of this and I'm trying very hard to *not* point
> at any one person.
>
> The inclusivity policy was enforced by the president of the board, before
> it was actually presented to the membership for discussion, over what came
> down to a mis-communication between himself and the person who had just
> simply vented (who is also on the board; We'll get to her later)
>
> The board held a straightforward, but very heated conversation with the
> membership. El Pres makes everything about him (and how it's not his
> doing), the one who wrote it made it (somehow) all about sex, and one who
> originally vented and started this insanity rumbling made it all about how
> she doesn't like men.
>
> We hammered it out, with the members that care enough to show up (about
> 20, out of a population of 80ish) being mostly upset at the process: a
> member of the space, who has done quite a bit of the space, was alienated
> on a policy he had no idea existed, over a misunderstanding that would have
> been solved with someone asking some basic troubleshooting questions.
>
> 2. We've moved into our second space. Over the last about 2 years, we've
> had a hell of a ride, with an indiegogo to kick off the party. One of the
> perks of getting us moving money was to be able to name a room. One of the
> rooms, the electronics lab, was named after an MLP fan-video-gone-viral.
> There was some argument over if this was appropriate and overall, the whole
> process was fairly unorganized and frustrating for those involved. Some
> were confused as to how long the name lasted, etc.
>
> The individual that named the electronics lab that did it to make people
> think, confront their discomfort, etc. It's been a bone of contention among
> some of the membership.
>
> Over the week, the board has used the name as a means to beat on members.
> The actions of several board members (notably, the ones already mentioned;
> there are 6 on our board, plus president, who is the longest standing board
> member with 1 year terms). Several of our members are older guys. Yes, the
> name is a bit annoying, but they have their own qualms, and the board has
> used this as a means to (subversively) ostracize and alienate those members.
>
> For those quietly attacked, it feels like discrimination. For pretty much
> everyone else? *nobody gives a damn*.
>
> 3. The president of the board is useless, has no leadership skills, and
> has become in some ways a lame duck; He is a non-voting member of the board
> according to his bylaws, but can still enforce power as president to make
> things happen. I cannot attest to this, but it seems like many are speaking
> behind his back, actively trying to usurp his power. At the moment, there's
> no way for the membership to remove a president from their position. The
> fact his spouse serves on the board raises concerns for some of us.
>
> Our previous president moved on due to his promotion in the military. He
> was trained to lead and manage. Since leaving, our space has become prone
> to infighting and argument over semantics with the board.
>
> I've considered calling for a vote of no confidence by the membership, but
> there's a problem: A majority of the membership doesn't even really show up
> nor care at this point. Yet that silent majority keeps the doors open. Our
> bylaws state that votes need a quorum of the membership (defined as 70%)
> and *three times in a row* we've had to come to a board-decision to lower
> it down to 50% in order to pass the board vote.
>
> There are members, people who are in the space and who are much more
> suited to be president, and who have come up in the past as being on the
> ballot.
>
> A note on processes: The space meets once a month, meeting to discuss
> things within the space and give progress reports on projects, bring up any
> input from the membership, etc. The board meets once a quarter, and that's
> when any actions that the board enacts happens. Recently, the board has
> been meeting more regularly than the membership meetings and having
> conversations. These are not often announced. The board is in some ways a
> set of BDFLs (several members of the board have been there since the
> inception of the space) and there is rarely any major discussion that
> happens at the membership meetings, which are run on timers and a "Let's
> just get this over with" mentality.
>
>
>
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