Disturbed

I’m mildly disturbed this morning.

Not in the usual, “there’s something not quite right about the way I think, act and feel” way; but in the “WTF is the deal?” way.  Like when you’re driving along and you stop behind a line of cars at a red light and the light turns green and the guy who is in the first car just sits there for 5 seconds before moving, and the chick in the second car waits another 3 seconds; and by the time the car directly in front of you finally starts to move, your green light has turned yellow and only 4 cars have gone through.  That kind of disturbed.

See, I went to a sort of informal meeting with a couple of GBB board members last night because one of them wanted to talk to the other one about the fact that our music director is a tyrannical dictator who refuses to let the members of the board do anything that will affect the band unless  he (the musical director) has his fingers in it.  This has been going on for years.  Since the band’s creation, actually.  The board member who wanted to talk about it last night is relatively new to the board, while the board member who was listening/commenting has been on the board of the band almost since its inception.

The above paragraph was not disturbing to me.  The above paragraph was simply setting the scene.  If this blog were a play, we’d refer to the above paragraph as a “roadie” or “a can of paint” or as “fluff.”  We would not refer to it as “a fluffer” unless this were the type of play that children under 18 should not be watching.

What distrubed me was something that happened during our soirée.  See, the three of us are all on a temporary committee of the board which is tasked with putting together a membership handbook and code of conduct.  This is something that the board started discussing a year ago.  The need for a set of written guidelines for membership, guidelines for the revocation of membership, etc.

I’m  a big proponent of this sort of thing.  In fact, do any of you remember posts from a year or two ago when I referred to being on a “planning committee” for the band?  If not, let me rehash.  The planning committee (PC) was group of 6 guys who were apparently hand-picked by the band’s tyrannical music director and told (I’m paraphrasing, but it’s pretty close to a direct quote), “The band is now entering its 10th season, and it’s time that we put some sort of a structure and long-range goals in place.”

Now, I’m not going to say that the PC spent every waking moment thinking about the needs of the band, but we (or at least “I”) did give up a number of Saturday mornings to meet.  We did do research into the legal status of the band in the eyes of the state of Georgia.  We did perform limited cost-benefit analyses on everything from band uniforms to tours to necessary hardware to the commission of a piece of music.  And we did try to put together a membership handbook and code of conduct.  Because I was a founding member of the band, I recalled that – way way way back in the day – we had been given a short list of rules during one of our rehearsals; and I asked various people who would have been associated with the creation of that memo if they had a copy of it.  Although being told by several people, “Yes,” the PC never did get to see that little one-page guidebook.

In fact, the PC didn’t get to see or accomplish much of anything because of the tyrant, and what we finally suggested to the tyrant, after discovering that the band was only barely a legal entity and that it could be facing trouble with the IRS, was that the band needed an actual “Board of Directors.”  After making this suggestion, the PC dissolved itself.  Three of the six members of the PC wound up on the BOD.  Two of them, along with one of the “original” BOD, were at the quasi-meeting last night.

All of that was just a little bit more background; but it touches on what disturbed me, as you will see shortly.

At some point during the quasi meeting, the “old timer board guy” (OG) responded to some comments by the new board guy (NG)  – who wanted to talk about how to do end runs around the music director (MD) – by pulling out a sheaf of papers.  These papers were beautifully typed up, in outline form, and addressed many of the concerns of NG.  Apparently OG and a couple of his friends had spent months putting together suggestions for the structure and long-range goals of the band at some point.  That “some point” was several years ago, in fact.  Their efforts had produced documents that dealt with the political structure of the band, the various committees that might be good to have, the audition processes for being in the band, the rules that members needed to obey to stay in the band, the ways in which members could be removed from the band, ideas for promoting the band, ideas for encouraging fellowship within the band….in short, they’d put together a nearly-complete members handbook and code of conduct and had codified many of the issues that the PC had attempted to attack.

I have been made aware over the last year that a group of people (“this group”) – some on the original board, some not – had spent time discussing plans for the band several years ago; and that “this group” was, while not openly hostile, less than thrilled by the formation of the PC.  “This group” put together the documents that I mentioned above.   While knowing that the PC was trying to implement structure, “this group” chose not to share the structure that it had already spent months preparing.  “This group” basically knew that the PC was doomed to fail.  Frankly, it sounds like “this group” really wanted the PC to fail.

That disturbs me in principle.  It disturbs me more because, with maybe one exception, nobody on the PC knew that “this group” had ever existed.  We didn’t know that it had already discussed and debated issues that we were discussing and debating.  We didn’t know that it had put together a road map for the band. We didn’t know anything about it – even after we openly asked the general membership of the band for input.  

The PC wanted to make things happen, but we didn’t really have a starting point and we didn’t know that the MD was a tyrant.  “This group” had already dealt with everything the PC was dealing with; yet none of “this group” clued us in.

I’m over the failure of the PC.  I got over it when the PC’s main suggestion – the formation of a new BOD – was acted upon.  The new BOD began meeting nearly a year ago with the goal of putting together structure and long-range goals for the band.

Yes, I know I’ve been repeating myself.  It’s called a literary construct.

Three members of the PC ended up on the new board.  Three members of “this group” ended up on the new board.  The new board began discussing the need for a members handbook and code of conduct, and it had a few lively and time-consuming discussions regarding what needed to be in such a document and how it should be worded.  Finally, after several board meetings spent way too much of the board’s time on the subject, it was decided to farm the job out to a committee.  Said committee is made of up two old members of the PC (myself and “NG”) and two old members of “this group” (“OG” and another guy who won’t be mentioned again, but who needs a code word and will therefore be known as “Mr. X”).

And so last night, OG innocently pulled out the documents that “this group” had put together YEARS AGO and which directly, succinctly and competently address most of the issues that the PC and the new BOD have been trying to deal with for the last 18 months.

Yeah.  I’m disturbed.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’m not sure if I want to stay on the board.  Shit like this doesn’t make the prospect any more appealing.