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Thank you for submitting a question (or just being curious enough to see what was asked). Here are the answers:
(These are handy bookmarks in case you don't want to scroll through all the answers).
1. Regarding the Newsletter Committee
2. Regarding the Grievance Committee
3. Regarding the NC being ex-officio
4. Regarding connections to CanadaGenWeb
5. Regarding online depositories.
6. Regarding the relationship with the Archives project.
8A Regarding the Grievance Committee / 8B Regarding Search Engines
10. Regarding Quality of Project Sites.
11. Regarding the Membership Bylaws.
1.
Since Tina was elected NC and because the ex-officio member of the Newsletter
Committee, all of the committee resigned. Where the Newsletter was being
published nearly every month, during the last 12 months it has been published
only twice.
There has been no official recognition of the committee resignations. That I know of, the committee still exists.
More interesting to me, however, is that this is the first notice in a long time that I've seen of anyone asking about the newsletter. Perhaps this is another area of USGenWeb that needs some new thought and energy placed into it? Is a newsletter the way to go? Perhaps a blog or other new method of communication is a better idea.
2. Since becoming ex-officio member of the Grievance Committee, the GC has
fallen apart into being dysfunctional. The GC Bylaw and Procedures voted in by the Membership require grievances to be sent to the GC Coordinator.
There is no longer a GC Coordinator. The GC Bylaw ensures the Membership a timely process and resolution of grievances, but since
X was elected the
process has come to a halt.
The GC has been an issue of some drama over the past year. The AB is currently trying to right the ship, and it will be fixed. The issue for the National Coordinator next year will be to
stabilize this organization above everything else.
My opinion here is that Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will the GC be built nor fixed in a short time span. I believe that with the increased quality and quantity of volunteers fielded for the last volunteer call for the GC, we should be well onto our way of having a real committee do its work.
By
2009, I would fully expect that the GC be righted, functioning, and stable.
3. Why do you think NCs are ex-officio members of committees, and what would
you see your "job" as being as ex-officio member?
NCs are ex-officio members of every committee for one reason - they need to know exactly what's going on, at every time.
Let me start at the beginning. When you are elected, the people expect you to be the one to steer the ship, and to know what all of the lieutenants are doing on every floor. The leader should not be caught unaware that the 2nd floor lieutenant has his rowers on break when they should be rowing!
Being an "ex-officio" member means that in most cases, I want to be the one lurking in the background, keeping tabs on what's going on. IF something goes wrong and no one on the committee can fix it, it is and should be well within the NC's rights to step in and make things work. Especially when it involves something as important as member rights.
Now, what does that NOT mean? I don't want to be the one stepping in and making my opinion the way to go on any committee. I'm NOT an expert in everything. There are plenty of smart people in this organization whom I would fully trust to be capable of running their part of the ship without much direct input from me.
I've seen several organizations fall under the weight of a micromanaging leader, and I'm just not like that. My career is in architecture - if one leader overshoots their responsibility, the concrete might fall, a crucial pipe might be missing, or an elevator might go bust - NONE of which is something anyone wants on their watch.
The best thing an NC can do is surround themselves with smart, capable, and dedicated people
and then give them the resources they need to
do their job. All the NC needs in return is information so that they can tell
the world about their great organization.
4. What is your connection to Canadian GenWeb? How does this impact your work with USGW?
I currently run a small section of Ontario counties inside of a region called the Bay of Quinte. In total, there are four websites: one for each county, and one for the region.
I would hope to see continued cooperation with Canadian GenWeb from USGenWeb and would expect the impact to be minimal. I spend a small amount of time trying to keep each site updated, and answering questions via email to list members and other members of the public.
I think that's a great idea! It would be great to start setting those sorts of services up on USGenWeb. I believe some counties have already started similar ideas to great success - and we should connect them with the Coordinators who would like to start these kinds of services to start sharing ideas.
The CCs that put data packages like this together are worth their weight in gold. I wouldn't be where I am today in my genealogical search without Tuscola County, MI putting together an area like that.
The Archives are a very special part of this project - special as in unique, not strange, enemy territory. One of the things that needs to be done at the National level is developing information on how to use the archives in conjunction with a good county site. I must confess myself that I'm not very good at using the Archives for all the things its probably good for, but then again, I wouldn't be able to have figured out my own family tree without them (thanks to Michigan archivist Jana Cortez).
Data can easily be held in both locations for different things, but I don't think it is something that we should be dictating at the National level. If I said military information only goes in the archives, there could be hundreds of sites that would loudly protest because their regular County site holds that data, but prefers their archive for the standard BMD info. My Alpena site has several directories on it, perhaps the archives would be a better place? Or maybe they should be in both places?
The key here is partnership. There might be a solution in developing national standards for what goes where, but I think its a good candidate for something I would call "Planning Boards". I'm borrowing the term from the Junior Chamber, but its a good term for a place (web or physical) where members of both sides of an issue get together and try to find out what would work best for both of them. I've avidly followed the postings on DISCUSS kicking around some ideas, but I don't believe anything has ever come of it. I know there have been some fights in the past about how the Archives and the County members work together, but hopefully, with the influx of new growth in the project, we can make those a thing of the past.
I apologize for this sounding non-committal or waffling. Working together is something that I want to stress as part of the entire USGW project, and I don't want to sound like I'm throwing the Archives off of a cliff or committing them to something they might not want to do when I don't know a whole lot about what the Archives have and can do for the project overall. For example, Question #5 has a great idea that could work both at a county site or a county archives site, but I'm not sure which would want it or be better for it.
With many new County Coordinators out there, I think now is the time to figure out how to get CCs to best use the archives, and figure out some stability in the currently very fluid relationship.
Okay, let's start with paragraph 1. Yes, and reporting rather than forwarding.
Now that wasn't very helpful, was it?
Let me start at the beginning. The French have a term "mis-en-place". It is commonly used in cooking, but basically translates to setting everything up and getting ready before ever mixing, cooking and serving.
USGW is at a critical juncture right now. We're starting to see members take an interest in the organization and how it works, and there's nothing happening to take advantage of that interest.
If we leave it be, these newly active members will hear a very different version of what USGW and the governance is versus what it actually is.
We need to create our own "mis-en-place" and that starts with the transparency of the AB, and the making available of information at every step of the process of governance, from the CC saying something isn't right, or that something is very right and they want everyone to know! to the AB making critical business negotiations.
Segmenting onto paragraph 2 (7B), I'm not sure a newsletter is the right way to go. BUT - here's my critical point - I don't know.
Well, I'm sure you're thinking now that's a really stupid answer and wondering why you're reading this page. Here's why:
Do we know who reads our newsletter? Do we know what people want in a newsletter? Do we know the needs of our readers/members?
What we know is that we don't know any of these facts. Until the election, not a single person I had contacted even asked about the newsletter, signaling to me that its time for a redo. Something fresher, more geared to what our members need.
Personally speaking, I hardly ever read it. The content seemed not very relevant to me as a County Coordinator.
What did I want to see? Sites with interesting features being highlighted. Instructions on how to use nifty tools like FreeFind and Google CSE. Tips on navigating web browser changes so I could program my site better. Tips on how to design for the low visioned/blind/deaf/handicapped.
It would be great to have a new editor come in and want to shake things up with a great new newsletter. If a person were to do that, I'd be 100% on board!
"7C. If you could go back to change anything that has occurred over the past 5 years in USGW what would that be and how would you change it?"
Wow. The last paragraph is a big question, isn't it? I want to explain something first before I give the answer.
I grew up in Minnesota. Land of the "Minnesota Nice". People from outside the state think its just
friendliness, but those of us from inside the state know its more than that. I try very hard to embody that ideal.
I try not to knock anyone for any decision they've made in the past, because I never know what I might have done in the situation nor do I know if I'm ever going to need someone's help again. My friends,
co-volunteers and co-workers know this and depend on me for my help.
With that being said, I wish I could find the very moment that the project started distrusting its leadership, and try to open up why the process started and slam it down so that it would never happen again. Many things I've seen posted on the Discuss list or the DBS might not have gone down that way if
the board had tried to think about how things looked from the other side. Does that mean I might have done the same thing they did? Maybe or maybe not. There's no way to tell - what's past is past, and the organization needs to look over the rainbow to a bright new future.
8A.
Could you please explain why you believe the Grievance Committee is
biased as indicated in your candidate statement?
8B. Your Alpena County, MI indicates it will take a couple months to get the search index built; your Oakland County uses freefind.com which only takes
minutes to build an index. Could you explain the difference?
1] could you please explain why you believe the Grievance Committee is
biased as indicated in your candidate statement?
Please don't take this question the wrong way. I mean to say that the mediators and current members are good people - not biased.
What I mean by the GC being biased is that because it has fallen to pieces, the AB has had to take a hand in fixing it. During this time, there is an obvious bias on the hand of the AB. Not that we could tell the GC how to do a grievance or anything like that, but the fact that we are involved with it right now means that they could not give a fair and balanced opinion, and no one on the GC should ever feel like that.
When the AB is removed from the process as the new committee comes up to speed, the bias shall be removed.
2] your Alpena County, MI indicates it will take a couple months to get the
search index built; your Oakland County uses freefind.com which only takes
minutes to build an index. Could you explain the difference?
First off, the Oakland site is run by Joe Markovich, not myself. I'm a co-coordinator there, and I prefer to think of myself as a major "data gatherer" rather than a day-to-day site runner. I answer questions via email, assist him with my knowledge of the area, and develop new content.
Joe runs the site and does a darn good job. He prefers FreeFind, and that's fine and dandy - I would never force him to change anything on the site.
Now, Alpena is a different animal. I have three core groups of users whom I regularly interact with and they advise on what they would like to see on the site.
These three groups entail -
1. Professional genealogists in the area.
2. Regular users of the site of varying ages AND the people that email me needing help with using the site.
3. Some visually impaired persons that I work with to make sure the site is accessible to all viewers (still a work in progress, I might add).
Now, I asked all of these people what they wanted to see in a search engine.
#1 was "no ads". That meant FreeFind and Google CSE were in the running.
#2 was familiarity. Still, both search engines were in the running.
#3 was ease of use for impaired visitors. This left Google in the lead.
Why? Because the members I worked with know Google. They know how to customize it to work with their viewing methods. Google was also very popular for people who were older, citing its trustability and ease of use.
I looked at both heavily before picking one. Many of you know my absolute reluctance to use a search engine at all. I've read all of the information about both, and I determined Google to meet the requirements of my users best. That's why I picked it.
And from what I understand, once Google does the initial crawl (though it seems to take forever) its much speedier upon future
crawls.
I think the best idea we could have is to more actively exchange leadership ideas and advise each other of what's going on. How many USGW members know about the recent Ontario GenWeb change? With so many CCs being on the border, they would very much benefit from partnering with their Canadian counterparts and trying to do new cooperative projects, data development, etc.
For that matter, we should be doing the same thing with Mexico. I wonder if Texas, California and the like already do that?
10. Would you support the Advisory Boards taking actions that would help the Coordinators to have 'better' Web sites? X has literally let the USGW fall apart with the broken links, what would you do to help put the Project back together again?
IF by actions you mean organizing assistance and resources for the CCs, absolutely. I'm not about the force anyone to change a site to be designed or organized in a particular way. The current pattern of the NC contacting SCs about potential problem sites is a good way - this becomes a "states rights" issue if the national organization gets TOO far involved with the day-to-day management of CC sites. In a lot of cases, I think coordinators would benefit by having some nice templates put together, and making better use of resources to partner new CCs with experienced CCs in regards to programming and design.
This year has been an odd one in terms of broken links. My sites have suffered just as much as any. All of us I think right now are trying to fix our sites with all of the major changes going on.
That's an interesting one. I had absolutely no idea such a major loophole existed. I think we should define membership in the bylaws - and I certainly believe that over the years we've informally defined the term with more than just the requirements in Section 1 of Article 4. Bylaws reviews are a painful, yet critical part of any organization's existence. While I know they shouldn't be as formal as spelling out exactly what people do, this is a little TOO general.