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Another Convention down, and more good debate on the floor.
The Grand Council appointment vs. election situation and the one term vs. two for the national president are both in limbo. To be honest I was against both of these because of exactly what Rock Knobbster said, the appointments take away the power of Convention Assembled, and I don't know that we want to go down that road. In addition, the one term vs. two thing should be up to the person in the presidential position whether they feel they can have a second term. If they can't, they'll tell us. If they can, then they should have that right. IMHO, Chris Northern saying he was almost burnt out did nothing to change my mind on this. He doesn't want to have a second term, and that's his choice - as it should be. The Constitution is not a place to put a restriction of one term on the president.
In that same vain, the Convention passed an amendment stating that the executive director of the fraternity must be a member. I spoke against this (not very eloquently by the way) because of a few reasons that I've listed below. While I respect the decision of the Convention Assembled, I have problems with this amendment.
1. There are precedents in other fraternity and sorority organizations where non-members are the Executive Directors and are doing fabulous work. (A good example is Triangle Fraternity, where our own Paul Lawson, an initiate of the Alpha Chi Chapter at Stetson, is their Executive Director.)
2. While we would hope that the most qualified candidate to run the day-to-day operations of the Fraternity would be a Delta Sig (by the way, I DEFINITELY HOPE THAT A DELTA SIG IS THE MOST QUALIFIED), it might not always be that way. Now, we will never have the opportunity to even see the types of other association executives that we could potentially bring in new ideas on how to manage the national organization and lead us to new heights.
3. We have never been an exclusive fraternity. When we were founded, we were founded on the principles of inclusivity. I feel that the amendment that was passed is too exclusive, limiting our ability to say that we're running the fraternity the way the founders wanted us to on a day to day basis.
4. Right now at the Headquarters, we have many non-members running VERY important parts of the operations. George Miller is running the entire Chapter Services program. Carol Arenstein is overseeing the Fraternity's finances. Judy Hamilton just planned an outstanding Convention, and Kara Baker is in charge of all of the communications of the Fraternity. Seems to me that we're doing just fine with them in these positions. Having non-members around is good, because they bring in fresh ideas that we as organization might not think of ourselves.
Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox. I will live with the delegates' decision. They heard my rambling attempt at making a point, and heard Rock Knobbster's rebuttal, and they felt he was right. Good debate on issues is always a good thing if you ask me. I hope Rock Knobbster is right for the sake of the Fraternity.
Anyway, after all of that, I had a great time at Convention, and hope everyone else did too. Let's make Phoenix in 2007 the biggest Convention ever! If you attended, go back to your chapters and talk it up! That's the only way people will get excited! Later, and I remain,
YITBOS
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