Are you a Following Leader or a True Leader?

Whether you chair a board, committee or just a membership meeting, you must lead with authority. You must always listen to the membership, but how you respond is a very important factor.

When chairing do you;

• call for a vote at the first member to yell out "question"
• accept a bar break at the first member to ask
• restrict the discussion in the effort to save time
• have a rules of order chair that will speak out before being asked

All these issues seem to be listening to the membership, which should be good. But, leading the membership requires steering the membership in a direction benificial to all. There is listening to the membership then there is following blindly. As the Chair you must guide the membership, and help them move in the right direction.

How to Chair the meeting with authority;

• no one in your meeting, should be yelling out anything, and more importantly you should not be following those members. You, as the Chair, should be the only one to decide when the discussion has been exhausted.  As Chair you should know when to ask the membership if the discussion should be ended or "question be called".
• as Chair you need to be aware of the mood in the meeting. Call a break when you think it is needed, and keep it short. If a member has yelled out, it is a little late to call a break. Watch the members for tension, uncomfortable members, moving in seat, and other signs. And again, don't let members yell orders at you, we must lead and not follow.
• restricting the number of speakers or limit the time they can speak, may be good to keep the meeting short, but can destroy your leadership. Members want to have a chance to voice their opinion, and will be very frustrated if not given that chance by the Chair. We must give all members the opportunity to have their say. Even if the time runs a little over, the members will be satisfied at the end of the meeting and not angry that time was more important than they were.
• this is a very common mistake. The rules of order chair is not "the Chair of the meeting", they are the go to member when you, as Chair, need a decisive decision made. If my ROOC was to yell out advice, I would rule them out of order. You are the Chair, you ARE the rules of order chair, you make the decision. When a member questions or challenges your decision, then and only then should you ask the rules of order chair to make their ruling.

As the Leader you need to steer the meeting and not allow the members to steer you. Try to know what your membership wants and needs before they need to yell commands at you.

Celebrate the Positive vs Combating the Negative

Of course we want to celebrate the positive. That is why we attend meetings and conventions. The fellowship is an integral part of Kin. Service is another part of Kin, that is part of the celebration, we need to pat ourselves on the back for the causes we contribute to. The third part of Kin is education.

Education contributes to the Personal Development that we all stay in Kin for. If we, as Kin, did not grow there would be no reason to stay in Kin. I could donate my time and money to many different organizations. But, I chose Kin for the growth I receive and the fellowship with fabulous people.

Over the years I have heard many different angles on "forget the negative", 90% - 10%. Now, I have heard that some Kin don't like my blog because "it is too negative". I do not believe that it is negative at all. I feel that it is education so that others may benefit and not make the same mistakes. It is also information for all members, we are always answering questions why members knew nothing of an issue. I am always explaining issues to members and hear that old tune "why didn't I know about that". It is very important to educate and inform all members on the issues that are important to the Association. We will all grow by learning from our mistakes, and information can be a very powerful thing.

Also, if we were to ignore the negatives that may arise, we will all lose. That issue will become infected and grow, consuming us all. We must stand up to the negative in our Association and not pretend that it will just go away on its own. An example is a Club that has a member or two that are toxic to the Club. If we don't talk of or challenge the toxic members, they will infect all the Club and one by one they will get discouraged and leave the Club. If we stand up to the toxic members and invoke change or remove them from the roster, the Club will grow and prosper.

I believe my blog can inform, educate and help others to fight the negatives in our Association. This will help us grow and move forward. That is how we can continue to Celebrate the positives and enjoy good healthy fellowship. So, let us celebrate and cheer, but do not forget to keep the business under control.

Kin Sponsorship????

We have a business that sponsors our Club.....Now I ask, is it a good idea for Clubs or the District to solicit for a sponsorship? What do you think would be a worth while amount? is it selling out?

Thoughts, views, opinions, idea's, and commments

This Bull needs your help. I am inexperienced with the blogging world. I would like this blog to be more than the thoughts of one, we need the participation of the many. Your comments are more than welcome, association to your blog is needed. Your advice is necessary for the advancement of this format. Please help me with bringing this blog forward, I want this to be a resource of information for the common member.

To be successful this format needs the participation of many Kin. We do not want to dwell on the negitive, but, the negitive does happen and if we ignore that side of any organization, it will fester and infect us all. Project idea's are a great place to start. What did your Club do to solve a problem? How do we intice more members? This disscussion needs to happen. We really need a format for the consant communication, between the members of this District. Fellowship is the key to being Kin, communication is the open door.

You want it posted, email me.

Presentation of totals at National Convention

National Convention 2010 in Halifax was a great year. There were increases in almost everything that was presented. I was very proud to be sitting with my family, as the numbers were exposed. District 5 did very good; better than in the past, but still near the bottom.

Here are the numbers given for the Total Service Dollars raised;

District 4	$5,963,438.06
District 3	$5,110,917.21
District 1	$1,386,091.03
District 7	$1,255,919.91
District 8	$1,005,294.67
District 5	$609,017.73
District 2	$569,338.99
District 6	$547,813.66

 I had to wonder, what it would look like if we presented, dollars per member. I thought that it would be very difficult for the smaller Districts to break out of the bottom. The amount raised per member would have more meaning and therefore be of more importance. So here is what the order would be if added in a “per member” calculation.

 

District 4	$4463 per member
District 3	$4440 per member
District 8	$1788 per member
District 7	$1340 per member
District 6	$1245 per member
District 5	$1153 per member
District 1	$858 per member
District 2	$831 per member

 

Now, it was not the change I expected, but it did make a difference. District 5 may have stayed in the same position, but, there was a dramatic difference for District 1 and District 6.

I only present this as an option to the standard presentation. It would be difficult for a smaller District to break into the top. But, if we also presented a “per member” all Districts would have the chance to move up in the rankings. National has become very elitist; we need to be more inclusive. All members, Clubs and District deserve to have the same opportunity and same respect as others.

Just a thought.

Report for FLC

I have been around a long time. At no meeting have I ever seen reports circulated prior to the meeting. Motions on the other hand, they do need to be distributed ahead of time. our rule for such resolutions is;

      Proposed amendments to such additional House Rules shall be received by the District Secretary at least forty five (45) days prior to the date of the District convention or Fall leadership Conference, and the District Secretary shall send a copy of all proposed amendments to the President of each Club in the District at least thirty (30) days prior to the date of the District convention or Fall leadership Conference.

Now for a senior member to stand to state that your report was not circulated 45 days ahead (his words), is quite a sad.  This is the kind of misinformation that causes our Fellow Kin to get discouraged with the process. Our senior Kin need to think before they act. Why do you want an Executive report prior to FLC? He just wanted to show his muscle and how smart he was, but in reality he just showed his lack of knowledge. Now, to make a mistake is acceptable, but you must not force an issue that you know nothing about.

We have many members that, quite simply, are bullies. All members need to step up and recognize when another is trying to intimidate or influence our Fellow Kin. Bullies should never be tolerated.

Tabling a Motion

At FLC in D5, we had a motion to table a report. This in and if itself is relatively unimportant, but the procedure is very important.

First off a good chair will never recognize a tabling motion until all issues have been thoroughly discussed.  If I was to allow a member to table a motion or report, prior to any discussion, we would have members confused and possibly irritated as to why we tabled the motion. Once a tabling motion has been accepted by the chair, there can be only discussion to the time limit of the tabling. This can be problematic, as we can not talk about the why or the reasoning behind the postponement of the motion.

If you are the Chair and encounter this issue. You must always ensure that the discussion to topic, motion or report have been complely disscussed by all the members. at that point, and that point only should a chair entertain a tabling motion. Only an inexpereanced Chair would allow a tabling motion prior to any disscusion.

If you are a member in this situation, try to amend the time limit to 10 minutes or after coffee break. This action should alert the chair that more discussion is needed.

We tabled this report for a reason "that the format wasn't right". Now, what is right, where do we go from here, why are we delaying the same report? This table motion was made to irritate and annoy the author of the report. It did no such thing, the report will be on the floor later in the same format as no one knows what is wanted. The dissucusion never took place, so now we will talk at our Kinvention, instead.

Purpose of Blog

This Blog is only an opinion, a view from The Bull. it is in no way intended as a format to discredit Kin or the Association. I wish only to expand the minds of the few, that want to hear a different point of view. We tend to listen to the few and ignore the voice of the many. I hope we can improve the family of Kin, by, just maybe, listening to the member that may not have the influence necessary to change the thoughts of the leaders in our great Association "KIN CANADA"

This shall also be for any that wish to better their own "meeting" skills. I hope to cover issues with procedures, protocols and problems with the meeting we all attend and chair.