Reflections on a meeting
As is usual, I was at once enervated and frustrated by last night's Steering Committee meeting. On the one hand, it seems as if there are a lot of exciting possibilities for our neighborhood. The MORPC proposal and the 'branding' efforts both seem better than I could have believed, even if I have my doubts that either will materialize as intended. But regardless of that it's a great thing to see that others outside WP see the potential we have. The flip side of this is that it seems like all the positive initiatives are coming from outside the neighborhood, either from 'stakeholders' (oh, how I hate that word) like Wagenbrenner or other entities like MORPC. It seems as if our leadership is institutionally paralyzed into inaction, due to mismanagement, lack of communication, lack of a common sense of purpose, or maybe, simply through ideological and policy differences regarding the nature of Weinland Park and the vision of its future.
Since I am part of that leadership I accept responsibility for being part of the problem. Even after a couple of months I have to admit I am baffled at how things actually work on the WPCCA. My impressionist view of how things work is that J has lots of conversations with various people on a semi-regular basis, and maintains ad hoc relationships with a wide variety of individuals. She divulges these relationships and conversations at seemingly random moments during meetings, so no one is able to gain a global view of her activities. Whether this is by design is a mystery to me. Simultaneous to J's activities, it appears as if M and S meet with various stakeholders and other community leaders and try to maintain some semblance of responsibility, progress, and accountability to expected processes. In many ways their actions seem to be independent of, and perhaps even at cross-purposes, with J's. As I said above, this view is at best hazy and impressionistic, so I might be putting a weird spin on things or simply imagining a lot of it.
Meanwhile, other neighborhood 'leaders', such as myself, at times seem like little more than spectators of this odd Kabuki play that they witness at each meeting in which the main participants attend. When I became secretary it was never my main intent to try to drive policy, but rather to simply facilitate the workings of the neighborhood association. But the mysterious, even Byzantine way in which the organization functions makes something as simple as facilitation next to impossible. I attend each meeting unsure of who is responsible for what; I know that an organization largely run by part-time volunteers is going to necessarily have these problems to some extent, but sometimes it feels as if we reinvent procedures every week.
Since I am part of that leadership I accept responsibility for being part of the problem. Even after a couple of months I have to admit I am baffled at how things actually work on the WPCCA. My impressionist view of how things work is that J has lots of conversations with various people on a semi-regular basis, and maintains ad hoc relationships with a wide variety of individuals. She divulges these relationships and conversations at seemingly random moments during meetings, so no one is able to gain a global view of her activities. Whether this is by design is a mystery to me. Simultaneous to J's activities, it appears as if M and S meet with various stakeholders and other community leaders and try to maintain some semblance of responsibility, progress, and accountability to expected processes. In many ways their actions seem to be independent of, and perhaps even at cross-purposes, with J's. As I said above, this view is at best hazy and impressionistic, so I might be putting a weird spin on things or simply imagining a lot of it.
Meanwhile, other neighborhood 'leaders', such as myself, at times seem like little more than spectators of this odd Kabuki play that they witness at each meeting in which the main participants attend. When I became secretary it was never my main intent to try to drive policy, but rather to simply facilitate the workings of the neighborhood association. But the mysterious, even Byzantine way in which the organization functions makes something as simple as facilitation next to impossible. I attend each meeting unsure of who is responsible for what; I know that an organization largely run by part-time volunteers is going to necessarily have these problems to some extent, but sometimes it feels as if we reinvent procedures every week.
posted by Jim @ 9:42 AM
0 Comments
