Dave wrote: a much appeciated review up upcoming adgenda items... : My understanding is that we are going to be asked to approve a confidentiality statement that all board members and committee members will have to sign. Don: I don't think it is enough, in this day and age, to depend on individual decency and common sense to determine what should remain confidential. It needs to be spelled out, if only to protect people from their own good intentions. The IJA doesn't really do much that needs to remain confidential. I'd be disappointed if the kind of Board related discussion that Dave has been leading were to dry up. Though there is some merit to the concept of a Board that "speaks with one voice", I think that the babble that leads to that united voice it pretty important too. Board members need to be able to speak up in meetings without worrying that their idiotic initial positions will be shouted from the rooftops shortly thereafter. But it is important that members have some sense of the debate. How else can we decide who is helping the IJA move forward at election time? Finally, if you have a confidentiality statement, how are you going to enforce it? What constitutes a realistic penalty, getting tossed from the IJA? Limit confidentiality to a very tiny realm if you do it at all. Don Lewis
: Confidential Statement
This is a tough issue. I'm cautiously in favor of some kind of confidentiality statement. There are areas which I don't think the membership has any need to know the details, and publication in any form could damage idividuals and IJA. A good example would be the fees paid to performers for shows at the festival. Start bruiting that kind of data around and Ginny will rapidly lose any manouvering room she has, and the available talent pool will probably contract, and the cost of shows will increase. Hardly anyone likes having their financial arrangements picked apart in public. It is important that the Board knows these details, but not the membership. The rest of us can look at aggregate totals and decide if the cost is worth giving up the benefit.