From: hheagy@delphi.com
Subject: Re: responsibilities of leadership
On 1997-10-20 wreif@cityscape.net said:
 wr>It seemss to me like you abdicated your responsibility as leader,
 wr>trading the comfort of both driver and passengers for a little
 wr>personal popularity, and the chance to let people experience that
 wr>good feeling, (which proved to be short-lived in this instance)
I disagree.  I was not looking for popularity; I just wanted the
people to make the decision since it effected everyone on the
charter.  You're right, I could have told the driver to stop at a
super market in Jackson, but then they would have been angry about
that and would not have experienced the situation I told them
about.  And you're also right about it not increasing my popularity
because I still had the minority that did vote to stop as well as
the disgruntled people who didn't like anything no matter what. 
But by letting them have their way the majority of participants had
no one to blame but themselves for what happened.  The driver we
had knew the route, but they wouldn't have listened to her any more
than they would me.
And we got into a time frame problem which the driver did inform
them of.  Since the trip from Jackson to Austin was too long by law
for one driver to drive the whole route, a driver was waiting in
Houston to take the bus charter the rest of the way.  If we had
gotten into Houston past a certain time, the waiting driver would
have used up all his waiting time and the remaining people would
have had to spend the night in Houston before going back to Austin. 
But they still refused to listen.  We met the time frame, but
barely.  We actually did not find out about this time frame problem
till well after we left Jackson.  The driver informed us of this
after several vain stops in search of supplies.  But they didn't
listen to her any more than they did me.  Now if I had known about
this possibility when we left Jackson I might have done things
differently, but by letting them have their way I figured that
maybe next time we had a long charter they might listen to those of
us who were knowledgeable and acting in their best interest.
As far as intrusting certain decisions to the national
leadership, that's what we elect them for.  The convention can't
vote on every issue that comes up during the year and that's what
our leaders are there for.  However, our constitution also says,
in effect, that the convention is supreme authority; it doesn't
say, "except when it doesn't suit the convenience of the national
leadership."  We are also supposed to be an interactive consumer
organization.  
Also, unlike a lot of groups, we pay our way to
the conventions out of our own pockets.  We deserve more than to
go and just say "I," to everything on the convention floor.
Harvey
Net-Tamer V 1.09  - Registered
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