The following is a reply to Cherri Phillips Cherri Phillips, president of MASNA, due to her refusal to provide Razorback Reef with the MASNA BOD minutes that have gone unposted on their website for over 6 months. MASNA BOD – Your refusal of Razorback Reef’s request to obtain the MASNA BOD meeting minutes that have gone unposted on your website for over 6 months is disturbing to say the least but not all that unexpected. The club has held our membership to MASNA over the years in high regard obtaining local sponsorship to pay for our membership each year to insure that our clubs voice will be heard on a national level. Sadly, on the occasions when Razorback Reef has turned to MASNA your organization has not responded with any help and only within the last year have you responded at all. As president of Razorback Reed I very much question the responsibility that MASNA feels towards its membership, certainly at a minimum there is an obligation to provide its membership with accountability through disclosure of meeting minutes. Over the years, we have inquired about non-profit status, guidelines for obtaining speakers and even requested time to speak to the BOD at last years meeting in Pittsburgh and been brushed off each instance. The current request by MASNA individual member and member of Razorback Reef BOD Norman Davis to be provided an account of MASNA’s board activity will not be dismissed on this occasion. As the delegate of record for Razorback Reef Marine Aquarium Society’s membership to MASNA I am again requesting the minutes be provided that have gone unposted for over 6 months. I hope that this board will see the importance in being transparent to its membership concerning its active efforts to provide a national voice to a hobby that we all love. Thank you for your time,
This is not an unreasonable demand. By the Club rules they are supposed to supply all of the info for other member's. I always like the way you get your point across Chris...
[FONT=Arial,sans-serif]Hello Chris[/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif]My thanks to Phyllis for her timely response to your eMAIL - I was dealing w/ the surgery of one of my pets and several other issues yesterday. I certainly did not intend for my response to Norman to indicate MASNA's refusal to provide meeting minutes [FONT=Arial,sans-serif]at all[/FONT]. I simply wanted to investigate the status of the missing minutes and get them posted to the website where they will be available to everyone - rather than eMAILing them to one member. I jumped on that activity immediately upon receiving Norman's eMAIL. [/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif]I agree that MASNA has a responsibility to post meeting minutes to our membership in a timely manner, regardless. I believe our commitment to transparency is evident by the fact that every meeting is open to all members via the chat room we meet in. We have had the challenge of filling a Secretary position empty for a few months and getting behind with minutes creation, as well as hard disk crash issues. As President, I own the problem and am sorry that it happened. Steps are being taken to correct this as quickly as possible and our new Secretary is working very hard on this effort. We do have a process that requires board review of all minutes prior to posting and board voting on their acceptance.[/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif]I'm sorry if you feel that requests by Razorback Reef have been "brushed off" by myself or any other MASNA board member. I no longer have any eMAILs earlier than this past January, so I can't review any correspondence you and I may have had. I do my best to respond fairly quickly to each eMAIL received and believe our other board members try to do the same. As you may expect, we get a lot of them. Phyllis has volunteered to work with you on any current issues that you would like MASNA help with and I appreciate that. [/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif]We are an all volunteer board that sincerely does want to help our members. There is no pay or prestige that comes w/ a MASNA Board member position, so it is the passion for the hobby that drives anyone to run for a MASNA board position and do their best in that position. Where our best has fallen short of the expectations of our members, we need to make improvements. [/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif]Sincerely,[/FONT] Cheri [FONT=Arial,sans-serif]Cheri Phillips MASNA President www.masna.org[/FONT]
