After three long days, the president of NCRA finally responded to a member’s email; although she never answered the pressing question about whether NCRA is going to show up for Virginia – or any other state affiliate association, for that matter.
We’ll break the president’s response down for you:
“Thank you for your patience, Lisa. Please know I am doing my best to reply as quickly as possible to emails. I am a working reporting (sic) in addition to wearing many hats within my firm. Juggling my commitments is a process each and every day.*
“As indicated below, NCRA is most definitely supporting and guiding our state associations in their advocacy work. I think it is important for you to understand that our Government Relations Department remains unchanged as it pertains to our state association focus.”
Tell THAT to Virginia!
“There is no lack of attention being given to our state focus.”
Tell THAT to Virginia!
“In fact, it is our goal to become more ‘active,’ verses (sic) ‘reactive,’ when it comes to state agendas. The reallocation of resources will not impact how NCRA is serving state associations.”
Tell THAT to Virginia!
“… It is our goal to provide guidance and tools to members to allow them to find the success they seek in their legislative initiatives.”
Tell THAT to Virginia!
The Virginia Court Reporters Association asked the NCRA to show up, and they were quite aggressively told that NCRA “would not, would not” be present in any way in Virginia. They were told that NCRA represented “’all reporters,’ including those that worked for contracting companies.”
“Watch for today’s version of the JCR Weekly for an exciting announcement regarding our presence on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., as well! NCRA is committed to promoting and advancing our profession.”
There is some stinky cheese coming out of Wisconsin, members of NCRA. We smell some nepotism and some conflicts of interest** here. Was the entire board brought together to vote on the hiring of the new legislative consultant from Wisconsin (and the firing of the gentleman who has the most institutional knowledge of NCRA’s and state affilliates’ issues), or was it the Immediate Past President, President and Vice President that made these grave decisions? Members of NCRA, we need to DEMAND answers before irreversible damage is done to our profession.***
WAKE UP, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Thank you to everybody who lit up the comments section of this blog today keeping us here at WUNCRA updated.
P.P.S. Please send this post to ten NCRA members to let them know how NCRA is letting them down, too.
*The president of NCRA has repeatedly stated that she is much too busy to respond to simple questions from NCRA membership, and she has dropped the ball this week on an issue that membership considers the most important facing the reporting profession today. We believe that since she is going to be able to call herself the president of NCRA and benefit from that moniker and the cache (cash) that comes with it for the rest of her life, NCRA and its membership need to come first during the short time that she actually holds the position. It’s a small price to pay.
**A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation or decision-making of that individual or organization.
***It’s time for the directors on the board to get together and speak up to let membership know what’s happening. Have these major decisions been made by a simple quorum of the executive committee?