You can read the entire speech at the end of this post, but we thought that we’d highlight a few passages.

“A program that was a good idea 20 years ago may no longer be serving our interests. For instance, should we continue to battle contracting as an issue requiring legislation? If that was the right approach, it would have worked by now, but it hasn’t.”

It sure worked in Virginia!

This is the first mention of NCRA’s stance against contracting that any of us here at WUNCRA could find — 2014.  As a matter of fact, that passage was quoted in a letter floating around social media with a 2015 date written by an alliance. It evidently was used as a cudgel to beat down and defeat anti-contracting legislation in Washington.

We’ve heard from a reliable source that on March 9^th a motion was passed by the board of directors of NCRA that the Executive Committee MUST let the entire board know of their discussions and decisions within three days.   So, how many other decisions have been made by the EC that the board still doesn’t know about?

MEMBERS OF NCRA, IT IS TIME TO REWRITE THE BYLAW THAT IS ALLOWING THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE SO MUCH CONTROL OVER THE ASSOCIATION!!!  The “Executive Committee” (just three of them) can get together as a quorum and vote to boot any officer or director off the board if they tell membership anything that the EC doesn’t want membership to know.  This, our fellow members, is called an oligarchy (government by the few)!

 “With two overarching life-and-death issues facing us—the need for all of us to be realtime proficient, and the urgent need to graduate more students into the field—should we be focusing on the issue of contracting?”

Madam Ex-President of NCRA, we’ve got a secret to share with you:  Members of NCRA can walk, chew gum and even “wind the string” with our YoYos at the same time!  We can fight contracting, become realtime proficient and be ETHICAL simultaneously.

“Likewise, recognizing the limitations of our resources, should we expend time and money on feel-good programs like Ethics First? Whether you think Ethics First is a good idea or not, it does nothing to advance our most vital interests, which are graduating students and making all of us competent realtime writers.” 

Hmmm … Ethics are feel-good, eh?  We guess it didn’t violate any ethics codes by changing NCRA’s stance on contracting  behind closed doors??? 

All of us here at WUNCRA believe that it’s time for a refresher course in ETHICS for the vice president, president, immediate past president and perhaps even a few more past presidents of NCRA.  If a survey was taken, we are all very sure that membership believes that “gaming the system” is UNETHICAL!!! *

Membership wants an explanation of why members from Florida were turned away from the board meeting on March 9^th because of too few chairs, but nonmembers were allowed to attend the board meeting AND actually make presentations!!!  It appears that those precious few seats were worth millions of dollars to certain corporations — because nothing beats putting out the anti-contracting wildfire before it even starts at the grassroots.  Ethics be damned!!!

Wake Up, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense

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*EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Section 1 – General

The Executive Committee shall consist of the President, President-Elect, Vice President, Secretary-Treasurer, and Immediate Past President … The Executive Committee shall have and may exercise all the authority and powers of the Board of Directors during the interim periods between meetings of the Board of Directors. **  The Executive Committee shall inform the Board of Directors of any actions taken by the Executive Committee during such interim periods. *** In no event shall the Executive Committee have the authority to modify or rescind any action taken by the Board of Directors.

Section 2 – Quorum and Voting

A majority of the voting members of the Executive Committee shall constitute a quorum (THREE besties!). Any action taken by the Executive Committee, at a meeting at which a quorum is present, shall require the approval of at least three (3) members of the Executive Committee (THREE besties!)  Members of the Executive Committee may participate in any meeting by conference call or other electronic communication media, and such participation shall constitute presence in person at such meeting.

** Members, this one sentence gives the executive committee too much power! This sentence needs to be rewritten to pinpoint exactly the privileges membership wants to bestow on the EC.  That rewrite then needs to be brought up before the entire membership for a vote.  Approval for a change to a bylaw requires a 2/3 majority of the voting members to pass.

*** We believe that since there is no timeline on when the executive committee had to inform the board of directors of the harms they’ve been instituting against membership as they were “gaming the system,” they just didn’t do it.  We guess that they were going to get around to it … sorta like at the executive session on March 9th.

 

Read the entire speech below:

Good morning. This is my last chance to address you as president of NCRA, so I want to tell you what I think we accomplished this year and then what’s most critical for us, in my view, going forward. For instance, is NCRA spending its resources wisely? I think I have a better focus on that complex question after this year as your president.

In 2011, when I became vice president, I promised to bring a collegial style of governance to our association and a respectful style to my leadership role. I believed then, and now, in a future that works for us, where realtime proficiency is the cornerstone of our value in today’s marketplace. The future I see for us is one where court reporters are sophisticated business people, able to succeed in a competitive market; where our schools are successful and graduate eager young men and women into our ranks; where the vibrancy of our profession attracts people to our field and our association.

I am happy to report that we have made real progress on all those fronts, but today I want to focus on education. Almost two years ago, the board commissioned an educational task force that met and recommended that NCRA get more involved in student education. Tomorrow you will hear the results of one of our core efforts: an industry outlook report which projects the demand for court reporting services three to five years out. The report’s main purpose is to provide marketing data to schools to help them with student recruitment. But it’s more than that. It will provide you, our members, with valuable insight. The report projects that demand for our services will dramatically exceed supply within the next five years. The demographics of that demand are important to understand, and you’ll be the first to hear the results. Don’t miss tomorrow’s session.

Our attention to Education cannot be half-hearted. It must be innovative and sustained. Accordingly, yesterday the board approved the launch of a campaign, called Students First, to follow through on our commitment to student education. Education is “the thing,” the key. It’s not just that the future of this great profession that we all cherish is at stake. In the end, Education is the thing. For firms that need reporters to cover their depositions, Education is the thing. For state associations that want to have members and programs, Education is the thing. For vendors who want to have reporters to sell their products to, Education is the thing.

Students First is the opening salvo in our education campaign. We are primed to hit the streets next month with a clever marketing and public relations campaign designed to engage our schools and reach out to key audiences. Still, Students First is more a team effort to get all of us pushing in the same direction. We need you—you and you and you—our members, leaders, state associations, vendors—to buy into the Students First philosophy. We need to get students into schools and graduate them into the workforce. There is no more important initiative for NCRA. And to succeed, NCRA will need your active involvement to promote the profession of court reporter everywhere you can. This is a call to action. We need your help if this is going to work.

An effective leader of NCRA must assess the world as it is, acknowledge how it’s changed, and leverage reality to our benefit. We have the tools and the skills to do that.

Make no mistake, it’s the market that will dictate what our future looks like; and we need to make a frank assessment of what the market wants. Does the market insist on a live steno reporter in every courtroom in the country? Does the freelance marketplace insist on having only small, locally owned agencies? Or has the marketplace shown that it wants large, nationwide court reporting firms that offer one-stop shopping for large law firms and insurance companies?

Reality is a moving target, and it has evolved in our field just as it has everywhere else. We cannot turn the clock back. It is the job of each and every one of us to hone our skills in order to meet the changing needs of our customers so that we each take our place in a thriving future. 

I’ve watched our association work on a daily basis, from the inside, and I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. Our resources, in manpower, money and volunteer time, are finite. We must make sure our programs are advancing our core interests, no matter how they may be defined from time to time. A program that was a good idea 20 years ago may no longer be serving our interests. For instance, should we continue to battle contracting as an issue requiring legislation? If that was the right approach, it would have worked by now, but it hasn’t. With two overarching life-and-death issues facing us—the need for all of us to be realtime proficient, and the urgent need to graduate more students into the field—should we be focusing on the issue of contracting? Likewise, recognizing the limitations of our resources, should we expend time and money on feel-good programs like Ethics First? Whether you think Ethics First is a good idea or not, it does nothing to advance our most vital interests, which are graduating students and making all of us competent realtime writers. Unless we achieve those dual goals, we don’t have a future.

It’s understandable that we might like to turn the clock back to a day when there were no national firms, and contracting was a nonexistent issue, and courts only wanted stenowriters in their courtrooms, and nobody cared about realtime and draft transcripts. But that day has come and gone. The world we live in is constrained by tight budgets, the preeminence of “big business” as the ideal business model, and the emergence of alternative technologies to do court reporting that employ digital voice recording, not human beings.

It’s a tougher world in which to succeed. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we have the tools to succeed in that world. And your association is hard at work promoting those tools for your benefit, through our testing programs and the credentials you can earn, and the myriad continuing education opportunities you can take advantage of to stay abreast of changing technologies and marketplace demands.

It’s an exciting time to be a court reporter. We’re making progress. The services that only realtime competence make possible can satisfy the needs of the marketplace in a way that digital recording cannot. We can win the battle of the marketplace—but we all have to do our part. And if we can point to a vibrant, thriving marketplace for realtime reporters, we can attract the students we need into our schools.

You and I, my friends and fellow reporters, are living a drama for survival. The stakes are high. It’s nothing less than our survival as a profession.  NCRA is ready and able to help you succeed. That’s our mission! We need to keep our eye on the prize—realtime and more graduates. That’s what will guarantee our continued success. Nothing else. And NCRA’s board needs your support in promoting those goals. Can we count on you?

As I pass the gavel to incoming president Sarah Nageotte, I would like to leave you with this thought. Reasonable people can differ on how to get where we want to be, but we must find common ground in order to move forward. Our future depends on it.