The Business Summit, formerly known as The Firm Owners Executive Conference, is set for February 1 through 3, 2019, in San Diego. Yes, for a mere $1,045 registration fee, you, too, can attend. If you want to stay in the hotel where the “summit” is being held, that will be an additional $255 a night, plus taxes and fees. We haven’t yet added in roundtrip travel to and from San Diego or food and drinks. You don’t even need to be a member of NCRA to attend this “summit.”
But as you can remember from back in March, 2018, you didn’t’ need to be a member of NCRA to speak at a board meeting while dues-paying members were turned away because the venue was too small to accommodate those members that wanted to attend.
Weren’t a couple of those nonmembers that spoke at the board meeting the same nonmembers that are panelists on the “Truths and Myths” discussion on “multi-case litigation” – the new name for “third-party contracting.” Lipstick on a pig?
Then the president-elect of the association chimed in saying that we don’t even know what terms like anti-trust, networking, bidding, third-party contracting, legal contracting with governmental entities mean because those terms are all called third-party contracting. Wow!!! It looks like we’re going to run out of lipstick for that pig.
The president-elect also went on to say that this panel is “an opportunity to find common ground as professional reporters and firm owners in dealing with the reporter issues, educational approach changes for getting students through more efficiently and what that would look like, what works/doesn’t, as well as other issues facing our industry collectively”; although none of that was even mentioned in the synopsis of the panel discussion. Sounds like lipstick on a pig to all of us here at WUNCRA.
It appears that the only people able to pay to go to the “summit” are those big-box executives making hundreds of thousands or millions in salaries off the backs of the steno talent.
And hold on, everybody, a former director will slap you down at that “summit” with some more “tough love” to challenge your “most sacred beliefs about the business of court reporting with a focus on why being stuck in 1985 isn’t going to alleviate any of the issues faced by agencies and reporters in the 21st century.” Some of us here at WUNCRA seem to recall that he was part of a group that hired a former Texas Supreme Court Justice as a lobbyist to get the current Texas Supreme Court to change its stance on “protecting the public from unfair reporting pricing.” If you remember, Texas had the brilliant one-third rule – the price of a copy of a deposition could not exceed one-third of the price of the O&1 of a deposition. It worked really well back in 1985 through 2018. But, you see, certain “multi-case litigation” businesses couldn’t “compete” under that brilliant rule. So now we all need some tough love with that lipstick on a pig.
If the board just comes out and says, “Listen, these guys paid tens of thousands of dollars for their NCRA advertising program, and this seminar was a part of that package” — lipstick on a pig — “plus, this agenda was set up by a former immediate past president and a probably fired CEO, and it’s just too late to change it,” you may just garner some understanding from membership.
Also, we hope that the board is doing some investigating on all of the rules that were violated by the immediate past president – including her exiting barbs on social media. Are you recalling all of the turmoil she caused back in 2018 based on private conversations that she had without the board even knowing about them? Seems to us like being defrocked from the association is in order. She’ll always be able to bear the moniker of “President of NCRA,” though – just like that president that sold us down the recording river.
MWAH!!! ;-*
Wake Up, NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. We’re sure that the presenters of “Myths and Truths” will be glad to front the $$$ to broadcast their seminar live. Maybe the board should add a few more thousands of dollars to their “advertising package” to accommodate them blasting their “myths” directly out to the membership.
P.P.S. The NCRA board sent out a shameless e-mail blast this morning capitalizing on the angst of membership: “Don’t Miss Third-Party Contracting: Truths and Myths Panel Discussion.”