When you watched the movie ”TITANIC,” weren’t you at least silently saying, “Rose, blow the whistle! Blow the whistle! Call the rescuers back!” so Rose could be saved after Jack froze to death and sank to the bottom of the ocean?
Our fellow NCRA members, that is the exact position we are in regarding our Board of Directors. Last year we had three leaders voted on to the BOD from the floor after being dissed by the Nominating Committee. Two of them are on the Executive Committee.* The Executive Committee of five makes EVERY major decision regarding NCRA. That’s right! It actually only takes three votes of the Executive Committee to make a decision to, say, sell the debt-free NCRA headquarters building for $5 million, and disappear $2.3 million of that money without having to answer to anybody but themselves! The Nominating Committee, once again, chose a woman for the vice president position after membership voted against her last year! We submit to you that if she doesn’t have an opponent at this year’s election that the Executive Committee “trifecta” will consist of Chris, Tiva and Doreen next year.
Our sleuths did some diving into NCRA history and found a bunch of brave leaders who have previously run from the floor! We are “blowing the whistle”and imploring Donna C., Judy W., Sandra M., Viola Z. – even Melanie S. – to sign up again and rescue NCRA!
And speaking of leaders, how about Toni P., Lisa K., Rosalie, Karen M. — or even the fine gentleman from Washington State, Roger F., who recently wrote an eloquent e-mail calling for action that was forwarded on to a few of us here at WUNCRA – running for the Board of Directors?
We need to reach a critical mass of new leadership to break up the cliques! There are 14 people on the NCRA Board of Directors. Membership – YOU – without any help from Nom Com – YOU voted in three last year. Four new leaders running this year from the floor** will continue last year’s momentum and get seven leaders on the board not looking for self-gain. One running for and winning the V.P. position on the Executive Committee will surely break the triumvirate.
Perhaps you, reading this very blog right now, are one of those leaders! Have you been rejected by the Nominating Committee in the past? YOUR association needs YOU back! Or maybe you know an ideal candidate! If you do, please urge them to run!
We are blowing the whistle for new leadership so that WE – NCRA MEMBERSHIP! – can be rescued by new leaders that WE NOMINATE and WE ELECT from OUR OWN ranks!
Wake Up NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please send this to at least 10 NCRA members so that we get the word out that we’re looking for leaders to run for the Board of Directors.
*We have a suspicion that Sue and Debbie “Aren’t Feelin’ the Love” on the E.C. after their bravery of running from the floor last year. Just a hunch.
** The vice president (a critical executive committee position) and three director positions.
It’s Easier to Ask for Forgiveness than it is to Get Permission: 8224 Old Courthouse Road, Vienna, Virginia 22182. Plus, Board Minutes, Nominating Committee, and Advertising for ER reporter in MN.
Wow! A lot of discoveries since the last time we posted on this blog.
We here at WAKE UP NCRA got really curious about the sale of NCRA’s building back in 2015. There is a short blurb about it in the 2014-2015 Annual Report: “In 2015, NCRA sold its headquarters in Vienna, Va., which resulted in an extraordinary gain from the sale of the building.” **
Our sleuths here Googled “8224 Old Courthouse Road, Vienna, Virginia 22182” and, according to The Washington Post, the building was sold for $5 million. Our simple reading of the 2014-2015 Annual Report reflects a net gain on disposal of property and equipment of $2.695 million.
Membership deserves a FULL accounting on the sale of our most precious asset. For instance, we want to know what happened to $2.3 million – the difference between the sale price and the $2.695 million reflected in the annual report.
We looked at board minutes of the NCRA meetings and cannot find mention of the sale of the building. As a matter of fact, NCRA’s board minutes don’t say much at all about what goes on in those board meetings. Since it’s the secretary’s responsibility to “manage meeting minutes” we are looking to her to supply complete and detailed minutes of all future board meetings. For instance, it would have been nice to know which board members agreed with the sale of the building and which ones opposed it, and why. Full and complete board minutes will also allow membership to make informed decisions about the members that we want leading our 118-year-old organization – or more importantly, who we don’t want in those executive and director positions.
It’s, once again, the time of year for the Nominating Committee to meet and come up with “candidates” for the Board of Directors. Where does the time go? We noticed that one of the “candidates” is one that lost resoundingly for the vice-president position last year. Hopefully, the “Nom Com” will still listen to membership’s wishes. The cliques and the secrecy must stop! NCRA is at a fork in the road. Perhaps it’s time for the Nominating Committee to redeem themselves and go outside the “nominations” and beg the real leaders of our profession to roll up their sleeves and turn the ship around. Find the leaders who aren’t looking for aggrandizement. Find the leaders who don’t want to sit at the “cool girls’ table.” Find leaders who are truly altruistic and will not use their past “service” as a marquee for future gain. They are out there, Nominating Committee. Find them. That is your duty.
Speaking of using past “service” for future gain. Whose idea was it to allow an advertisement to fill an ER position in Minnesota in this week’s classifieds of the JCR blast? We wonder if Minnesota’s recording system is FtR.
Wake Up NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
** Now it’s become clear WHY the business meeting wasn’t streamed on Sarah’s last day of being president. Remember that to-do?
Congratulations, NCRA Members!!! You made the NOISE, and it reverberated LOUDLY and CLEARLY in Chi-Town!!! A few months ago YOU nominated three candidates, and yesterday YOU came out in force and elected them to be OUR new LEADERS. That’s what democracy is all about!
All of us here at WakeUpNCRA want to thank Sue Terry, Debbie Dibble and Christine Phipps for being OPEN and TRANSPARENT and for running on platforms that were all about how NCRA can best serve steno reporters!!!
Now that you’ve done your job by electing them, it’s time for them to do their jobs and do everything in their power to make NCRA the organization that we all know it can be.
Again, CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ROCK!!!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. YOU REALLY ROCK!!!
Please vote for the candidates that WE, the membership at large, have nominated.
Sue Terry, Debbie Dibble and Christine Phipps are OUR candidates, and today is the day to support them with OUR VOTES.
Wake Up NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please remind every member of NCRA in your contacts list to VOTE in today’s election.
P.P.S. If you haven’t received a ballot in your e-mail or spam box please vote at: http://ncra.simplyvoting.com
Yes, the time to actually VOTE is almost upon us!
We need to send a crystal-clear message that the nominating and election process at NCRA is TOTALLY BROKEN and it must be done away with.
As things stand now, it is possible for the Nominating Committee to be completely made up of people who have never been elected by us. And without members running from the floor in contested elections, it’s also possible for that unelected nominating committee to give us “leaders” who have never received our support in a truly democratic election.
The only way to have a chance of stopping past presidents from using the cachet of “leading” NCRA to cash in on their personal career goals is to STOP the oligarchy.
Sue Terry, Debbie Dibble and Christine Phipps have stepped up and have publicly stated that “career advancement” is not their goal!!! We should trust their openness and transparency.
We have not heard ONE WORD from the president, the president-elect or the director who have been “deemed elected” by the oligarchy. These secret-handshake candidates are taking advantage of NCRA’s rules and choosing not to tell members what their plans are for NCRA and – more importantly — what their plans are for when they leave NCRA. This is because they are automatically in and don’t have to bother with pesky ol’ elections. The bubbly is already flowing at their invitation-only victory parties!!!
The reason that Sue Terry, Debbie Dibble and Christine Phipps are on the ballot is because they have already been supported by at least 100 of US. 1000% transparent, no secret handshake involved. That means that they’re OUR nominees and now it’s time to put them in office as OUR LEADERS!!!
Wake Up NCRA!!! VOTE!!!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please send this to every NCRA member in your contacts list so that they know how important their VOTE is, too!
In a recent Facebook post, NCRA’s President Stephen Zinone – or, hopefully, his ghostwriter – through a tour de force of NCRA’s governing documents and applicable law, held NCRA’s election process up as a shining example of “democracy in action.”
Well, our fact checkers here at WakeUpNCRA – never shrinking from a good challenge – wanted to see if our current president is the real deal or if he’s just lip-synching when it comes to democracy.
So, let’s see if Steve’s stage crew at least has the speakers turned on. He is hyper-technically correct that all directors and officers are “elected” by Voting Members of NCRA because the members of the Nominating Committee — all FIVE of them – are themselves Voting Members of NCRA. Okay, the speakers are turned on.
Now let’s look at the tune that he’s supposedly singing. Based on the Facebook post, to everyone here at WakeUpNCRA, it sounds like Steve is emphasizing how all of the directors and officers are elected by scores of at-large members. But we know that’s not the case because here’s how it really works – and this is how we really know that Steve is lip-synching — as we can all read on Election Central regarding uncontested elections: “The following are the uncontested nominees for the 2016 election. These candidates will be deemed elected at the Annual Business Meeting, August 4, 2016.”
That’s right. Our new president, president-elect, and two directors will be “deemed elected,” meaning, from our perspective as at-large members, these “candidates” will ascend to become OUR leaders without having received one single vote from a single one of us. Now, does that sound like anything resembling true democracy to you? Because it sure doesn’t to us. To us, it sounds like an oligarchy—the rule of a few (FIVE) people.
That’s right. If somebody leads a charmed existence and first gets nominated as a director and then a couple of years later gets nominated as the president-elect, both times in uncontested elections, that person will become our supreme leader without having ever received one single vote from the membership at large. As a matter of fact, it will be a maximum of ten votes cast by people who themselves may never have received one single vote from the membership at large. So, this, my friends, is an oligarchy.
So, our fact checkers have concluded the following. Democracy? Not in Steve’s (or his ghostwriter’s) wildest dreams. Oligarchy? 99.999 percent.
The only small exception (the .001 percent) is when someone runs from the floor and wins a contested election without ever having received the support of the oligarchs. Because just to run, they have to receive the support of at least 100 at-large members with not more than 25 from any single state. Then to serve they have to beat the oligarch’s nominee by receiving a majority of votes cast by the membership at large in an ACTUAL election.
So, this coming Thursday, August 4th, please vote for candidates who are “the real deal” – YOUR candidates because YOU nominated them.
So strike a vote for true democracy and vote for Sue Terry, Debbie Dibble and Christine Phipps – the real deals!
Finally, don’t pay the extra money for NCRA’s concert CD. The oligarchs lip-synched it.
Wake Up NCRA
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Let’s make some real-deal noise – no mic, no sound system, no lip-synching!!! Please VOTE this Thursday, August 4th!!!
P.P.S. You will receive an e-mail from NCRA after the business meeting to vote if they have your e-mail address on file.
P.P.P.S. Please send this to at least TEN NCRA members (the equivalent of two Nominating Committees) so that they know how important their vote is, too!!!
As we all know by now, a couple of past presidents started a company a few years ago that is now gaining some traction. In a news release, they describe their new business as “the beginning of a brave new world” for the court reporting profession.
Hmm, a brave new world? Why does that have resonance? Where have we heard that before?
Well, it turns out that Shakespeare was the first to use it in “The Tempest,” and perhaps the most famous use was by Aldous Huxley for the title of his book, “Brave New World.”
But for Shakespeare and for Huxley, their brave new worlds were dystopian. They weren’t places you wanted to live.
We believe that this “brave new world” of court reporting is a world of loss of jobs, loss of benefits, loss of transcripts, loss of security, loss of children’s college tuitions, loss of retirements, loss of mortgage payments. It’s a place where reporters will have to work for the “World Controller” who will have access to the book of business that they will get from making promises of lower overhead to court systems around the country. The World Controller gets to decide how much a reporter will earn off of the transcripts – IF the reporter will earn anything off of the transcripts. Again, it’s our opinion that the pricing of transcripts will be a secret, just like it’s already a secret for the big-box shops around the country.
Speaking of the big-box shops, before we know it, this “brave new world” will shift to the freelance world. Can you envision a deposition with a reporter in Atlanta while a witness is in Portland, Oregon? The only thing preventing that from happening today is a National Oath.
We here at WakeUpNCRA have seen across social media that past NCRA leaders are once again pushing for the National Oath. It didn’t work in 2014, but it’s never too late to try again, is it?
We can see member value for reporters across the country if NCRA will take a stand against a National Oath Act. These big-box shops and “World Controllers” can hire lobbyists and lawyers to enhance their “brave new world.” Wouldn’t it be nice for NCRA to use its clout to fight for the working reporter by opposing a National Oath at every turn?
But it’s not too late for you to ask your future leaders how they feel about the brave new world of a National Oath. Are they for it, or will they fight against it?
Thursday is voting day at NCRA! Please make your voice heard!
Wake Up NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please send this to ten NCRA members so that they know to vote on August 4th, too!
There are 14 members that sit on NCRA’s Board of Directors, but did you know it only takes THREE members to make any major decision? Yep, it’s the sneaky truth that we discovered while on our dig around NCRA’s site.
This is what we found under the “Constitution & Bylaws: Article VII–Executive Committee”:
“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.”
“In no event shall the Executive Committee have the authority to modify or rescind any action taken by the Board of Directors.” (We can’t find any words about the Directors having any authority to modify or rescind any action taken by the Executive Committee!)
“A majority of the voting members of the Executive Committee shall constitute a quorum. 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.”
According to Merriam-Webster, an oligarchy is “a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution.” We submit that entrance to the Executive Committee is done through the Nominating Committee by SUPER-SECRET HANDSHAKE to be admitted to the Executive Committee clique to continue the oligarchy. Debbie and Sue just weren’t invited to the Executive Committee’s cool girls’ table.
We are suspicious that the nasty “ethics policies” and the Board Code of Ethics Complaint Procedures were designed around the bylaw that allows THREE members out of 14 to make major decisions regarding OUR association. It would be a real bummer if the Executive Committee made some decisions that the rest of the board didn’t agree with and then have those board members squawking about it, wouldn’t it? So how nifty to have a document to hold over board members’ heads that muzzles them by allowing them to be embarrassingly thrown off the board.
By the way, all of the ugly documents were revised in March 2016. So, amazingly, these “ethics” and complaint policies and procedures have recently been vetted and approved again!
How do we change these policies? We all NEED to VOTE on August 4th!
Not only do we need to vote Sue, Debbie and Christine onto NCRA’s board this year, we need to find other leaders who will run from the floor next year! Put your thinking caps on: Are you a leader that can help bring this oligarchy to a screeching halt? This housecleaning that needs to be done at NCRA will take multiple years before our NCRA house is spic ’n span.
Check out the three Members’ Choice candidates’ sites:
www.sueterry.info
www.debbiedibble.info
www.christinephipps.info
We are sure that they object to the oligarchy and to being muzzled, but maybe you want to ask them yourselves. According to their sites, they are very responsive to your inquiries.
Wake Up NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Again, please VOTE on August 4th. And send this to ten NCRA members so that they know to VOTE, too!
P.P.S. If you’d like to receive future WakeUpNCRA posts, please scroll to the bottom of the screen and check the box.
After the last WakeUpNCRA post, we became very curious about the new president and president-elect that will automatically be installed in early August. Since they are not involved in contested elections and the questionnaires that would give a glimpse into what qualifies and motivates them are nowhere to be found, we decided that we would try to dig deeper to find some information that we could share about them to you, their membership.
We thought board meeting minutes could help us. Alas, the last board meeting minutes posted are from July 2015! The board minutes that we did read are so cryptic that they wouldn’t help us help you, anyway. Why an association of stenographic reporters doesn’t have a stenographic reporter producing a record of its Board of Directors’ meetings is perplexing to us. But that’s a different post.
Aside from their bios, there is NOTHING on NCRA’s site that we could find that sheds any light to let members know why they are so qualified to be our leaders for the next few years.
BUT what we did stumble upon during our info-seeking mission was a document with a lot of “including but not limited to” and “shall” phrases that every board member must pledge to and sign under the guise of ethical conduct.
“… each member of the Board will uphold the strict confidentiality of meetings and other deliberations and communications of the Board of Directors.”
“Respect the confidentiality of information acquired through Board service.”
“‘Confidential information’ includes but is not limited to discussions in Executive Sessions …”
Aha, it looks like EVERYTHING that happens during NCRA board service is confidential — not only the questionnaires filled out by your leaders going into the nomination process!
We don’t know about you, but we here at WUN believe that it’s unethical to be elected by your peers and then pledge to never be transparent or truthful with them again.
As long as our leaders are muzzled, we will never get the best that they have to offer — we are never going to get to hear the best that they have to offer. In fact, all of us here at WakeUpNCRA see this document as a violation of their fiduciary duty to YOU, the members!
We suggest that a possible way to stop the absurdities of the lack of transparency, the secret handshake, the clique, and all the other secrecy is by voting in the “Members’ Choice” candidates on August 4th.
Remember, these are candidates nominated by YOU in the light of day, not by some committee that will never tell us why they think unopposed candidates are worthy to be our leaders.
Hopefully, WE, the membership of NCRA, through our support, can give Sue, Debbie and Christine the courage to stop this madness.
Wake Up NCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please vote on August 4th! And send this post to ten NCRA members so that they know to vote, too!
P.P.S:
www.sueterry.info
www.debbiedibble.info
www.christinephipps.info
Did you know that there are three contested elections that need to be voted on on August 4th? We here at WakeUpNCRA didn’t know about these elections until we began hearing from the candidates themselves. So we decided to do a little digging ourselves by going to NCRA’s website – and, by gosh, digging we had to do!
After finally figuring out that the BIG DIG begins under the “About NCRA” tab, and then clicking on the “Board of Directors” tab, then finally noticing the big blue box that contains “Election Center” in the tiny-font soup – while the first three Nominating Committee candidates’ photos are staring you right in the face – we finally reached a sign-in screen after which we found some more tiny font to click on to “learn more about the 2016 nominees.”
Whew! After taking a break to recover from the mental gymnastics, we dove into the candidates’ questionnaires. (By the way, there is NOTHING, no questionnaires, NO INFORMATION AT ALL!, about the president, president-elect, or the one director who are not facing opponents this year. So much for full disclosure and transparency.)
After reading ALL of the candidates’ questionnaires, we have determined that YOUR nominating process is broken. When the same old same old gets appointed to the Nominating Committee, the result is the same old same old candidates. We are convinced that the three candidates that are “running from the floor” just did not receive the secret handshake before the interview process.
The three candidates not chosen by the NomCom include the INVENTOR of the TRAIN program, a recipient of the Woman of Outstanding Leadership award, and one who was instrumental in getting a realtime courthouse implemented. The Nominating Committee’s recommendations cannot even hold a candle to these three LEADERS!
Please read about them, and you too will be convinced that it was just being blind-sided by the secret handshake that kept them from not making it through NomCom. We are providing links to their individual sites so that you don’t have to go through The Big Dig:
Vision 2018 implores NCRA to “Think Different.” Sue, Debbie and Christine have already demonstrated that they do!
Wake Up NCRA!
Frank
P.S. NCRA’s nominating process gave us SueLynn, and it did not give us Melanie. Just sayin’.
P.P.S. Please make sure to VOTE on August 4th – and send this to 10 NCRA members so that they know to vote, too.