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.
There are 21 (twenty-one, XXI … 21!) bylaws changes that will be voted on during a luncheon at the Texas Court Reporters Association convention in San Antonio next week. In the year 2016, when reporters are leaders in all things tech, why is there not on-line voting so that TCRA’s 800 (yes, eight hundred, DCCC … 800!) members can weigh in on changing the roadmap of TCRA?
We smell some rotten armadillo in the Alamo City!!!
This isn’t about “good” or “bad” amendments. This is about giving YOU and every other TCRA member an equal opportunity to decide which amendments y’all think are good or bad, and an equal opportunity to VOTE accordingly. There is not one pressing issue that needs to be addressed by the amendments this year. With 800 members, these changes should not be decided by just the members who happen to attend a luncheon.
Teamwork Does Make the Dream Work!!! Every TCRA member at the convention in San Antonio, please take one for the team and eat some rubber chicken — attend that luncheon on Friday, July 8th, and vote NO! to every single bylaw amendment!!!
Wake up, TCRA!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please send this to every TCRA member that you know so that they know that they should vote NO!, too!
What is the motivation behind the small number of reporters and others that want to do away with the 1/3 Rule in Texas? Hmmm, could it be because they are or represent contracting companies that are losing money in Texas because they can’t GOUGE the litigants on copy sales after low-balling the price of the originals to those that can most afford to pay? The contract holders are the ones making money off of the low-balled rates because they deal in volume. These are the fortunate few that will be able to live in mansions and survive after the massacre that they are engineering on the working reporters in Texas.
The 1/3 Rule is the gold standard for protecting working reporters and litigants. It’s a rule that many reporters in other states are longing to have placed in their reporting rules.
At the Alamo, nobody knew who was going to die or survive. But in the massacre potentially facing Texas CSRs, we know who is going to die and who is going to survive. The few people who will benefit financially from the removal of the 1/3 Rule are the ones who are going to survive. Those who are going to die are all the CSRs and litigants to whom the removal of the 1/3 Rule will cause financial harm.
Fortunately, Texas CSRs can choose not to be massacred by making your voices heard for the retention of the 1/3 Rule.
Force the bad actors to take the black bean! Let your TCRA Board know RIGHT NOW!!! that you want the 1/3 Rule to be kept status quo.
Texas CSRs – REMEMBER THE ALAMO!!!
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please send this to every Texas CSR that you know
Do you remember the scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail when the dead collector is calling in the street to “Bring out the dead” and the old man says, “I’m not dead yet” as the big man is paying ninepence to put him in the dead cart?
That’s where membership is, NCRA — We’re not dead yet.
It’s time for the board of directors and staff of NCRA to stop thinking about the perpetuation of the association and totally concentrate on perpetuating the profession of verbatim stenographic reporters. Without your members, the association does not exist. Your membership has, once again, sent you a resounding message that it wants you to focus on verbatim stenographic reporters exclusively.
Not too long ago, NCRA was an organization of around 35,000 members. It now hovers in the 18,000-member range. Where did 17,000 members go? Why did they go? What will it take to get them back?
We used to hear that they’re retiring out. But the number of retired members is in the 1,000-member range. Plus, as the 1,000 members retired out, there are new reporters being minted.
The board has the ability to figure out why members dropped out. Do a graph and find out the years where there were big drop-offs of membership and research what was going on during those golden years.
We need LEADERSHIP!!!
How about doing a survey of past members to find out why they left NCRA? Better yet, ask what NCRA can do to get them back. Have a “We Need You” campaign. Have phone-a-thons. Offer drawings for iPads or the president’s suite and dues at the next convention in Chicago if they commit to join. Does the president really need that suite?
And after the membership numbers are up again, stop doing things like selling our building and being coy about it. Let us know the details of what happened with the Nominating Committee that was so hinky this year. (Should the board go back and have a do-over? Tell the Nominating Committee to appoint from the nominees that MEMBERSHIP nominated! LEADERSHIP takes a stand and does the right thing!!!) Don’t try to change the bylaws without first shouting it from the rooftops!!! Stream the Annual Business Meeting so you have accountability to the entire membership, not just the 60 members who attended in person! You see, these are the types of things that irk your members, causing them to jump ship! Open the windows and the doors and let the sun shine in on what’s going on in OUR association. The answer to all things is not a dues increase or tapping into the rainy-day fund that is now full of the profits from a paid-in-full building. Most of the time the answer is just good ol’ LEADERSHIP!
We’re not ready to be hit over the head with a wooden mallet and thrown into the dead cart!
Wake up, NCRA! We’re not dead yet!
Frank N. Sense*
*We are frank, and we make sense.
Amendment No. 2 of the Constitution and Bylaws proposed by the NCRA Board of Directors is all about VOTING and the future of NCRA. Because if Amendment No. 2 passes, it will be the beginning of giving voting rights and major influence to associate members who are not verbatim stenographic reporters.
If you believe that NCRA should be all about verbatim stenographic reporters, then VOTE AGAINST all three sections of Amendment No. 2.
If you haven’t received an e-mail from NCRA, the voting site is: www.ncra.simplyvoting.com.
You will need your NCRA membership number and your password to VOTE!!!
Amendment No. 2 is broken into three parts, so please make sure that you VOTE in each section.
Frank N. Sense
P.S. Please send this blog post or the www.wakeupncra.com link to at least ten reporters to remind them to VOTE, too!!!
P.P.S. The polls are only open until 11:59 p.m. Eastern time. Please VOTE NOW!!!