Bestuur brainstorm: three issues for discussion
The bestuur of groenlinks utrecht will discuss, or rather brainstorm, about coming year ideas. I want to focus on three issues, and here they are:
De rol van werkgroepen
van independent wat-dan-ook tot vrijzinnig bijdrage aan de afdeling.
The coming year strategy for werkgroepen could be considered to be on two sides. On one side building and on the other side requesting.
The building side refers to the actions that the bestuur can offer to a werkgroep, so that the club works better. Here we talk about jaarplanen, notulen, facilities like budgets, and general support that might come from the partijkantoor, or from the extensive network of contacts that the bestiuur has. Nothing new here, but basically more of the same. Support what werkgroepen want to do, or are already busy doing.
The requesting side refers to something rather new. A political party is an organization that produces political statements, and carries strategies to make them true. Now, what is the performance from werkgroepen in this process so far? My goal here is that werkgroepen are not only given the space, but also asked, to collaborate in the opinion forming process of the party. Accordingly with the interest that the different werkgroepen van groenlinks utrecht have, the bestuur can ask their opinion and imput more frequently. We don't do that frequently enough.
Two notes are important here. In first place, it makes no sense to force any werkgroep to do what they want to do. If the milieu werkgroep, for example, has no interest in evaluating the groenstructuurplan, fine. They don't have to. But the bestuur has to guarantee that at some point they are asked to do so. We have to have the culture of using our potential, and not only wait for the potential to express itself. The second important remark is that advice from werkgroepen, inside groenlinks, is not binding. So if the sociaal werkgroep advices the fractie to drop all support to reintegratie projecten, and the fractie does not agree, that is fine as well. What the bestuur has to support is that a good debate exists in the afdeling, giving space to different opinions, and that our politicians profit as much as possible from our experts.
De rol van internet: van informatie geven-de media tot discussie vermogen.
Lets get on my prefered wooden horse :-) the internet. Let's first recognize what is good about our use of internet. Take a look at groenlinksutrecht.nl and, in comparison with the design of other political websites, our site is by far and large the nicer looking. In according with the current imago from Groenlinks, as well. Fresh and good to see. Also regarding contents we are very good. Recently I tried to track the work of fractieleden in the gemeenteraad. Groenlinks is the unique party that has online all written questions, and is very actual in what are the issues that our politicians are busy with. Our site is a very good site to learn what are we doing as party. Can be better, but it is good.
Now, another look uncovers my main criticism. Groenlinksutrecht.nl does not have a single space for discussion online. If you consider the impact that internet today has in politics is definitively not as a media of giving information. Internet from the last years has grow to be a discussion space. Blogs play a very important role in the shaping of opinions, and discussion fora are of uttermost importance in recruiting not only new ideas, but also new people. Take a look at the campaign that brought Segolene to the front: an internet campaign of open fora. Take a look at the recruiting successes from Dean, in the USA. Grass roots movements were engaged in his position as emergent leader by the simple use of internet as a binding factor.
From this trend groenlinks utrecht is totally away. My hope for the coming year is that we give steps in this direction. We have positive experiences in the past. Check the program site, who included voices never active in our ring of meetings and assemblies. Ideas overlook by the programma commisie, such as a list of points per neighborhood, came from this site. And many new members as well.
It is my goal then that groenlinksutrecht.nl evolves in this direction. Detail we can discuss in the more restrictive context of a web-redactie, of a series of expert meetings of internet users. But let's agree in this brainstorm that we can, and should, use internet as another forum of discussion inside our afdeling.
Andere vergadering strategie? Een vergadering voor inhoud, een vergadering voor organisatie.
Last but not least, our meetings. In the last one we were able to evaluate our priorities, since Tjeerd make clear which agenda points are to share information, which ones for organizative purposes, which ones for discussion, and which ones for decision making. Looking at the watch I see that we expend long time in hearing how technical issues are carried. And we expend less time in opinon forming, and far worse, in decision making.
Now, I would not want that this bestuur becomes a discussion organism. One of the most clear successes of the previous bestuur is to have organized a overseeing organism, unable to do this job before. Today groenlinks utrecht counts with the luxury of having a functioning bestuur, which was not the case few years ago. This work has to be preserved.
But it can not go against oher tasks of the bestuur from a political party. What we are facing today (or what we have the luxury of face today, now that the administration works) is the lack of time to discuss standpoints.
My proposal is here relatively simple. Let's have alternating meetings. If we meet around twice a month, we can have one meeting fully allocated to administrative issues, and another meeting fully allocated to decision/discussion issues. Let's meet once a month to lead the organizational aspects of our afdeling, fundamental as they are. Let's give good time to check the finances, the work invested in new members, the organization of the coming big debate. And let's once per month focus fully in the political agenda of the afdeling. Which are the contents of the next ledenberaad? What is the best issue to be discussed in the coming ALV? What goes on with the content of the permamente campaign? Are the werkgroepen agendas updated? And so forth.
Of course, let's keep open the possibility that in one “organizational meeting” there is a conceptual issue that can not wait, and viceversa, the possibility that in a “conceptual meeting” there is an organizatorial issue that is of utmost urgency. The idea here is not to be enslaved by a predefined agenda, but surely to give enough time to each of the tasks that a bestuur has to fulfill. And not only time (because after all I am not proposing that we meet more frequently) but more focus.
posted by Unknown at 7:58 PM
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