I am posting this on behalf of Kathleen Auerbach who is currently off-line and
in transitiont:


Dear Jeanine: feel free to put this on Lactnet on my behalf.

One of the unexpected bonuses of not being on email for the past two months has
been the blessed quiet from the (mostly unnecessary) political wranglings that
made my life a living hell for two years. This was particularly true when I was
without phone or fax opportunities for people to use!

Nevertheless, I want to thank all of you who have, in various ways, kept me
informed of some of the recent goings-on by ILCA as an organization and by Board
members, as individuals and as representatives of that body. This has been
particularly helpful insofar as I have ceased being sent any mailings from ILCA,
including the last two Globe issues, and all first-class mailings sent to other
members. One must ask why this has been the case when I have been a member in
good standing since the inception of ILCA (my member number is #10).

To suggest that removal of certain items from the By-laws and making them
policies and procedures does not weaken elements which the membership has
PREVIOUSLY held sacred seems to me to be simply a more subtle way of weakening
ILCA than other actions that would be more obvious and therefore more likely to
be recognized by busy members who are unlikely to read both versions of the
By-laws line by line. A person innocent of how organizations are destroyed from
within might suggest that the people offering such excuses simply do not get it.
A cynic would suggest that these and other actions are deliberate. For example,
had the BMAI office personnel suggested outright that formula money ought to be
accepted (for ads or conference displays and the like), the membership outcry
would have been instantaneous and loud. To prepare the way to do something very
similar in a more subtle fashion means it is more likely to be missed until it
has already happened and then, where is the membership?

Linda Smith's most recent error in communication should place all ILCA members
on notice. Had she been in charge, members would have been allowed only one vote
- all yea or all nay to all aspects of the proposed changes rather than what it
should be, which is a vote on all changes AS WELL AS all deletions (the latter
not part of the current vote being sought). Note, however, that members have not
been informed or asked about whether they approve the deletions. Only the
changes have been noted as needing a vote.

There is no point in rehashing points made so well by others and defensively
countered by those who "know better". My reading of all this is quite simple:
giving members an opportunity to vote on some but not all changes is unethical.
Not informing them of deliberate deletions of previous by-laws is probably
illegal. If that is in fact the case - and I suspect it is, regardless of
whatever legal advice the Board may or may not have received - then the entire
body should be asked to step down immediately for flagrant violation of their
pledge to truly serve the membership. The Board should not be an entity in
itself, nor should a small minority of the Board place itself in a position to
rule without recourse or responsibility to the membership. One can assure all
one wants: when a partial "Executive Committee" of 4 out of 6 can make decisions
and then present them as a fait accompli to the rest of the Board to
rubber-stamp, which then does the same thing to the membership, this is not a
member-run organization. It has then denegrated into something more closely
resembling a dictatorship, something about which I want no part.

Which brings me to another question: given the above attempted activities of the
Board and previous others (too numerous to mention here), how many other current
members are, like me, reevaluating whether they wish to remain ILCA members,
particularly in light of a planned increase (not specified and due on January 1,
1997) in dues and no guarantee that the quality of office services, conference
offerings, or publications will be at a level that truly meets members' needs?

Kathleen Auerbach, PhD, IBCLC


NOTE: Anyone wishing to send messages to Kathy Auerbach can email them to this
address: [log in to unmask], and I will forward them to Kathy.



Warmly,
Jeanine

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Jeanine Klaus, MS, IBCLC, LLLL (Oakville, Ontario)
[log in to unmask]

"The point is not to do remarkable things, but to do ordinary things with the
conviction of their immense importance." - Teilhard de Chardin
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