KCBS BoD Election Results

[HoDeDo]

It is fact that the majority of KCBS members are Judges. For the exact reason mentioned; to be a 'certified' Judge, you have to maintain your membership in good standing, or you lose your "certification". If you look at the curve of activity on cooks.... I would imagine that you have a similar distribution of judges - meaning a small percentage that judge ALOT, a few that judge outside region, and some that are local only judging 1-2 events a year. So you have a much smaller set that pay attention to the nuances that occur at micro level, and get taken to the board. The majority of the cooks out there, have no clue about splitting of hairs in the pork parting rule, and the frustrations of the cooks that are voiced on the boards. The people that are voting are active side of that curve; it is no surprise at all to 18%... If you look at the number of teams cooking alot, and active in forums and add that to the number of judges that are paying attention to details, I think you will see that percentages match up. The number of folks that attend board meetings via webcast is also small... I bet the podcast ticker is small also....

I am also one of those that didnt vote for 4 people. I voted only for those I truly wanted. I think several folks did that.

I think most folks just aren't in tune like some, and to get more votes would require much more education, and a driver to make those that are not voting - actually come vote.

I know when I was president of our HOA, I ALWAYS, had an item on "Dues Increase" on the ballot. Our voting occured at our annual meeting. We used to have less than 1/3 of the homeowners show, but if you put "dues increase" on the ballot, that gets all the members out... they all cared about the impact to thier pocketbook. Now a dues increase was never really going to happen, but it sure did get 100% participation. Not saying something like that on the ballots will drive voters to the polls , but the key is to put something out there that is important to all the members... finding what that is, is the challenge.

 

[Divemaster]

I have a question....How many members attended the Banquet? I woder if all of them voted heheh

I was at the Banquet and used three of my four votes.

Before I begin, let me preface my statement with that I didn't read the December, 2010 Bullsheet so I don't know if they had printed the Q&A in it.

The fact that it was in the January, 2011 Bullsheet was great. The problem was that I didn't receive it until the 13th of this month. Yes, I went on-line and found what I needed to make an informative vote, but it makes me wonder how many voted without that information.

Please correct me if I am wrong. Was that information available in the December edition?

All but Thom's were in the December issue. And they were onlin at the KCBS website. And you should have received an email on 1/3 telling you voting was open and you could have gone on-line to see the Q&A.

I just didn't get the time to look at the December issue. I did get the Email and that is when I went on-line and reviewed the Q&A in the January issue.

What surprised me was the date that I received the printed version of the January issue. It makes no sense to get it the day before the voting ends. While I'm sure that others received it a bit earlier, I'm also sure that some didn't receive it until after the voting closed.

At least you did vote. I'm sure you're not alone in not reading the Bullsheet.

I normally try to read them all.

 

[Bentley]

It is fact that the majority of KCBS members are Judges.

Now a dues increase was never really going to happen, but it sure did get 100% participation.

Not saying something like that on the ballots will drive voters to the polls , but the key is to put something out there that is important to all the members... finding what that is, is the challenge.

Interesting. I wonder if KCBS has the ability to know what member voted, not who they voted for, just that they voted?

You vote or you lose your status as CBJ. Meaning if you are a Master judge, you start again. If you have 17 competitions judged, you start again. Starting with a new CBJ class.

Would be much like mandatory comment cards, can you force something on someone? I am suprised KCBS does not say if you let your membership expire and are a CBJ, you start again...

Gonna happen the same time I win a Brad Pitt look alike contest!

 

[Jorge]

You vote or you lose your status as CBJ. Meaning if you are a Master judge, you start again. If you have 17 competitions judged, you start again. Starting with a new CBJ class.

Would be much like mandatory comment cards, can you force something on someone? I am suprised KCBS does not say if you let your membership expire and are a CBJ, you start again...

Gonna happen the same time I win a Brad Pitt look alike contest!

I am strongly opposed to forcing anyone to vote. If they aren't interested enough to vote, I don't want to force them to log on and click the first four options and submit their vote.

We may as well just draw names from a hat, containing the names of all of the candidates.

 

[Bentley]

Yet you are in favor of forcing someone to fill out a comment card...I would appreciate your take on how they are different?

 

[Smokedelic]

Sounds like they passed..

Which creates a problem if you don't want to implement both of them.

How do you implement one by saying it's what the membership voted for without implementing the other? This assumes that they really are interested in what the membership wants, and not just using the poll as a tool to justify their actions.

 

[Ford]

Which creates a problem if you don't want to implement both of them.

How do you implement one by saying it's what the membership voted for without implementing the other? This assumes that they really are interested in what the membership wants, and not just using the poll as a tool to justify their actions.

I would hope if regioanl representation passed that they form a committee led by a single BOD member to figure out a system or maybe options to put before hte membership for a vote.

In both cases however it would require a by-law ammendment. I think the BOD modified the by-laws in 2010 to say any change has to be voted on by members prior to ammending the by-laws. Anybody know more about this?

 

[Jorge]

Yet you are in favor of forcing someone to fill out a comment card...I would appreciate your take on how they are different?

I think the two are worlds apart. In the case of comment cards we are talking about requiring someone that has made the decision to judge defend their actions in the case of a 'low' score. If someone has made the decision to judge on any given weekend, I don't think that it is unreasonable to expect them to take the time to jot down a few comments when needed. I'm not completely sold that the mandatory use of the cards won't impact scoring, so I suggested a statistical review after one year to determine if this has happened or not.

In the case of voting we are talking about A) Stripping someone of a membership that they've paid for. That's a great way to get someone to renew their membership. :tsk: And....

B) Potentially skewing the vote dramatically, due to for lack of a better word, ignorance. If you require members to vote, to maintain their membership, you are introducing a large number of voters to the pool that will randomly select candidates to comply with the requirement as quickly as possible. How does adding several thousand voters, lobbing darts at a board, do anything to improve the situation? My personal opinion is that if you don't have a clue, and aren't willing to do the research to inform yourself, then you are doing the organization a favor by not voting. Nominations are in October, information trickles out over the next several months unless a candidate is active, and the burden is primarily on the voter to gather information. I can't blame some folks for not having the time during the holidays.

I'd love it if participation was 100%, and everyone was casting informed votes. That's just not going to happen when the cost is $35/yr. and the vast majority will judge one event per year. I was more obligated than ever to take the time to gather information, since I've been pretty public about my lack of satisfaction with the way the current board has functioned. I owe that to the people I've been critical of, the teams that spend a lot of time and money, judges that do the same, and the organization as a whole. For me, all of this comes down to being personally responsible and accountable.

Did I cover it adequately?:redface:

 

[Scottie]

El Jefe in 2012....

Just sayin...

 

[Smokedelic]

Looks like the poll results finally made it up on the KCBS site.

http://www.kcbs.us/news.php?id=308

 

[Gadragonfly]

I would hope if regioanl representation passed that they form a committee led by a single BOD member to figure out a system or maybe options to put before hte membership for a vote.

Here's an idea which is admittedly taken from another club I belong to but an idea that might work. These divisions are drawn up according to participation population and KCBS might not need as many divisions as this club has. Then, and this might be a little too radical :eusa_clap but, each of these divisions is given a certain number of directors based on the number of club members in those divisions. Each division is then divided into regions but that would possibly take this in a direction that would meet with a lot of resistance and I won't even go there. I will say though, that when I joined this club 28 years ago it was about the size of KCBS and now has almost 100,000 members.