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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Feedback to the Forth Interest Group
Message-ID: <2351.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 18 Feb 91 02:00:12 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.
Lines: 76


 Date: 02-14-91 (12:59)              Number: 1164 of 1166 (Echo)
   To: DENNIS RUFFER                 Refer#: 1140
 From: JACK WOEHR                      Read: NO
 Subj: FEEDBACK TO THE FORTH INT     Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 -> I was actually looking forward to a vote this last year.  Although I
 -> was not on the Nominating Committee, it would have seemed kind of
 -> pointless for them to nominate someone who was going to submit a
 -> petition.  Let me ask it this way Jack.  If the Nominating Committee
 -> has nominated you and you joined the Board with no vote from the
 -> members, would still be using all the tastless names you have
 -> attributed to the Directors so far?  I can tell you that the tables
 -> could have been turned very easily.

         Actually, you and John Hall tried several times to persuade
 me to accept such a nomination and I refused it as dishonorable under
 the circumstances. I commend to your recollection many conversations we
 all had on GEnie, as well as ask you to query John Hall on a
 conversation he and I had on the phone last July.

         As I explained before, an organization that is losing its
 members due to its inability to *act* needs some fresh, outside
 input of the sort that is not likely to be provided by hand-picked
 successors. That type of system failed in East Germany and the
 Soviet Union, and it is failing in FIG.

 -> So, yes we did add two new people to the Board of Directors.  Dr.
 -> C.H. Ting and Dave Petty are now part of this group that you feel
 -> does not know how to do their jobs.  I for one, hope they have thick
 -> enough skins to handle the abuse.

         The suggestion that I would intentionally verbally abuse
 my good friend of many years, Dr. Ting, I take you to have meant
 facetiously. If the Board should attempt to use that estimable
 scholar's good name as a shield for their incompetence it will only
 discourage any attempt to revitalize the international FIG organization.

         It has been said, "FIG started in Silicon Valley and for
 the core members, if it only survived in Silicon Valley they would
 be happy."

         I think this is true, and that the Board doesn't care if
 FIG survives as an international organization. This is what their
 actions say, and actions speak louder than platitudes. Come to
 think of it FIG hasn't even been offering us platitudes for some time!

         The appointment of David Petty offers some hope. David is
 nothing if not a hellraiser! However, I do recall that when Jack
 Brown and I were both at the August meeting of X3J14 Jack studiously
 avoided discussion of my candidacy for the board (at a time when
 the petition signatures were not yet in) and buttonholed Dave Petty
 about the Board off to the side.

         So it's clear that what the Board is looking for is someone
 the cut of whose jib they like, which may mean more of the same
 failure-oriented management. Dr. Ting's organizational skills
 are very strong, but against that lump of human inertia that is
 the Board of Directors of the Forth Interest Group, he has his
 work cut out for him.

         If you had made Ting the president in place of the officious Mr.
 Reiling, it would have offered more chances for success. But success
 isn't what FIG has been about, not since they dropped the ball on
 the annual conventions.

         =jax=

 NET/Mail : RCFB Golden, CO (303) 278-0364 VESTA & Denver FIG for Forth!
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