Mary Robinette Kowal - Running for SFWA secretary

[maryrobinette]

For the past several months, I've been helping out by recruiting volunteers for SFWA. As I do, it becomes apparent to me that the organization faces several hurdles

Comments

[ccfinlay]

Wow. That's so reasonable and sensible that I would consider renewing my membership just so I could vote.

Do you know who's thinking about running for the other offices?

[maryrobinette]

I'm glad you think so.

I do know of other candidates, but until they announce I won't spill the beans. My hope is that other SFWA members will consider running as well. To be a strong organization, our members need to be involved and willing to commit time.

[ccfinlay]

To be a strong organization, our members need to be involved and willing to commit time.

SFWA has always had members willing to pour their time, and sometimes their careers, into the organization.

To be a strong organization, leadership needs to use its volunteers' time wisely and present itself consistently with as much professionalism as the most professional of its members.

[maryrobinette]

Very true. Thank you for clarifying that. I've been impressed with the volunteers I've been working with over the last couple of months. The involvement I meant in this instance is need for volunteers to commit to running for office.

The reason I am announcing relatively early is in the hope that by starting the dialog now, other members will also consider running. In particular, I know that the office of treasurer is difficult to fill. It would be better for SFWA to have a ballot with several choices of candidates instead of write-ins at the last minute.

[blackholly]

Wow! That's really clever and makes tons of sense.

[maryrobinette]

Thank you!

[swan_tower]

I predict you won the office the moment you provided diagrams.

I mean, you can tell people all you want about how organized you are, but dude. Diagrams.

(And credentials and stuff. I very much hope you do win, because I have a hard time imagining anybody providing a more compelling argument for why they deserve the job.)

[maryrobinette]

People always like pretty pictures.

[jimhines]

I'm glad to see you running, and I agree with swan_tower on the diagrams. My gut sense is that actually making the structural changes you propose would be a pretty intensive job all by itself, but it would be nice to see things reorganized to be a bit more efficient.

[maryrobinette]

The difficulty depends on who goes into office in the other positions. As far as I can tell, a sizeable number of the committees on the list are already inactive, which would simplify the process of streamlining and reorganizing. I won't pretend that it will be easy, but once done it will reduce the burden of work by making the organization more efficient.

[jenwrites]

I would love to see the Nebula pages not be so damned labor-intensive. In particular, there's no reason for the "newly added online" page to exist when we have an interactive NAR. And yes, it would be great to have more open communication between volunteers (because not all of us are on committees). An excellent platform.

[maryrobinette]

Thank you.

And thank you for doing such a fine job with an inefficient system.

[_starlady_]

Impressive. You've got a clear understanding of the way things are and the way they should be. The SFWA BoD is an exciting place to be, not the drag some people make it out to be. I wish I had more time to spend on it (I am serious here). Good luck. I'll be pulling for you.

[maryrobinette]

Thanks. Working with the volunteers does give me enough peeks backstage to see that there are things to be excited about. But I want it to be a smoother running operation so that people aren't so darned tired.