Thread by @ReformNambNow

Some people think that these investigations will kill the convention. They won’t. If the convention dies it will be because of us, the members. Long ago we gave into apathy and we abdicated our role of safeguarding our institutions from wickedness.

How? When you read the Business and Financial Plan you see that safeguarding the institutions is not done just by the trustees, but by us the members. That’s why it the B&FP says members are to have access to certain documents and be able to attend certain meetings.

Instead we adopted, “trust the trustees” and when entities have refused to provide certain documents or publish where they are holding their open meetings, we have let them get away with it. We have effectively abdicated our role in the convention for all but 5 min a year

The trustee system though was broken. Although some of what happened through the CR has been deemed necessary by some, it created the blueprint for how groups could take control of the convention and turn the trustee system into little more than a collection of yes men.

When members started raising concerns, and those concerns started to be ignored by the trustees, some took to online spaces to raise awareness. Those were sometimes labeled divisive, but more often just ignored. After that happened we have seen lawsuits and this investigation.

This investigation cost us money, and it will likely cost us more. That’s not the investigations fault. It is ours as members. The powers that be, that have already games the trustee system, will not fix this problem. We have to fix it.

We as members can no longer be apathetic. We cannot lazily sit by, give our money, and pretend it is all good. We must demand that our entities abide by the Business and Financial Plan. We must call for them to publish the location of open meetings, not just the city.

We must hold our entities accountable for their performance and their people. At the #SBC22 annual meeting we must do business, not just a dog and pony show for each entity. Investigations will not kill our convention. It will be our apathy that kills us.