Good Elder and Communication Ideas

These are some very good ideas given to me from Karen Hill at this year’s Cider Party at Alice’s last weekend.

Possible rolls for elders:

1) Understand Fair processes & assist members in being heard 'officially'

2) Put together oral history projects for spoken word venue (etc)

3) Provide research assistance for large scale board projects like group insurance plans

4) Provide 'connective tissue' to membership by attending all meetings & creating
comprehensive year-end (or even quarterly) reports published in the ffn & distributed at fair info booths & at the annual meeting along with financial statement & feedback report

5) Brainstorm knotty BOD issues (like Increasing Member Input) & give
recommendations to the board

To expand member participation :

1) Require committees to issue reports to the membership once or
twice a year & publish in FFN

2) Since FFN arrives at the end of each month, almost always after
meetings announced therein are held, publish ways to direct comments to meeting participants.

3) Publish Fair processes & time lines in the FFN in addition to the guidelines.

4) Recruit 'real' reporters to FFN staff to report on all phases of the fair; from results of our philanthropic efforts to an overview of grievances (protecting
anonymity, of course) to a discussion of crime at fair to profiles of members who embody Fair Values (provide a method for members to nominate folks worthy of being profiled)