TH,
I'm glad that you're not trying to change my mind. I'm not trying to change yours either. I'm just trying to make myself understood.
IMO, if you can sum something up in a single phrase, it's most probably a facile misrepresentation of a complex issue. In my experience, nothing can be summed up and defined fairly in a single short line. Life is too complicated for that to work.
True, but that's why we have the Key Principles, which are great BTW. But a MS should do something different than the Key Principles (otherwise it's redundant, and why bother?) The MS is
not supposed to be all-encompassing. It's supposed to be a simplification, maybe even an oversimplification. And it's not supposed to tell you very much. What it's supposed to do is
focus.
This all-encompassing (yet still fairly short) paragraph doesn't really do anything that isn't being done elsewhere, like in the Key Principles. It just does it more succinctly. A MS should serve an entirely different purpose - to focus.
For example:
(I just picked out "democratically governed", because that's the one that is mentioned first, and it's also the biggest deal, the most difficult to accomplish - even if we only had that as a mission, we'd be kept busy for all time - but in fact, this is just one (big) chunk from the whole set of our aims.)
The fact that you mention a "whole set of our aims" tells me that we don't really know what's
most important. Which of those aims are absolutely vital and which are disposable? If two of those aims come into conflict, which one wins out? Having a "whole set" of aims is, by definition, lacking in focus. A MS pares this set down to its bare bones and sets one (or maybe just a few) above the others.
The way I see it, we don't have the kind of facile mission that can be expressed in one line.
Maybe not, in which case we really don't need a mission statement. So let's not have one. Like I said, the board isn't going to sink or swim based on the strength of the MS.
But we voted to have one, and we voted to have it before we opened, so let's stick this DDCB into the slot marked "mission statement", check that requirement off our punchlist, and move on to the important thing, which is opening the board.
In summary, this DDCB is not a mission statement, and since it won't hurt anyone or hold anything up for me to refuse to call it one, I'm refusing to do so. But I'm still glad that we fulfilled the requirement and the board will open on time.
That's got to be the funniest thing I have ever read on the Al Gore invented internet.
Good. I thought you could use a good laugh.
Oh wait - I think he was being sarcastic.
Ang, its quite clear that you have not read the threads discussing writin the mission statement.
Now
that is funny, because I have read them. I even posted in one.
Okay, so "introspective" probably isn't the best word to say what I meant. I guess I should've said "focused", maybe?
Look, we've had a whole lot going on here. I have nothing but praise for the Committee on getting so much done so well so fast. It's nothing short of amazing. And I apologize for not being more available to add my input during th process. But this one thing is not what it should be. And I know we can do better. Paring awaythe unnecessary stuff to determine what is absolutely essential is hard work. I think we were asking too much of ourselves to do it right amidst everything else. That's why I would like to revisit it later, if possible.
if this were any other group of people, I wouldn't worry about it. But I have
extrememly high standards for y'all, because I know you can meet them.
If we got any more introspective, we'd be turned inside out.
eeewwww! Bad mental image.
As I've said before, if our aim is to aggressively market ourselves, you are absolutely right, this is not an appropriate mission statement.
That's not the problem.
If our aim is to reflect what is important to as broad a portion of our membership as possible, while explaining to potential new members what we are about, we've come as close as possible to nailing it.
Yes, we have. And that is something we should do. But not with a mission statement. The mission statement is for
us, not for potential new members. It's not to tell others what we are about. Its function is to focus our efforts towards what is most important. It's to remind ourselves why we do what we do, so we don't get too sidetracked.
That's why I've said that the DDCB belongs on the front page. I like it a lot. I really do.
It's just not a good mission statement.