dexter society

[jems5]

can someone tell me how all these arguments are going to help the dexter members .Local clubs used to be friendly get together sharing problems and getting advice and a good day was had by all.
Now i see hardly anyone goes to them the average age of a person keeping dexters seems to be getting older and the arguments seem to be getting worse. Can someone tell me how this is all helping in promoting the dexter cow as i thought that was the aim of the dexter society we see to be going backwards and not forwards and not working together to promote this great product which we have.I know of only a couple of breeders who have the breed at heart and pushed it to be recognised for what it is . only by working together will we go forward and put the dexter were it should be

[Duncan MacIntyre]

The arguments probably do not help dexter society members. The sad fact is that they are the result of poor communication within our society. At the time of the "Steering Committee" takeover years ago, I offered to pay for the whole council to have training from someone who was a true expert in organisational skills. The offer was rejected several times. One of his key points on communication was that if the governing body of an organisation did not communicate downwards to the rank and file members, AND most importantly allow communication back up to the governing body, and that if people had attended a meeting and felt constrained in what they could say, the instead of good flow of information between all levels in the organisation, all sorts of complaints, grousing, grumbling, call it what you will, began to break out sideways. He had a little diagram to show this, quite a good visual aid.

Some of us who may seem to be out of step and constantly arguing are in fact recognising the truth of this, and advocating reform of communication within our Dexter Cattle Society. To this end I have supported the motion which was to go forward to the now postponed AGM, ie, that the minutes of Council meetings should be available to the membership. This would be a good starting point to fix the rot which has plagued DCS for well over a decade.

I do hope that Mark will not close this board, because it is one of the few places we can have discussions like this. Not ideal on delicate matters of DCS organisation, but without DCS providing some sort of members only forum this is by far the best we have or ever have had.

Perhaps jems5 would sign up to openness by indicating who jems5 is.


Duncan