On 9 May 2014, at 05:22, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
The point would be to have a layer of effective discussion between the strategic focus of the Board, and the detailed implementation by the office and contractors. I think it would be a mistake to define the "clearing-house" function out of existence.
That’s a very good way of putting it. Although the committees do not have direct budget control, my recent experience is that they should be (and are) very influential when it comes to the CE’s final decision on expenditure. They could be even better provided that we are ambitious enough and the committee members take it upon themselves to pick up some of the bigger issues (now starting to happen at least on Tech Com). Committees are much less useful and are much less attractive to volunteers when they spend their time working through very long, very detailed, lists of small operational issues. Such detailed stuff, as Charles has I think already suggested, should be subcontracted from the committee to a small working group so that that a larger part of committee meetings can be spent on higher-level discussions.
Michael