On 9 May 2014, at 05:22, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)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