Theos-Talk Archives (April 2009 Message tt00364)

Lookback at Recent TS Events

Looking back at all the events starting with the nominations, election and
thereafter, when you cut thru the nitty gritty nuances of rules and
regulations certain key things become clear.

Indian Section being the largest, anyone wanting to run, should visit the
lodges and so that members become familiar with the candidate. With multiple
languages in the country, and lodges tending to vote in a block for a
candidate, this familiarity is critical.

This was demonstrated when John Coats won the election. When he started
visiting lodges in India, most did not know anything about him. But his warm
friendly personality impressed everyone who met him and thus he won the
election in spite of competition from other well known local candidates,
proving once again Indian members are open minded about whom they elect.

The attempt to defeat Radha Burnier on her health issue was bound to fail
from the start since there was no strong foundation for it other than the
personal opinions of some leaders. Also when three doctors vouched for her
health, the claim of poor health for not electing her was demolished and in
addition all those who touted her poor health hurt their credibility and
believability.

It also appears that the velocity and power of Internet multi-way world-wide
public communication was not fully recognized and understood when the
election started. In the current world of communications, facts and
information cannot be held back from members like in the pre-Internet days
when the organizations controlled the medium of communication.

The after election claim of voting errors in India also did not hold water
since there was no substantive evidence to support it. On the other hand, it
has deeply hurt the membership in India and this may have repercussions for
anyone who runs for office from the West in the future.

The greatest damage to the credibility of the leaders in the West came when
the move to disenfranchise members and transfer power to the GC members to
elect/appoint president was very secretly developed and submitted to the GC
for quick action and implementation in the next GC meeting.

GC already enjoys the monopoly to nominate the candidates. This coupled with
the disenfranchisement of members world-wide and GC to monopolize the
selection/election of the president, was seen as a clever backdoor attempt
by the defeated candidate and his supporters to seize control of the
president.

Super secrecy coupled with the disenfranchisement move dealt a severe blow
to the credibility of the leaders, and many members have a very low level of
trust in their leaders. It is going to be very difficult to rebuild it by
those who participated and supported it. No one should underestimate the
intelligence of ordinary members since they can easily see through the
implications of the moves by their leaders. Leaders who do not command the
trust of their members cannot lead.

So in the light of all the above, we need a new crop of leaders whom members
can trust so that TS can get out of the current condition.

My 0.02

MKR

There is no religion higher than truth


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