Trojans Not Favored?

You’ve got to be kidding me!

If those last two losses to unranked opponents were not enough to convince the algorithms to stop favoring Penn State against anybody not named Rutgers or Maryland, then somebody has been feeding the computers cyberhallucinogens.

The human, albeit computer-assisted, oddsmakers opened USC as a 1.5-point favorite. ESPN’s Matchup Predictor, meanwhile, favors Penn State 62% to 38%.

Weird.

Even weirder, early betting action subsequently pushed that 1.5-point advantage over to the Nittany Lions. Apparently, the wagering public watched the same Penn State games I did and reached a completely different conclusion. Perhaps they were drinking—heavily, as the crappy outcomes would have supported.

How can anyone watch that porous Penn State defense and predict anything but disaster against the Trojans’ potent offense, which is ribbed for her pleasure and includes a reservoir tip, just like the latex product whose name they share?

This Enquiring Mind wants to know.

What Happened Last Week?

In their last outing, USC beat Washington 25-21 in the Coliseum.

Yes, that was a Big Ten conference game. USC versus Washington. In Los Angeles. The Big Ten now stretches from Piscataway to Puget Sound, because geography finally surrendered to television money and went home drunk.

But I digress.

USC held the Huskies to a pitiful 1-for-12 on third down. Perhaps intimidation played a role, given that the Prophylactics committed nine penalties for 94 yards. Washington contributed another 74 yards’ worth of yellow laundry, so apparently everybody was feeling generous.

Otherwise, the game was pretty even. And in an even game, turnovers’ll killya.

Washington coughed up a fumble at its own 48, where 300-pound USC defensive tackle Jahkeem Stewart scooped it up and lumbered to the end zone. By the time he crossed the goal line, Stewart appeared ready either to celebrate or request supplemental oxygen.

That touchdown gave USC the lead late in the third quarter and ultimately proved to be the game winner. The Trojans added a fourth-quarter field goal while Washington was held scoreless for the rest of the night.

Trojans senior quarterback Jayden Maiava, a 6’4″ Hawaiian who unlike Rocco Becht can apparently loft passes over defenders without requiring a periscope, went 21-for-34 for 245 yards and a touchdown, although he did throw one interception. He spread the ball among nine receivers, demonstrating the quaint offensive philosophy of throwing to whichever guy happens to be open.

Perhaps Rocco should take notes.

The running game produced 115 yards, 81 of them on the sturdy legs of sophomore running back King Miller. Senior Waymond Jordan added 36 yards and a touchdown.

USC’s defense contributed five sacks and six tackles for loss.

Rocco Becht might want to wear two sets of pads and a fresh pair of Depends.

The Tale of the Tape

Now that five games are in the books, statistics have progressed beyond the stage where beating Delaware A&M Agricultural Normal School 63-3 tells us anything useful.

The first number that jumps out for USC is that Jayden Maiava ranks second among FBS quarterbacks in passing yards.

How might that fare against Penn State’s pass defense, you ask?

Surprisingly, this is actually a matchup worth watching. Penn State ranks #3 nationally, allowing only 119.6 passing yards per game.

Of course, when your front seven consists largely of decorative lawn ornaments and opponents can run the ball whenever they damn well please, there is little reason to bother passing.

Why order lobster when the buffet is free?

Now let us consider one of my favorites: Red Zone Offense versus Red Zone Defense.

This season, even after negotiating the cupcake portion of the schedule, Penn State has been putrid inside its own 20, allowing opponents to score 100% of the time.

Goal-line stands apparently reside in the same Penn State historical archive as fullbacks, phone booths, and linebackers who tackle people.

Fortunately, USC’s Red Zone Offense sits tied at #99, giving us a classic confrontation between an offense that has trouble scoring and a defense that is apparently constitutionally prohibited from preventing it.

Penn State ranks tied for #114 in Red Zone Defense, with opponents scoring 92.9% of the time.

So when USC enters the red zone, we shall witness the irresistible mediocrity confronting the movable object.

Another favorite statistic is third-down conversion percentage, which has been a focal point of Penn State suckage for years.

USC ranks #11 nationally, converting about 52% of its third downs.

Penn State is tied for #79 with Temple and Moo U at 40%.

They still suuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Total Offense versus Total Defense is worth a quick gander, too. USC’s offense ranks #29 against Penn State’s #28 total defense. Going the other way, Penn State brings the #63 offense against USC’s #68 defense.

Hey!

This game really does look pretty even on paper.

Unfortunately, Penn State does not play football on paper.

Similar Schedules

The Trojans have lost only once, to #20 Oregon.

In their other Big Ten action, they beat Rutgers 42-35 in Piscataway. Their remaining wins came against San Jose State, Fresno, and the Ragin’ Cajuns, who somehow managed to hang 30 points on USC in Los Angeles before returning to the bayou smarting from a 49-30 whacking by the Rampagin’ Rubbers.

Yep. Three cupcake wins, including a shutout.

Look familiar?

Both of these teams spent September fattening themselves on pastries before conference play began asking inconvenient questions.

After the White-Out, Southern Cal gets a bye before facing Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Indiana in succession. Fortunately for them, another bye separates tOSU and Indiana.

Nevertheless, that is a tough schedule.

You know, the sort of thing conference schedules are supposed to be.

This game looks more even with every stone I overturn.

Eventually, I expect to find something slimy underneath one.

Da Wedda

The weather appears likely to cooperate as we enter the third week of fall.

The forecast calls for a high of 68, a low of 49, mostly sunny skies during the day, only an 8% chance of precipitation, and calm breezes.

In other words, conditions should be ideal for the White-Out.

There will be no rain, gale-force wind, heat wave, plague of locusts, or other meteorological excuse available should Penn State decide to soil the bedding.

Da Bottom Line

Having reached decision time, I am still scratching my pin feathers over this one.

Therefore, the Official Turkey Poop Prediction will once again emanate from the fetid cloaca of this foul old fowl.

Bullshit prevails where science fails.

In college football, the home team is traditionally accorded roughly a three-point advantage by the gamblers. I’d call them the punters, but that would confuse the hell out of those unable to excise their asses from the football context.

Familiarity with the field itself is not worth three points. But 109,000 screaming, white-clad homies can certainly produce a false start or two, screw up an audible, and occasionally convince a visiting tackle that hearing is an overrated sensory function.

Strip away that home-field advantage, though, and this matchup still seems to tilt slightly toward USC.

The greater problem involves the intangibles.

We have yet to see Penn State rise to the occasion against a Big Ten opponent this season. That matters.

At press conferences, the coaches assure us they are “working on some things,” which is football-coach dialect for, “We have identified that losing is undesirable.”

Whatever they are working on has yet to produce visible evidence of inspiration, execution, depth, or much of anything else. This team just isn’t very good right now, and pretending otherwise merely increases one’s eventual cardiology bill.

The USC +1.5 spread and over/under of 54.5 combine to suggest something resembling a 28-25 Penn State victory, which just happens to be the score by which James Franklin lost to Pitt last week.

But do you see Penn State scoring 28?

I don’t.

Hell, Rocco can barely see over the defense.

Until I see some sign of life on both sides of the ball, these Nittany Cyclones don’t get no respect from this Turkey.

USC 30, Penn State 17.

I might have allowed Penn State 20 if Ryan Barker hadn’t already made plans to miss another field goal.

See if you can parse that sentence. I wrote the damn thing and I’m not entirely certain I can.

I’m shading my total-points thinking toward the under, but this is all bullshit because I wouldn’t put money on this game if Warren Buffett handed me pocket change and told me, “Go have fun, kid.”

White-Out. National television. Ranked opponent. Beaver Stadium at night.

The stage is set.

Now Penn State merely needs to avoid leaving skid marks on all that white.

We’ll see what Saturday brings. It could be interesting. It could be disgusting. Given recent evidence, those possibilities are not mutually exclusive.

Either way, I’ll be back after the White-Out with the game recap, forensic analysis, and the customary snark.

The post White-Out with Skid Marks? appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

We are not suggesting foul play. There are no drag marks. No ransom note has been received.

Nevertheless, the Committee seems to have gradually faded from observable reality, leaving behind only occasional evidence that awards themselves continue to exist.

This is curious because the Bylaws remain stubbornly convinced that there is an Awards Committee. They even assign it things to do.

Where’s the Monthly Report?

Among those things is the production of a monthly status report for the Board of Directors. Standing committee chairs are likewise expected to submit monthly reports for inclusion in the Board agenda.

The last Awards Committee report we can locate was presented at the July Board meeting, covering June activity. The August meeting passed without one. So did September. The preliminary packet for the October 10 meeting contains none either.

October has not yet arrived at the judgment seat, so perhaps a report will materialize at the last moment. We remain hopeful. Hope, after all, is cheaper than toner.

Fix the Agenda, Flag the Problem

Meanwhile, we believe the agenda should contain a placeholder for every required standing committee report, whether or not the report was received.

Otherwise, the Board can take a cursory glance at the table of contents and conclude that all is well simply because the missing item has disappeared completely.

A better entry would be:

Awards Committee Report — NOT RECEIVED

Reading the reports themselves is advanced governance and not for the faint of heart. Thus, some Directors might not notice that a particular report is missing unless the agenda makes the omission impossible to overlook.

A required report should not vanish from the agenda merely because the report itself vanished.

Did anyone think we would not notice?

Awards Without Awards News

Meanwhile, the weekly Awards News has also gone quiet.

That little publication was created for a simple reason: members ought to be able to see the awards being earned by their fellow members. Meanwhile, members earning the awards should receive acknowledgments and congratulations. The Bylaws now explicitly require the Awards Secretary to publish weekly summaries of awards issued.

The last Awards News we can find on the Awards reflector was posted August 30. As of this writing, that was five weeks ago.

Perhaps there were no awards. That would explain it nicely. Unfortunately, the database is less cooperative with that theory.

During September alone, we count 29 award entries, including 100-Point Awards, progressive awards, Worked All States, Nomad, Roaming Master Tracker, US Call Area, Numbers Racket, and a small avalanche of Baker’s Dozen awards and Certificates of Appreciation.

So the awards machinery has not stopped. It merely stopped telling anybody what it was doing.

This distinction is useful.

A quiet awards month might reasonably produce a rather thin Awards News. A month containing 29 entries produces a different question:

Where is Awards News?

September also included the annual Eyeball, after which one would reasonably expect an increase in award activity as members cash in contacts accumulated during several days of concentrated operating.

The furnace is burning. The gauges have simply gone dark.

Caretaker Mode

We have heard the present condition of the awards operation described privately as “caretaker mode.”

That phrase deserves examination.

Caretaker mode can be perfectly respectable for a short period. Volunteers have lives. Families require attention. People become ill. Travel intervenes. Nobody should expect a Club volunteer to subordinate real-world responsibilities to amateur radio paperwork.

But caretaker mode is supposed to mean maintaining essential functions while temporarily postponing the nonessential ones. It should not mean that essential functions quietly become optional.

The monthly committee report is not decorative trim, the weekly awards summary is not an indulgence, and timely expense reporting is not an accounting hobby. Updated award applications are not a luxury accessory.

These are the mundane connective tissues that allow the awards operation to remain visible, understandable and financially accountable. When those little functions disappear one at a time, nothing dramatic happens.

That is the danger.

Awards still get issued, applications still trickle through, checks still get deposited, and certificates still emerge from printers. The organization therefore appears to be functioning. But information about the function has stopped circulating.

This is how organizational entropy likes to travel: not with a trumpet blast, but disguised as “we’ll get to that later.”

The Committee That Meets When Necessary

We are also told that the Awards Committee does not operate much like a committee these days. In fact, this has been the case since before we reported it in Absurdist 29 last June.

Its experienced members apparently handle matters when something requires attention. Problems arise. Somebody deals with them. Life goes on.

There is a certain practical elegance to this. It is also not quite what the Bylaws describe.

The Bylaws envision an actual standing committee that considers proposals, clarifies award rules, designs programs, tracks ongoing and completed projects, reports document changes, and tells the Board every month what it has been doing.

That last requirement is particularly useful.

The July report, for example, said the Committee was working on two projects: revision of the Clint Wise Memorial Award and development of the USA-250 Award.

Excellent. What happened next?

We have no idea.

Perhaps both projects are progressing splendidly. Maybe one has been abandoned. Or possibly both are awaiting something. Peradventure, somebody finished them and forgot to tell anyone.

This is why status reports exist.

They keep unfinished work from vanishing into the same organizational wormhole that swallowed the Operations Manual for sixteen years.

The Accounting Version

There is another side effect.

For at least two months, awards-related expenses apparently were not submitted promptly enough to appear in the Club’s monthly financial picture.

Thus, income arrived on schedule while some of the expenses associated with producing that income remained somewhere offstage.

The resulting financial statement might have been technically accurate on a cash basis, but it was not especially informative about underlying operating performance.

This is not a difficult problem to solve. We propose a simple rule:

All Club expenses must be submitted for reimbursement no later than 45 days after they are incurred.

Forty-five days is generous. It allows time for travel, illness, misplaced receipts, post-Eyeball decompression and the ordinary chaos of human existence.

What it does not allow is for expenses to wander in months later after the Board has already been shown financial statements suggesting money was earned without the inconvenient corresponding cost of earning it.

Nothing elaborate is required.

No WHEREAS clauses, no implementation committee, and no embossed proclamation. Spend the Club’s money, then submit the expense within 45 days.

Preferably during the same geological era.

That one modest rule would make monthly financial reports more meaningful and remove one more source of avoidable uncertainty from the Club’s accounting.

The Missing Remedy

Here we encounter a familiar structural weakness. The Bylaws tell people what they must do. They are considerably less informative about what happens when they simply don’t.

The Awards Committee must report monthly. The Awards Secretary must publish weekly summaries.

And if those things do not happen?

The Bylaws respond with the procedural equivalent of a dial tone. Crickets in the night.

We do not propose fixing this by writing seventy-three new paragraphs specifying escalating sanctions for every conceivable missed deadline. That would merely create another opportunity for further institutional obesity.

The remedy is much simpler: Management. Someone notices, asks, and follows up.

And, importantly, recalling what happened the last time someone asked a question about a report, the policy-making body must support the questioner, not shun him as if he is violating La Cosa Nostra’s Omerta vow of silence.

If the problem is temporary, make reasonable accommodations. If the problem becomes chronic, reassign responsibilities.

This requires no constitutional amendment, just management.

Still Producing Heat

This is particularly worth noticing as the Club prepares to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary with yet another new awards variant.

We have nothing against new awards. Awards are what The 3905 Century Club does.

But an organization should occasionally make sure it can maintain the machinery supporting its existing products before bolting another attachment onto the engine.

At present, we have new awards being conceived while old applications remain outdated, required reports go missing, weekly summaries disappear, and expenses arrive late enough to muddy the financial picture.

100-Point Award FUBAR Redux

The 100-Point Award application, last updated in March 2025, is particularly annoying because its outdated fee structure presentation is embarrassing to the club. This is likely the first club document aspiring members read before joining us. First impressions create lasting perceptions, and not good ones when confusion reigns. Yet it would require no more than fifteen minutes of editing to put the problem to bed until the next fee increase.

On this subject alone, we have been cajoling functionaries since May, and we mentioned it again in Absurdist 40 in July, yet no one has as much as lifted a finger to correct this glaring, public-facing misinformation. We hope this annoyance—a vestigial remnant of the now-departed laissez-faire Davis administration—is remedied in due course.

This is a familiar form of organizational entropy. The system retains plenty of capacity to produce activity. What it gradually loses is the capacity to produce order.

There is an important difference. Fortunately, none of this requires revolution. It merely requires attention.

It Is Broken. So Fix It!

The new administration has inherited the problem, not created it, and we continue to wish it success. Indeed, this is precisely the sort of modest housekeeping situation that ought to be relatively easy to correct.

So consider this another friendly contribution from Vox Incommoda to the new management’s punch list:

• Find the Committee.
• Ask that it chooses a new Chair to run it if the existing Chair is dysfunctional and beyond redemption.
• Restore the reports.
• Restart the Awards News.
• Require expenses to be submitted within 45 days.
• Update the documents.

Then everybody can return to the important business of earning things.

Meanwhile, if anyone happens across the Awards Committee Report wandering loose somewhere between the Eyeball and the October Board meeting, please point it toward the agenda.

It is expected monthly.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 77: The Disappearing Awards Committee appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Along those lines, we suggest a correction. As of the date of publication, the Club website proudly proclaims: Next Regular Board Meeting October 10 2026 Local Saturday: 12:30 Pacific / 13:30 Mountain / 14:30 Central / 15:30 Eastern 19:30 UTC.

Absurdist 76 identifies some other issues and provides some constructive pointers for fixing them, while pledging optimistic support for the new administration whose diligence we hope will minimize such problems in the future.

Under New Management, Same Fine Print

The changing of the guard is complete.

Dean has departed the presidency somewhat ahead of schedule, Kirk has moved into the big chair, the vice presidency stands temporarily vacant, and The 3905 Century Club has entered that exhilarating period familiar to every incoming administration in which the new management discovers that the previous tenants took some of the light bulbs, left dishes in the sink, and apparently stored several unresolved governance questions behind the water heater.

We wish Kirk well.

We mean that sincerely, which undoubtedly will disappoint readers who expect us to begin every Absurdist Paper by loading the trebuchet.

There is no reasonable expectation that Kirk Frazier will resolve instantly every problem inherited from the Dean Administration. Some have been developing for years, some are procedural, and some are cultural. Others involve documents that have not been kept current. Some involve communication channels whose ownership and administration have become mysteries suitable for archaeological investigation. Finally, some involve habits that gradually became traditions despite possessing no obvious connection to the Constitution, Bylaws, common sense, or occasionally all three.

Kirk did not create all this stuff. He merely inherited the keys.

A Honeymoon

So, for the moment, we intend to grant the new administration something resembling a honeymoon. Not one of those luxurious three-week affairs involving the Poconos, complimentary champagne and rose petals on the heart-shaped bed, mind you. More like three nights at a Grand Forks Hampton Inn with two bottles of water if franchise management is feeling generous.

Nevertheless, a honeymoon.

Vox Incommoda’s role during this period will not be to attribute every administrative wart to Kirk. Rather, we shall continue doing what Vox Incommoda was created to do: point at things that don’t make sense, ask why they don’t make sense, occasionally suggest how they might make sense, and employ ridicule when ordinary prose fails to penetrate the protective coating.

Constructive criticism, properly applied, is not opposition. Sometimes it is preventative maintenance.

And this machine could use lots of grease.

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight Reloads

The first indication that institutional habits survive changes in personnel comes courtesy of the October 6 special Board meeting.

The meeting exists principally to approve additional Election Monitors so that a special election can be conducted for the Vice President position vacated when Kirk succeeded Dean.

Perfectly reasonable.

The motion nominates Virgil Warren, W9WWG, and Byron Fiedler, N8BF.

Except the motion calls him Byron Fielder. Repeatedly.

This follows closely behind the Fourth Area special election, during which candidate names, election times, UTC conversions and corrective announcements occasionally seemed to be competing in an elimination tournament.

We therefore begin the Kirk Administration with the encouraging news that the Club’s commitment to experimental orthography remains undisturbed.

The irony is especially satisfying because this particular motion appoints Election Monitors, whose principal function includes ensuring that elections are conducted correctly.

Nothing inspires confidence in electoral precision quite like misspelling the name of the fellow charged with providing it.

We are not suggesting that civilization hangs in the balance. Byron will presumably know who he is. The Board will presumably know whom it is approving. The Republic will survive.

Still, this is exactly the sort of small administrative sloppiness that creates larger confusion when it propagates downstream.

Precision matters.

Call it anal retentiveness if you will, but it nevertheless matters.

Minutes of a Meeting That Doesn’t Require Minutes

The October 10 agenda offers another modest treasure.

Among the items presented for approval are the minutes of the Annual Membership Meeting held at the Eyeball. The agenda asks parenthetically whether they should be sent to the general membership for approval now or held until next year.

This poses an intriguing procedural dilemma created largely by the fact that no such procedural dilemma appears to exist.

The Bylaws require an Annual Membership Meeting. They require it to include an interactive question-and-answer period and they specify that the Board determines its time and place.

They do not, as far as we can determine, require formal minutes of the meeting. Neither do they prescribe their contents, require their approval, or say who would approve them. And they most assuredly do not establish an annual ceremony in which the surviving participants gather twelve months later to certify what everybody vaguely remembers having said the previous September.

Yet here we are contemplating whether the minutes should be approved now or placed in cold storage until 2027.

This is bureaucracy reproducing asexually. No rule exists, so clone one. Oy, such a conundrum, already!

A meeting occurred. Someone took notes. The notes became “minutes.” Minutes normally get approved. Therefore somebody must approve these minutes.

If no procedure exists, apparently our choices are either to invent one immediately or defer invention until next year.

Just Publish Them, Already

There is, however, a much simpler solution. Publish them.

We strongly favor that.

The Annual Membership Meeting contained useful discussion. Members asked questions. Board members responded. The record includes discussion about communication, recruiting, Board transparency and private deliberations. Members who could not attend Grand Forks should be able to read what happened.

Transparency is served by publication. But nothing requires the Club to transform an informative record into a new procedural sacrament.

Call the document Annual Membership Meeting Proceedings, Meeting Notes, Summary of the Annual Membership Meeting, or What Happened After Lunch in Grand Forks. Just publish the damn thing. No constitutional crisis need ensue.

This distinction is important because organizations accumulate procedural barnacles precisely this way. Somebody does something once. Nobody objects. The next person assumes it was required. Five years later the procedure has acquired the mystical authority of Magna Carta.

Institutional entropy does not always arrive with collapsing structures and flashing warning lights. Sometimes it arrives as another form that nobody remembers needing.

WHEREAS We Have Some Whereases

Which brings us naturally to another acquired tradition.

The modern 3905 Century Club motion increasingly resembles a proclamation issued by the Mayor of Philadelphia in 1789.

We suppose it could be worse. Perhaps the Board should adopt an official introductory heading:

KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS

Then, rather than the mundane word “Resolved,” we could use:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED

The Secretary could affix sealing wax. Craig could ring a bell. Kirk could enter carrying a scroll. Gene could announce the proceeding in the public square. “Hear Ye! Hear Ye!”

Members wishing to observe via Zoom would be required to wear powdered wigs.

The stilted WHEREAS/RESOLVED format became fashionable during the reign of that memorable alliterative pair, Demagogue Dean and Deacon Doug, but it is not required by the Bylaws.

What the Bylaws actually require is much more sensible. Form follows function.

A motion must provide a title, date and sponsor; a summary of what is being proposed; sufficient explanation and background; an implementation timeline; and the financial impact. Applicable motions must also receive the required committee review.

Those are excellent requirements.

They encourage Directors to think before moving, they force proponents to explain consequences, and they provide the Board and membership enough information to understand what is being considered.

None requires pretending Thomas Jefferson drafted the thing by candlelight.

We would prefer a free-form motion format that preserves every substantive element required by the Bylaws while allowing the author to communicate in ordinary twenty-first-century English.

Something like:

Motion: Here is exactly what we propose changing.

Purpose and Background: Here is why.

Implementation: Here is who must do what and when.

Financial Impact: Here is what it costs.

Documents and Systems Affected: Here is what else must change.

Done.

The purpose of a motion is not ceremonial grandeur. It is to tell Directors what they are voting on and give them enough information to make an intelligent decision.

Prose should illuminate governance, not embalm it.

Sunshine Is Still the Best Disinfectant

More important than misspelled names, unnecessary minute-approval rituals and colonial-era motion drafting is the continuing issue of Board transparency.

At the Annual Membership Meeting, we again raised the question of private Board deliberations.

Our objection has never been that Directors must conduct every human interaction in public. That would be ridiculous.

There are legitimate reasons for confidentiality.

Personnel matters involving individual members can require privacy. Complaints can involve information that should not be broadcast to hundreds of people. Legal advice might require confidentiality. Certain negotiations can reasonably require temporary discretion.

No serious person disputes that. Our concern is broader.

When Directors discuss substantive Club policy privately, develop consensus privately, resolve disagreements privately, and then appear at a public Board meeting merely to cast the predetermined vote, the public meeting becomes theater.

The decision has already happened. Only the ceremony remains.

At Grand Forks, Craig defended private discussions partly on the ground that many thoughts arise that ultimately “go nowhere.”

Precisely. Those discarded thoughts are part of deliberation. Rejected thoughts deserve to be heard as loudly as those that are eventually accepted.

Weighing the Alternatives

Knowing which alternatives were considered, rejected or modified helps members understand how their representatives reached a conclusion. It reveals whether counterarguments were seriously examined. It provides context for the final action.

Public deliberation does not merely tell us what Directors decided. It tells us why.

That distinction remains central to our conception of doing Club business in the sunshine.

We do not seek to abolish appropriate executive sessions. Nor do we expect Directors never to telephone one another or demand that every stray idea appearing in somebody’s cerebral cortex be live streamed to YouTube.

We merely oppose a governance culture in which substantial policy discussion is routinely moved outside observable meetings because private conversation is easier, tidier, less embarrassing or less likely to generate criticism.

Democracy is untidy. So are committee meetings. That is not a defect.

The mess is often where the thinking happens.

Kirk Gets His Chance

Here is where we depart sharply from anyone expecting these pages to become merely a continuation of the campaign against Dean with a different name inserted into the blanks.

We are not interested in doing that. Kirk deserves an opportunity to govern as Kirk.

There already have been encouraging signs.

He speaks repeatedly about welcoming members, encouraging participation and working with Directors and officers. He has inherited an organization containing years of Presidential hubris, accumulated administrative debris, conflicting habits, half-finished projects, neglected documents and communication structures that sometimes seem to require a Rosetta Stone.

We are prepared to allow him reasonable time to sort through it. We will also give credit where credit is earned.

That last sentence might alarm certain readers who have concluded that Vox Incommoda subsists exclusively on bile, coffee and grammatical criticism.

Relax. We will continue to offer those where warranted.

But our support is conditional in the ordinary sense that all support of institutional leadership should be conditional.

When Kirk does something sensible, we shall say so. If he fixes something broken, we shall applaud.

If he delegates responsibility to the people whose positions were created to exercise it, we shall regard that as progress.

And if his administration communicates openly, corrects mistakes promptly and treats criticism as information rather than insurrection, we will happily report that the new management is improving the product.

Conversely, should the new administration begin disappearing into private alignment sessions, centralizing responsibilities in the presidency, suppressing inconvenient information, tolerating administrative sloppiness or inventing procedural machinery merely because somebody thinks official-looking machinery would be nice, we will notice that too.

Vox Incommoda has not retired. We have merely changed targets from an administration to an institution.

That distinction might prove important.

The Real Test

Dean’s departure did not reboot the Club. Organizations do not work that way.

People leave. Habits remain, informal power structures remain, documents remain, and unfinished projects remain. Procedures invented for yesterday’s problem remain long after everyone has forgotten yesterday’s problem.

People who learned to bypass ineffective Area Directors might continue bypassing Area Directors. Board members accustomed to private deliberation might continue privately deliberating. Committees accustomed to rewriting rules in elaborate prose might continue elaborately rewriting rules. Volunteers accustomed to treating documents as somebody else’s problem might continue waiting for somebody else.

Changing leadership is easy compared with changing institutional behavior.

That will be the interesting part of the Kirk Administration.

We want it to succeed.

Success with Honor

Indeed, success would support an argument we have made repeatedly: the Club does not require heroic presidential management. It requires its various organs to perform the functions already assigned to them.

Area Directors should serve their areas. Committee chairs should manage their committees. Volunteers should maintain the documents and systems assigned to them. The Board should deliberate openly except where genuine confidentiality is required.

The President should coordinate and lead rather than become the universal help desk for every unresolved problem in amateur radio.

If those things begin happening routinely, the organization will become less dependent upon personalities and more dependent upon functioning systems.

That would constitute genuine reform. It also might make these papers considerably harder to write, but we are prepared to accept that risk.

For now, however, we shall remain nearby, observing the new administration with cautious optimism and sharpened pencils.

We reiterate that we hope Kirk succeeds.

Vox Incommoda Lives On

We view our role not as a thorn in his side, but as a purveyor of constructive support in which our intent is to

• help where constructive criticism might illuminate something that escaped attention,
• praise improvement when praise is warranted, and
• continue laughing when The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight accidentally points a procedural musket at its own shoe.

Support and vigilance are not opposites. In a healthy organization, they are partners. And whenever possible, both should operate in the sunshine.

NOW, THEREFORE, KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS, Vox Incommoda doth hereby resolve to remain an attentive pain in the ass.

Financial impact: None anticipated.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 76: That’s the Spirit! appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

OMG OMG WTF?

Even the Sanguinarians were incredulously incensed as their Nittany Lions went down in flames to provide a perfect capstone to Northwestern’s new-stadium celebration Friday night. After spending $875 million on a rockin’ new Ryan Field, it was almost as if the inaugural game’s outcome had been programmed into the festivities. The organizers could not have scripted a better outcome for the delirious sellout crowd, who sure as hell got their money’s worth.

Penn State thoughtfully supplied the ceremonial sacrifice.

The staggeringly lopsided statistics only begin to tell the tale. We were hoping that the Lions would establish their running game. They did not. Instead, the Wildcats gave them a hands-on tutorial, outgaining Penn State 413 yards to a measly 48 on the ground. Before the clean jerseys entered the game, two Northwestern running backs were well over 100 yards each. Meanwhile, Penn State’s leading rusher was Carson Hansen with 19 yards. James Peoples, nominally the leader of the pack, had eight carries for 13 yards.

Shut down.

Apparently, Penn State’s defensive game plan was to stack the box to eliminate the run and force NWU quarterback Aidan Chiles to pass. This was an excellent plan except for the minor detail that it didn’t work.

Not remotely.

Northwestern immediately took control on the ground, running over, under, around, and through Penn State’s blue-and-white lawn ornaments with ease. Chiles attempted only 14 passes, completing ten for 93 yards. Why throw the ball when the opponent is graciously providing a four-lane interstate through the defensive front?

Bad Night for Rocco

Aside from a couple of lucky connections late in the game when the Wildcat win was all but assured, Rocco Becht had another one of those increasingly familiar off-days. In the Wisconsin game, I likened Becht’s bad day to Julius Caesar’s bad day on the Ides of March. Last night, his day was akin to Jesus’ on Good Friday, only without the halo.

The crown of thorns fit nicely, though.

The simile ends there. The prospects for a resurrection of the purported talent of the most experienced quarterback in FBS football are somewhere between slim and somebody please check the morgue.

With no semblance of a running game, Penn State needed an aerial attack, which it never got from Becht and his mediocre receivers. Becht’s stat line is misleading: 26-of-41 for 243 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions.

He wasn’t as good as that looks, which is quite an accomplishment considering that it doesn’t look very good.

When his receivers did manage to get open, Becht missed them. And his much-maligned low delivery was once again subject to balls being tipped by meaty appendages at the line of scrimmage. Apparently, Big Ten defensive linemen have arms. Who knew?

Hurts to Be Right

My Official Turkey Poop Prediction of a 27-17 NWU win missed the mark by a Northwestern touchdown and a Ryan Barker missed field goal, both obviously in the Wildcats’ favor. I hate being right when it involves watching a slaughter of this magnitude.

At one point, my good friend Toejam texted me: “This is like Ohio State playing Kutztown.”

If I were a Kutztown fan, I would be incensed by the simile. The Golden Bears are 4-0 and #4 in the most recent Division II Football Top 25 Poll. The Nittany Lions looked more like a Pop Warner pre-teen team whose moms had forgotten the orange slices.

They looked like shit.

The Fans Have Spoken

Naturally, after a loss of this magnitude, I consulted the ultimate repository of football wisdom: Facebook.

Why waste time reviewing film when several hundred people who spent Friday evening drinking cheap beer and eating pretzels in recliners can diagnose the collapse of a major college football program before the postgame show has finished?

The electorate quickly divided itself into several factions.

Fire Matt

First came the Fire Campbell Caucus, which apparently believes a head coach should receive approximately four games to install his program, recruit his players, learn the conference, establish a culture, and win a national championship. One particularly decisive constituent went with, “They suck. Fire the coach now.” Others wanted Campbell, his assistants, Pat Kraft, the coordinators, and possibly anyone who had ever changed planes in Des Moines removed from the premises.

Across the aisle sat the Give Him Time Coalition. These comparatively tranquil souls noted that Penn State lost a staggering number of players, hired Campbell late, signed practically nobody before he arrived, and then had to construct much of a roster from whatever remained available in the portal. Their prescription was patience, perhaps two or three years of it.

This position was immediately rejected as cowardice by people who apparently believe the transfer portal functions like Amazon Prime. Need a 320-pound All-Big Ten defensive tackle? Click BUY NOW, select same-day delivery, and tell him to report to Lasch Building before practice.

Unfire James

Then there were the Franklin Revisionists.

Suddenly, James Franklin was remembered less as the coach who drove fans insane by losing important games and more as the benevolent provider of ten-win seasons who never would have allowed this to happen. “James would have won that game by 21,” proclaimed one citizen. Others wondered whether perhaps Penn State fans had failed to appreciate what they had.

The counterargument arrived almost simultaneously from another Facebook precinct: Franklin had just blown a 14-point lead to Pitt.

Thus did the Great Franklin Debate achieve perfect equilibrium. Penn State should never have fired him, except that firing him was absolutely correct, and his loss to Pitt proved both propositions simultaneously.

This is advanced sports metaphysics.

Get Terry

A related congregation formed around Terry Smith, who has now assumed the role traditionally occupied by the backup quarterback: the man whose abilities improve dramatically in inverse proportion to his actual responsibility for what is happening on the field. “Terry Smith should be coaching!” “Bring back Terry Smith.” “We had our head coach in Terry Smith.”

Perhaps so. At this rate, by November, Terry will have become a combination of St. Joseph V. Paterno, Vince Lombardi, and Bear Bryant. Given the dearth of talent on this team, he would need to.

Rocco Sucks

Meanwhile, quarterback Rocco Becht received the traditional warm embrace of Penn State fandom.

The reviews ranged from the relatively technical, “Can Becht pass with ANY accuracy?” to observations that he is too short, throws too many balls into linemen, cannot see over Big Ten defensive fronts, makes bad decisions, lacks arm strength, and should be benched immediately. One analyst summarized the situation with the economical “Rocco sucks.”

Others proposed a taller quarterback, which certainly simplifies recruiting. Presumably, Pat Kraft can station someone outside the football building with one of those amusement-park signs:

YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO PLAY QUARTERBACK IN THE BIG TEN.

Iowa State East

The largest faction, however, might have been the Iowa State East Historical Society.

Their thesis is straightforward. Campbell brought too many Cyclones with him, Big 12 players are apparently a smaller and more delicate subspecies of football player, and merely changing their uniforms from cardinal and gold to blue and white did not magically convert them into Big Ten livestock.

“Iowa State East.”
“Penn State Cyclones.”
“Iowa State 2.0.”
“Iowa State Lions.”
“Eastern Iowa State.”

By morning, Facebook had almost exhausted the available permutations.

The theory has the benefit of simplicity. Northwestern did not rush for a geological formation’s worth of yardage because Penn State missed assignments, failed to shed blocks, tackled poorly, got whipped at the line of scrimmage, or failed to adjust. No, this was a clash of civilizations. The Big 12 had wandered north and encountered enormous corn-fed Big Ten people.

Rebuilding Year Advocacy

There were also the Realists, who said this was always going to be a rebuilding year and that expectations had gotten absurdly high. Several reasonably pointed out that a new staff inherited a gutted roster and was never likely to stroll into the Big Ten and immediately resume Penn State’s accustomed ten-win existence.

Naturally, they were shouted down by the WE ARE DOOMED Society, whose projections ranged from 7-5 to 6-6 to missing a bowl to never winning another conference game.

Someone invoked the Pinstripe Bowl.

Someone else suggested waiting for wrestling season.

Another observed that at least the long snapper looked good.

Frankly, that last fellow might have conducted the most rigorous analysis of the evening.

There were also rival fans wandering through the wreckage yelling “Hail to Pitt,” “Go Cats,” and assorted Sandusky references because no Internet discussion involving Penn State can proceed for very long without somebody dragging a fifteen-year-old corpse onto the dance floor.

The Sanguinarians

And finally came the conciliation party, known here as The Sanguinarians, whose dwindling minions reminded everybody that these are young men, that transitions take time, that Northwestern is not terrible, and that perhaps fans should continue supporting the team while Campbell attempts to reconstruct the program.

A charming thought.

It lasted approximately twelve seconds.

So there you have the collective wisdom of social media. Matt Campbell must be fired immediately and given three years. James Franklin should never have been fired and thank God he is gone. Terry Smith should be head coach. Rocco Becht should be benched, preferably for someone several inches taller. Iowa State football cannot survive contact with the Big Ten. Pat Kraft should be dismissed. The players have no talent. The players need time. The coaches cannot coach. The coaches have no players.

The only proposition enjoying anything approaching universal agreement was this:

Penn State looked like shit.

On that much, the Facebook Faculty Senate reached a unanimous verdict.

What Lies Ahead

You might expect rampant pessimism here, but I am optimistic that Penn State will win at least one more game this year.

See? I’m not totally negative.

But the next two games do not look good. After spoiling the alumni celebration at the Big Ten home opener on Homecoming Day against Wisconsin, then presenting Northwestern with a housewarming gift at its own celebration, I think it is reasonable to anticipate a brown stain on the White Out against USC next week.

Call it the White Out with skid marks.

Inexplicably, although the Trojans opened as 1.5-point favorites, ESPN’s Matchup Predictor gives Penn State a 58.7% chance of winning. After watching last night’s debacle, my own estimate would be more like 5.87%.

Perhaps ESPN’s algorithm knows something I don’t.

Perhaps it is smoking crack.

Then comes a trip to the Big House for a tilt with a crappy Wolverine squad, which ESPN mysteriously gives a 59.8% chance to win.

Seems like ESPN pulls numbers out of its ass.

At least that would explain the methodology.

Nevertheless, it does not look good for Penn State.

Last week, I opined that Penn State would lose two of the three games in this stretch. With one loss already securely deposited in the bag, it is now even money that they will lose the other two.

After watching last night’s putrid performance, whose foul aroma transcended even the stench of the Wisconsin loss, I must look forward to the Halloween game with Purdue for a scintilla of a chance at a win. After that, Washington and Minnesota are potential losses. Wins over Rutgers and Maryland would then become necessary to secure bowl eligibility.

Here we go again.

The Toilet Bowl.

Kohler, Wisconsin.

At last, corporate naming rights that make perfect sense.

Imagine the scene: Penn State playing before a frozen crowd of 138 never-say-die fans, the breath of the faithful hanging in the air as the Nittany Lions battle some equally forsaken 6-6 team for possession of a commemorative porcelain trophy.

Watching Penn State play like shit.

Yea, verily.

Regrettably, I’ll be back later in the week for a look at the Big White-Out loss to the Trojans.

The post What Penn State Needs appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Let us hope that the new administration will move the Club forward while continuing to preserve our core values. The President and the Board must work together smoothly, but to effectively represent the members and their interests, they must collectively promote, rather than suppress, healthy disagreement.

Our Hope for President Kirk

After over eight years under a leadership style that frequently treated dissent as obstruction, the Club has developed an unhealthy tendency to equate disagreement with dysfunction. The reflex becomes peace at almost any cost. But a Board on which every significant vote is unanimous and difficult questions disappear before the public meeting is not necessarily harmonious. It may simply have stopped doing much of its governing in public.

Representative governance is inherently noisy because the members being represented do not all want the same things. An Area Director’s job is not to preserve the Board’s collective comfort or maintain a unified front for the President. It is to represent the members of the area, including when their views are inconvenient. When a Director pushes back, asks a sharp question, or votes no because the members represented believe a proposal is wrong, that disagreement is useful information. It tells leadership where the real-world friction lies.

One lesson we hope survives the previous administration is that private consensus-building should never become a substitute for public deliberation. Directors certainly need to exchange information, gather facts, and talk with one another between meetings. But when the important weighing of alternatives occurs privately and the public meeting is reduced to motions, seconds, and predictable votes, members lose the ability to see how their representatives reached their conclusions. Representation does not disappear dramatically. It simply fades behind the curtain.

A Constructive, Healthy Board

Our hope for President Kirk is therefore not that he will produce a quieter Board. We hope he produces a more candid one.

His challenge will be to resist the natural temptation of any effective leader to use personal influence to smooth every disagreement before it reaches the table. A strong President does not manufacture consensus. He creates conditions in which Directors can disagree openly, vigorously, and respectfully without having their disagreement treated as disloyalty.

The same applies to the Directors themselves. Collegiality does not require unanimity. Once a decision is made, the Board can carry it out professionally even if several members opposed it. Healthy governance is not measured by how rarely people disagree but by whether disagreement can occur openly without damaging the institution.

If the new administration can establish that culture, it will have accomplished something more important than correcting an award form, revising a net procedure, or filling another volunteer position. It will have restored the Board to what it was intended to be: a representative body rather than an applause section.

A Renaissance, If We Choose It

For all the criticism directed at the Club’s recent governance, the next several months offer an opportunity that would be foolish to squander.

We will have a new President, a new Vice President, a new Board Chairman, a new Treasurer, a new Training Coordinator, a new Fourth Area Director, and potentially several new odd-numbered Area Directors. That is not routine turnover. It is a rare chance to reset both the personnel and the culture of the organization.

Changing names on an organizational chart will not be enough. The real renaissance must be behavioral.

The Board must rediscover that it exists to represent members, not to protect itself from them. Directors must be willing to carry disagreement into the Board room rather than filtering it out beforehand. Officers must treat transparency as the normal condition of governance rather than an inconvenience to be managed. Volunteer opportunities must extend beyond the familiar inner circle. Members must be regarded as the constituency to be served, not an unruly audience to be pacified after decisions have already been made.

That does not require revolution. It requires something more difficult: discipline.

It requires leaders willing to tolerate uncomfortable questions, Directors willing to cast dissenting votes, committees willing to hear ideas from unfamiliar voices, and a President secure enough not to interpret disagreement as insubordination.

Listen First

The Club has spent too much time convincing itself that whatever leadership wanted was somehow synonymous with the interests of the membership. That assumption must end. Member-oriented governance means listening first, explaining decisions honestly, conducting meaningful deliberations where members can see them, and accepting that sometimes the people being governed will disagree with those doing the governing.

That is not disorder. No, my friends, that is representation.

The encouraging part is that the opportunity is here. New people are stepping forward. Leadership positions are changing hands. The Club approaches its fiftieth anniversary with an unusual amount of institutional space in which to redefine how it conducts itself.

Few organizations receive such a clean opportunity to change course.

This may be the Club’s best chance to arrest the organizational entropy that has accumulated over many years. It might even be its last.

So this is not the time for another rearrangement of familiar faces followed by familiar behavior. It is not the time to preserve old habits under new call signs. It is not the time to declare a renaissance while quietly restoring the same machinery behind the curtain.

The new leadership should aim higher.

Finish the Job

Open the doors. Broaden participation. Encourage disagreement. Finish neglected work. Document how the organization actually operates. Give new volunteers meaningful responsibility. Let Directors represent their members without fear of offending the executive table. Let the Board conduct its business in the daylight whenever possible. And when mistakes are made, acknowledge them, correct them, and move on without constructing another fortress of procedure around them.

And members must step up to exercise their right to determine who leads them. New people must volunteer to serve in leadership roles, both elected and appointed. Elections must offer meaningful choices among well-qualified candidates, not become perfunctory exercises conducted merely because the bylaws require them.

Representative governance requires representatives worth choosing and members willing to choose them. Leadership renewal cannot occur if the same handful of people continue circulating through the same positions because nobody else steps forward.

The 3905 Century Club still has people who care deeply about it. It still has volunteers willing to work. It still has members who enjoy the nets, pursue the awards, attend the Eyeball, maintain friendships, and want the organization to succeed.

That is a hell of a lot to work with.

The opportunity for a genuine renaissance is sitting directly in front of us.

Now we get to find out whether the Club has the courage to take it.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 75: A Fresh Start appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Assuming events proceed as advertised, sometime between the extinguishing of the Halloween jack-o’-lanterns and whatever UTC instant the 3905 Century Club eventually agrees constitutes November 1, Vice President Kirk will become President Kirk.

This should be simple. Dean leaves. Kirk moves up. Somebody moves into Kirk’s old chair. The Club continues staggering purposefully toward whatever comes next.

But this is The 3905 Century Club, where no administrative pebble can fall into the pond without generating a standing committee, three interpretations of the bylaws, an incorrectly converted UTC time, and at least one special Board meeting.

Kirk’s ascension creates an immediate vacancy in the office of Vice President. Bylaws Article X.G.1.c says that when the Vice President succeeds the President, a Special Election must be held.

So, a Special Election it shall be.

The amusing part is that the person elected Vice President will serve for approximately four months.

The Four-Month Election

This is where our bylaws display one of those charming internal inconsistencies that make governance such an endlessly fascinating spectator sport.

Let us detour to an analogous governance situation. Suppose an Area Director resigns with fewer than six months remaining in his term. The bylaws recognize reality. Conducting an election requires Election Monitors, nominations, publicity, ballots, website work, voter verification, tabulation, Board confirmation, and the participation of various volunteers who presumably possess lives outside the 3905 Century Club.

Accordingly, Article I.C.1 provides that if an Area Director has fewer than six months left to serve, the President recommends an interim Director from the affected area for Board approval.

Perfectly sensible.

If more than six months remain, conduct an election. If fewer than six months remain, appoint someone temporarily and save the volunteer machinery for something useful.

InConsistency

But when the Vice President succeeds the President, there is no corresponding six-month rule. The Special Election requirement applies whether twenty-three months remain in the Vice President’s term or twenty-three minutes.

Thus, assuming Kirk becomes President on November 1, we will mobilize the Club’s entire electoral apparatus to select a Vice President whose regular term expires March 1.

It gets better, as it always does.

November 1 is also the date on which regular nominations open for the next Vice Presidential term.

Therefore, while the Club is conducting a Special Election to select somebody to serve as Vice President for roughly four months, Area Directors can simultaneously nominate candidates to serve the succeeding full term.

An individual could conceivably be running for Vice President while already running for Vice President.

Only the term changes.

Nothing in the bylaws appears to confer any magic incumbency upon the winner of the short-term election. If that person wants the next full term, he will presumably need to become a candidate through the normal process.

Thus, we could hold a Special Election in November to fill the vacancy, conduct the regular nomination process during November and December, and then hold another election in January.

And if the regular nomination period produces fewer than two candidates, Article X.G provides another mechanism involving, naturally enough, another Special Election.

At some point we should consider installing a permanent “VICE PRESIDENT ELECTION IN PROGRESS” banner on the website.

Resist the Kirk Clause

The immediate reaction among governance enthusiasts will probably be to amend the bylaws. Surely we need language addressing this situation. Something like: “In the event the Vice President succeeds the President with fewer than six months remaining in the Vice President’s term, except when such succession occurs within thirty days of the regular nomination period unless the moon is in Aquarius…”

And away we go. This is how bylaws gradually become the Internal Revenue Code.

Every unusual circumstance produces another paragraph intended to prevent anyone ever again from having to exercise judgment. Every conceivable exception gets memorialized until the document becomes an archaeological record of everything strange that ever happened to the organization.

We create paper beasts. As a former director once stated, “Words are our enemy.”

The inconsistency between Director and Vice Presidential vacancies is worth noticing. That does not necessarily mean we need a bespoke “Kirk Clause” to fix it.

If the Club eventually decides that short-term vacancies should not require expensive elections, the proper solution would be a general principle governing vacancies in elected offices. It should not require another 186 words describing exactly what must happen if a Vice President named Kirk ascends to the Presidency on Halloween while four months remain in his term.

Governance documents should establish principles and processes. They should not attempt to pre-write the script for every meteor strike.

President Kirk’s Hat Rack

The Vice Presidential vacancy will not be Kirk’s only administrative consequence. Kirk currently holds enough volunteer jobs to qualify as a small federal agency.

By my count, depending on whether we treat the 40-meter and 75-meter responsibilities separately, he wears six or seven hats:

• 5th Area Awards Manager
• Awards Committee member
• Bylaws Review Committee Chairman
• NCS Guide Ad Hoc Committee Chairman
• 40-meter Early Net Coordinator
• 75-meter Early Net Coordinator
• Election Monitor

There is no reason to believe that becoming President automatically forces him to resign every other volunteer position. The larger question is whether retaining them would be wise.

Some merely consume time. Others create peculiar organizational relationships.

Dissecting the Collisions

The President manages the operation of the nets and their staffing. If President Kirk remains an Early Net Coordinator, President Kirk will therefore be responsible for supervising Net Coordinator Kirk. Performance reviews should go smoothly.

The President is also an ex-officio member of every ad hoc committee. If Kirk remains Chairman of the NCS Guide Ad Hoc Committee, he will become the presidential ex-officio member of the committee chaired by himself. Minutes could record: “Kirk reported to Kirk that Kirk’s committee continues to make progress. Kirk thanked Kirk for the report.”

Then there is the Bylaws Review Committee. The President nominates its membership for Board approval at the beginning of the fiscal year, and the committee selects its own Chairman. Kirk currently chairs it.

Again, nothing necessarily forbids that arrangement. But a President simultaneously sitting atop the committee that interprets and recommends changes to the rules governing the President deserves at least a raised eyebrow.

The Awards Committee presents a similar, though less dramatic, case. Its membership is appointed by the President each year. Remaining a member would therefore leave Kirk in the interesting position of eventually participating in a committee whose composition President Kirk selects.

And then there is Election Monitor. That one deserves considerably more than a raised eyebrow.

Who Will Monitor the Monitors?

The bylaws require a minimum of two Election Monitors. Given the impending Vice Presidential Special Election, we are going to need them almost immediately.

Keon might understandably decide that one election season in the barrel was sufficient. His handling of the recent Fourth Area Special Election required multiple corrections involving names and election timing. Whether he has any desire to volunteer for another round of public scrutiny remains to be seen.

Kirk, meanwhile, is himself presently an Election Monitor. President Kirk serving simultaneously as Election Monitor Kirk during an election to choose Vice President Kirk’s successor would be an unnecessarily intimate arrangement.

Election Monitors are supposed to publicize and conduct elections, ensure the integrity of the process, thoroughly test the online voting system, and certify its readiness.

The President nominates Election Monitors. So President Kirk could theoretically find himself involved in selecting the people who, along with Election Monitor Kirk, will independently oversee an election triggered because Vice President Kirk became President Kirk.

Even if every action were completely proper, the organizational diagram would resemble something drawn by M.C. Escher.

This would be an excellent opportunity for Kirk to do something refreshingly different: Look outside the usual circle. Find at least three competent, technically comfortable Club members who are not entangled in current Board politics and who have no interest in the outcome of the election. The bylaws require two. Two is a minimum, not an aspiration. Three provides redundancy, workload sharing, and another set of eyes when somebody inevitably discovers at 12:18 AM that a candidate’s name was misspelled.

A new President wishing to demonstrate that a new administration had actually begun could do worse than broaden the volunteer base instead of once again assembling the usual cast from central casting.

The Election Timing Problem Nobody Ordered

There is another procedural curiosity.

Election Monitors are required to thoroughly test the online election system and report its readiness to the Board two weeks before each election.

Meanwhile, the Special Election provisions require the nomination period to begin within five days after the Special Election is called. Nominations run seven days, followed by three days before the seven-day balloting period begins.

Depending upon exactly when the clock starts (which means understanding UTC), and what “two weeks prior to each election” means, the Election Monitors could be required to certify the voting system before the circumstances requiring the Special Election even exist.

This is not necessarily fatal. It is simply another example of rules written independently for separate purposes eventually colliding when reality combines them in a way nobody anticipated. That is what complex systems do.

The usual response is to add another rule. The wiser response sometimes is to stop adding rules.

My Brief Bout of Volunteer Insanity

There is a personal angle to all this. For a while, I had been contemplating throwing my own hat into the Vice Presidential ring. It was not because I particularly yearned to become Vice President. At my age, I have managed to accumulate enough titles without needing one more to engrave on the urn.

I had one project in mind: The Operations Manual.

Article V says, rather unambiguously, that there must be a Club Operations Manual and that the Vice President is responsible for maintaining it. This manual has languished for at least fifteen years since it was mandated back in 2010.

My thought was that if I was elected I could spend one final tour of duty assembling it properly. I would document the jobs volunteers do. I would capture the institutional knowledge that presently exists in people’s heads, old email messages, obsolete files, and whatever thumb drives have not yet disappeared into desk drawers. And I would define procedures so the next generation of volunteers would not have to rediscover the organization through forensic archaeology.

That is precisely the sort of project I enjoy. It is well within my capabilities to create a workgroup and get this particular job done. The quid pro quo would be a vote on the Board. What concerned idea man in his right mind would eschew the opportunity to have a binding voice in running the organization he has seen from both inside and outside?

Reality Check

Certainly, iven some of the procedural adventures we have witnessed recently, having one additional vote attached to somebody who actually reads the governing documents occasionally had a certain appeal.

Then reality intruded.

What useful purpose would be served by painstakingly documenting procedures for a Board that repeatedly demonstrates its willingness to improvise around procedures it already possesses? An Operations Manual has value only if the organization intends to operate according to it. Otherwise, it is literature. Although in my dreams I might aspire to being recognized as the next Herman Melville, I’ll pass on this great white whale.

I could spend months producing a beautiful manual describing how the Club is supposed to function, only to watch future leaders treat it as another inconvenient file stored somewhere on the website between the obsolete 100-point award application and last year’s forgotten budget.

That would not be service. It would be onanistic typesetting.

The Price of Going Inside

There would also be another cost: If I became Vice President, the Absurdist Papers would have to stop.

An officer cannot reasonably sit on the Board helping make decisions on Saturday and publish a satirical critique of his fellow Board members on Sunday. Well, he could. It would certainly enliven the meetings. But it would not be particularly constructive.

The Absurdist Papers work because I am outside the organization looking in. I possess no official authority and cast no votes. I do not publicise my work on Club channels. And I owe no institutional allegiance beyond wanting the Club to survive its periodic attacks of self-inflicted governance.

That independence permits me to point at something ridiculous and write, “This is ridiculous.”

An officer cannot enjoy that luxury.

For several years I believed the best way I could contribute to the Club was by doing the work: Area Director, Awards Secretary, Area Awards Manager, Awards Committee Chair, and the Bylaws Committee. Two rewrites of the NCS Guide. Projects. Databases. Procedures. I have since discovered another useful organizational function: the gadfly.

A healthy organization should tolerate one. Occasionally it even needs one.

Someone should remain outside the room asking why thirteen intelligent adults just spent forty-five minutes debating a problem that could have been solved by reading the paragraph already printed in front of them.

At present, that might be a more useful contribution than becoming the thirteenth person in the room.

The Ripple Becomes the Wave

So Kirk’s November ascension will create more than a vacant chair. It creates a Special Election for a four-month Vice Presidential term. That Special Election collides with the regular nomination cycle for the next Vice Presidential term.

Immediately, it creates a need to reconsider the Election Monitor roster.

It also requires Kirk to decide which of his remarkable collection of volunteer hats are compatible with the Presidency and which should be placed on other heads.

Plus, it exposes another mismatch between independently written sections of the bylaws.

And of course, it tempts the Bylaws Committee to solve the problem in the traditional manner, by adding more bylaws.

That last temptation should be resisted. The Club’s fundamental governance problem is not a shortage of written rules. We have plenty.

Entropy as Prose

The problem is that every year we add specificity in an effort to eliminate human judgment, while simultaneously demonstrating a remarkable capacity to ignore the specificity already there. The result is organizational entropy expressed as prose. More clauses, more cross-references, more procedures, and more opportunities for separate provisions to collide.

Meanwhile, the one document intended to explain how the organization actually operates, the Operations Manual, comically remains unfinished.

There is almost something poetic about that. We meticulously document increasingly unlikely contingencies while neglecting to document what the volunteers actually do every day. Perhaps President Kirk will change that.

Perhaps he will shed a few hats, broaden the volunteer pool, appoint competent Election Monitors from outside the usual circle, and begin transferring institutional knowledge away from individuals and into durable procedures.

I would be pleasantly surprised. Surprise remains legal under the bylaws.

For my part, I think I shall remain where I am: Outside, looking in, taking notes.

STOP THE PRESSES: THE FUTURE HAS BEEN CANCELLED

A few hours after publication of this paper, Kirk announced that Dean had moved his resignation from October 31 to September 30.

Apparently Dean read my timetable and decided the Club was not generating absurdity rapidly enough.

Thus, most of the foregoing speculation concerning what will happen on November 1 became historical analysis before bedtime.

Kirk is President.

The Vice Presidency is vacant.

The Special Election contemplated above is no longer an approaching procedural curiosity. It is today’s problem.

Even better, Kirk announced that the election schedule will be published “once the Election Monitor arrangements are complete.”

Readers may recall that I had just spent several paragraphs wondering who the Election Monitors would be, whether Kirk could sensibly remain one while serving as President, whether Keon would wish to continue after the Fourth Area adventure, and whether the new administration might consider recruiting some competent people from outside the usual circle.

Apparently that examination has been moved from the essay portion of the program directly into the laboratory.

Practical Improvement

The revised calendar also improves the comedy considerably.

Instead of beginning a Special Election at approximately the same time regular Vice Presidential nominations open on November 1, the Club can now conduct an October election to select someone to serve as Vice President until March 1.

Then, scarcely after the congratulations have stopped arriving, regular nominations open for the next Vice Presidential term.

We may therefore elect a Vice President in October and immediately begin deciding whether to elect that Vice President Vice President again in January.

Efficiency through repetition.

Hail to the Chief

Meanwhile, President Kirk begins his administration with a useful opportunity to demonstrate whether this really represents a change in leadership or merely a change in call sign at the top of the organizational chart.

The first clues will be mundane ones.

Which volunteer jobs does he relinquish?

Who becomes Election Monitor?

Does he broaden participation beyond the usual inner circle?

Does responsibility begin to diffuse through the organization, or does it continue accumulating around the same handful of people?

Those questions are no longer theoretical.

That was fast.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 74: VP Ripple Makes Big Club Waves appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Our Nittany Lions travel to Chicagoland to open the newly reconstructed Ryan Field, an $875 million project to replace its predecessor 100 years after the original Ryan Field opened. The sellout event is taking center stage in Chicago sports, relegating the Bears’ relocation soap opera to back burner status.

My better half, known here as Artificially Sweetened, is in Chicago helping her dad after his recent surgery. I cajoled her to attend the big event in Evanston. She demurred.

So, we’ll need to watch it on Fox for our first taste of the great white elephant, whose capacity has been reduced from 47,000 to 35,000 to provide an intimate setting for fans of all financial statuses. Stadium-style bench seating is out; comfy chairs with individual cup holders are in for the hoi polloi. Luxury suites accommodate those of greater means. And the students? They get a no-seat, standing section at one end intended so they can make noise, like European soccer stadiums.

Trivial fact: when they demolished the old Ryan Field, no explosives were used. You see, the folks in Evanston, a wealthy North Shore community, don’t like noise. They also objected to the planned use of the new facility to hold several concerts per year for the same reason. I suppose controlled noise from two thousand bored standing journalism and med students is the most they can tolerate.

And so, my Turkey readers, Penn State will have the distinction of being selected as the first opponent to christen Ryan Field, Part Deux.

Perhaps this was merely scheduling happenstance, a roll of the dice, a memoryless distribution, to determine who would be the October 2 opening night opponent. But the winds of fate are blowing the two teams in different ways as they cross paths. This could be an uplifting night for the 35,000 happy Chicagoland spectators.

Sanguinarians shat in their pants last week as they watched Penn State self-destruct, blowing a 17-0 lead against Wisconsin to lose 24-20. Social media has not seen such scathing comments about a Penn State quarterback since Tony Sacca threw that famous interception against Miami in 1992, before there was social media. Rocco Becht sucked in that Wisconsin game, inspiring broad-scale reprisals against him, Matt Campbell, and the offensive unit in general.

The Sanguinarians want Terry Smith to take over for Campbell immediately, to stave off any hint that this is not a playoff team bound for the Still Somewhat Mythical National Championship® (SSMNC). Yea, verily, the honeymoon was short, as we all knew it would be. For the Sanguinarians, no one will ever replace St. Joseph V. Paterno, but any pretender must never lose a game.

Truly, both Campbell and Becht are on the spot. A recent bullshit assessment (like all sportswriter assessments) ranked Becht #40 out of 68 Power Four quarterbacks. Interestingly, that same article placed Beau Pribula of the Virginia Cavaliers at #24 and Ethan Grunkemeyer of the Virginia Tech Cavaliers at #25. Both are former Penn State back-ups who transferred out. For what it is worth, both rank better than Arch Manning (#29), quarterback of the #1 Texas Longhorns.

So, are Nittany Lions fans stuck with a dud at QB? Will the tentative, questionable, conservative play-calling of the Badger loss continue?

Remember what Joe Paterno, of sainted memory, used to say: “You’re never as good as you think you are when you win, and you’re never as bad as you think you are when you lose.”

Good coaching and attitude adjustment can cause a rebound. But Northwestern is coming off a superb performance against #5 Nativeamericaniana in Bloomington. Let’s take a look at that game.

Indiana needed to score a touchdown with 1:56 left to secure the win. Thanks to a 203-yard performance by backup running back Lee Beebe, the Hoosiers outgained the Wildcats 472 yards to 325. Most of Northwestern’s gains were aerial, amassing 293 yards passing while only gaining 32 yards on the ground.

Wildcat quarterback Aidan Chiles, who wears #0, had an excellent day, 22-29 for 293 yards with 2 TDs and no INTs. He fumbled the ball twice, but both were recovered by his own soldiers. His primary target, sophomore tight end Luke Dehnicke, had 7 receptions for 140 yards.

Although it was an off night for the Hoosiers, Northwestern displayed flashes of competence in the 29-23 loss. Had they won, it would have been their first time defeating a SSMNC team since 1971 and a current top-five foe for the first time since 1959.

Coach David Braun said they beat themselves. Inopportune penalties stifled at least two potential scoring drives.

Da Wedda

Friday night in the Windy City. Fall. After a daytime high of 65, the mercury will sink to 55 at night. No precipitation, and winds as usual.

Da Bottom Line

The Official Turkey Poop Prediction is upon us. Recall that last week, this foul old fowl got the score right, albeit picking the wrong team to win. This week, although I am inclined to believe the Nittany Lions are resilient enough to rebound from a loss, their lack of top-tier talent gives me paws. But birds don’t have paws.

They have claws. Will Penn State claw its way back on Friday night before a hostile crowd of 35,000 fervent North Shore warriors who venture to the South Side only for their cocaine purchases? Or will the Nittany Lions continue to display mediocrity in offensive coaching and on-field performance?

Forget about the stupid playoffs. This team is not of that caliber, even if their schedule is favorable. These three weeks, facing NWU, USC, and Michigan will make the difference between a respectable season and one we would rather forget about. My current thinking is that the Nittany Lions will lose two out of those three games.

Penn State opened as seven-point favorites over Northwestern, which led this turkey to believe that the oddsmakers were smoking some Saigon Red. The spread has settled to Penn State — 2.5, with an over/under of 45.5. This works out to break-even at Penn State 24, Northwestern 21, or thereabouts. The Wildcats gave up huge yards on the ground last week. If Rocco Becht and the passing game continues to suck, Penn State must finally get its running game established. Yet, we have seen no signs of competence there thus far.

Matt Campbell’s press conference continued to dwell on the crappy performance against Wisconsin. Does he know they’re playing Northwestern this week?

Although I hope I’m wrong, I will go with the Wildcats, who have proven they can hang in with the best of them. Unless the Penn State defense can score again, the offense will sputter and struggle to convert third downs. We better hope Northwestern shoots itself in the foot again. I’m saying Northwestern 27, Penn State 17. And that hits the over/under squarely in the noggin, so I’m laying off.

I’ll be back with more pearls of wisdom after the game, bringing you flashbacks of memorable 1992 games and all, just because my senior memory remembers them like they were yesterday.

The post Ryan’s Hope appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

We know that the Secretary is on the road, so we did not expect perfection in his draft product. Therefore, we will not nitpick typos and misstated call signs. (But we can guarantee that the KD3FM Annual Service Award went to N5MIG, not KF0HNC).

We will focus primarily on the Great Debate initiated by our question to the board: “Under what circumstances would you discuss Board matters in private, and would you consider making the Board reflector read-only to the membership?”

Absurdist 73 comments on some of the assertions made by Board members as they waffled and rationalized why they they want to maintain privacy in arbitrary situations and why they resist opening up the Board reflector for observation by the members. We also comment on a directive issued by our presumptive incoming President about the importance of net check-in volume.

First, though, the perfunctory, understated annual award presentations provides a brief side-chuckle. The minutes note the passing acknowledgment of Ben, AE4NT, our alter ego, “for advice, wisdom and past service.” We can only imagine the noble fortitude required to utter these words before a live local audience and all the Zoom crashers the open meeting lobby would allow.

Now, on to The Great Fast Debate.

Debate Too Fast to Record

The discussion moved too fast for Doug. Our Secretary faithfully recorded the Board’s defense of private deliberation until the discussion became sufficiently interesting, at which point it exceeded the rated speed of the recording apparatus.

Apparently, transparency has a baud-rate limit.

Accordingly, we will fill in some details of our arguments that Doug’s bandwidth limitations truncated or elided. We will respond here to comments by Board members and others, including Doug, which he actually chose to record.

Kirk Makes a Half-Point

AA1NA – We would have private meetings for considering individual members circumstances, and to discuss financials.

Kirk makes two points. The first is moot because the bylaws provide a process for considering individual member disputes, complaints, censure, and revocation. The initial discussion would be private, but if the matter moves on to the full Board, they must discuss it in the open.

The second point is critical. It is mandatory that the Board discusses Financial reports themselves in the open. The Club has a history of defalcations, which we must not ignore. Financial statements and discussions of them are the business of all members. However, we can understand and indeed support the notion that bank account credentials and internal control provisions protecting financial assets require appropriate secrecy. So, we will give Kirk half a point there.

Then, He Files It

AA1NA – this is an idea for the board to consider. There are times for executive session.

“We’ll consider it.” That is where ideas go to die. Tell us in so many words that you do not want to discuss increasing transparency.

To be fair, Kirk is not yet holding the tiller, so our incisive question might have blind-sided him inopportunely. He asked us privately after the meeting whether he and the others had answered our question satisfactorily. No, he did not.

We do not expect instant action. Kirk will certainly have a honeymoon period, but the issue of transparency is not a minor one. It must not drown in a sea of flawed rationale. We continue to hope that Board paranoia of recent years yields to a more engaged future.

The Chair Speaks Up

VE3CMB – We have occasions to have private discussions. When the directors did have a
private meeting, they gathered thoughts. We had one meeting lately, that only included
directors, no officers. Everyone got to provide input input that was then collected and displayed by K9GWS. What came up was Having Fun. We didn’t discuss bylaws or current issues, simply what was to be good for the club.

Members received no details of that meeting. Why were officers excluded? Why were Assistant Directors excluded? If the point was to establish future directions, does that not involve setting constraints on the tone and conduct of business going forward? What would happen if the meeting’s content were to be divulged?

We are not suggesting that directors cannot talk to each other in private. We merely want them to respect the bylaws and Florida not-for-profit corporation law. If those private discussions involve doing Club business, they are out of order.

Silly Rationalization

From time to time, some Board members have expressed opinions that if the bylaws do not specifically preclude an action, then it must be acceptable. This is vacuously ridiculous, inspiring sophomoric renaming ploys for example. In an earlier Absurdist Paper, we posited that they could call it a Labrador retriever, but if it looks like a meeting, smells like a meeting, and business is conducted there in any way, shape, or form, it is a damn meeting!

So, stop with the silliness, already!

Does the Board Communicate with Members?

At this point in the discussion, Doug’s classic concession appears in the minutes: “(Debate too fast to record)”, followed by an unattributed comment, presumably by AI4K.

The 4th area has a reflector for their members. It is up to the directors to keep their area informed. It is up to all directors to keep their members informed.

Indeed, it is true that the 4th, 5th, and 10th area have reflectors for directors to communicate with their area members. However, as Dave (presumably) mentions, it is indeed up to the directors to keep their area members informed. The mere presence of a reflector does not guarantee its proper use.

I’ll ditch the editorial “we” once again. I, AE4NT, was the 4th Area Director who started that reflector intending to fulfill the purpose Dave mentioned as well as to promote discussion among area members. Whenever I received an agenda for a Board meeting, I would post its business items along with my interpretation and how I would vote. I invited debate by the members. If their comments were convincing, I would vote accordingly. And that is how I believe it should work.

It Is Indeed Up to the Director

Again, Dave’s words ring true: “it is up to the Director”. His immediate predecessor posted very little on that reflector between December 2025 and his resignation on August 8. When a controversial issue emerged, he folded completely. Dave, on the other hand, has been a refreshing change, notifying members proactively of Board actions and plans. We hope he keeps it up.

So, yes, indeed. How the Director approaches his or her job is the key, not the reflector. Area Directors answer to the members; they are not self-employed.

We are well aware that Mac communicates effectively with the 10th Area the same way. Good information and good member engagement in the 4th and 10th areas should be a model for the rest of the Club.

They Can Read the Minutes If They Want

On the other hand, Directors in some areas rarely interact with or are influenced by members’ comments. Again, this is not the fault of the members. It is symptomatic of a late-stage organization in which self-preservation precludes innovation. When you’re furiously treading water, you aren’t thinking about building your new house.

We have heard one director say that if members want to know what is going on, they can read the Board agenda and the meeting minutes for themselves.

That way, the Director need not ever lift a finger.

Every Check-In Matters

We will shift gears to another classic line of organizational reasoning for a moment. During Kirk’s remarks about the Club’s future, Doug managed to capture one sentence with considerably more fidelity than the Great Debate: “Every checkin matters.”

As an encouraging bromide to someone checking into a net for the first time, that sounds harmless enough. As an operating philosophy, however, it contains the seed crystal of the self-licking ice cream cone. If every check-in has intrinsic value merely because it occurred, then more check-ins must necessarily mean more value. One station becomes several club calls, assorted operating configurations, and, where geography permits sufficient imagination, multiple states. The counters spin merrily while nobody asks whether another human relationship, new member, or meaningful operating experience has actually been created.

This might seem like a digression from Board transparency, but it is not entirely unrelated. A Board insulated from meaningful member observation risks measuring Club health largely by whatever its most active insiders already enjoy doing. “Every check-in matters” can subtly evolve into “every check-in is evidence that the Club is healthy.” It is not. Heat is not momentum.

Having Fun at a Cost

What the Board and the most active members view as “Having Fun” can be a daunting obstacle to new operators, whose active participation and retention are necessary to sustain the Club. Our position is that quantity of check-ins, particularly when many are manufactured to favor insiders, is less important than quality of check-ins. We not only need fresh blood, but also we need to understand how to effectively use it to keep the organs vital. Alas, the Club has developed a self-defeating mechanism to keep insiders happy while unwittingly driving away outsiders.

Vox Incommoda’s maternal Grandmother was raised by a maiden aunt, Tante Dora, who spoke only German. One of the Old World sayings she passed on to all of us was, “Zuviel ist ungesund.” That literally translates to “Too much is unhealthy.” More broadly applied, a surfeit of anything, even “Having Fun”, often creates insurmountable problems.

The key to long-term success is balance.

The Beat Goes On

AE4NT continued to debate with VE3CMB. Craig maintained that the detailed discussions
should not be public because many thoughts come up that go nowhere. Ben (AE4NT) maintained that if it is discussed in secret, people will conclude and spread what they want.

Clearly, Doug was becoming annoyed about recording details of our persistent quest for a needle of clarity amid a gigantic haystack of defensive obfuscation. Nevertheless, we pressed on, oblivious to the clerical chagrin.

His abridged version of my comments did not reflect our unanswered question, “What do you do that you need to hide from the members?” He caught the other half, where said operating as a secret society would only lead to misinterpretation of motives.

As for Craig’s reflector comments, perhaps thoughts that go nowhere would actually go somewhere if members were more engaged. When the Board conducts its business privately for the sake of the Board instead of the members, ideas go nowhere because the Board lacks sensitivity to members’ needs and consequently lacks the desire to innovate. Instead, it concentrates its efforts on sustaining what is left of the organization.

Can’t Do It. Nope.

W8NET – can’t open board reflector easily. Issues with private emails, executive session.

Thus, an administrative inconvenience begins its transformation into institutional policy. Nothing is quite so permanent as something nobody feels like figuring out.

Executive sessions? What is that? Another way of saying “Board Meetings”? We’re back to Labrador retrievers.

Amen. So Be It.

Then, Doug piped up, passive-aggressively delivering a deaconesque “amen” to the Board’s collective self-serving position. We believe it was his attempt to put a capstone on the discussion. Instead, it provided hilarious fodder for Absurdist satire.

N3VEJ – I elect a director to represent me, and he has meetings and emails with us to keep us
up to date. He recently had a zoom, and I think, based on the way he presented the issue at
hand, that he thought differently than some of the members. He listened, and ultimately, voted with the mind of his members.

Translation: Don’t complain about the directors; they’re doing their job. Just look at my AD for an example of a pristine paragon of superb directorial conduct and member engagement.

A Model of Area Leadership

That is rich. Doug’s area director, Keon, is the Director who publicly scorned members commenting on Club business: “They’re not on the Board, so I could care less.”

As he has not checked into a net for seventeen months, we question how close he is to feeling the pulse of the organization. If Board meetings are his only indication of grass-roots preferences, they present a rather skewed view of members’ needs.

Based on Doug’s comments, Keon is presumably on top of everything. Yet, his was one of three areas completely unrepresented at the Board meeting. No assistant director, no proxy representative, no nothing, although he was aware that three business items were on the agenda.

We wonder whether Keon discussed his thoughts on this subject with his area members via Zoom. If he did, he knew that Doug and Bill, N3WD, both club functionaries from his area, would be attending the Eyeball. He could have easily given them his proxy. And for the Eyeball Board meeting, the restrictions on proxy representatives are loosened to include appointing any Area Director, the President, or Vice President. Thus, he had at least ten options but selected none.

Perhaps Keon just forgot there was a meeting.

The Cone of Silence

One member warned that if Directors were denied sufficient privacy, they would simply resort to text messages. We appreciate the candor. When asked whether the curtains should be opened, the response was essentially that the occupants could always move to the basement.

This member stated that he was a manager for years. His management experience is beside the point. Corporate managers operate within whatever authority their organizations give them; Club directors do too.

He concluded with, “You elected them to do the job. Let them.”

“You elected them to do the job” does not mean “you elected them to decide privately what the job permits.” Indeed, we presumably elected them with the tacit assumption that they would comply with and uphold the bylaws.

Our conjecture is that fewer than half of the sitting Directors could pass an open-book examination on the bylaws without requesting clarification from the Bylaws Committee. Furthermore, some who do have a good working knowledge of the Club documents hand-wave their way past their provisions with liberal interpretations, comments about the rules being too draconian, or that wonder of all wonders, if it is not explicitly prohibited, then it must be OK.

We Are Not Giving Up

Vox Incommoda will continue harping on closed Board deliberations because Board aloofness and selective disengagement from the membership are pernicious habits. The spectacle at Grand Forks was instructive: confronted unexpectedly with a basic question about transparency, Directors largely closed ranks and produced variations on the proposition that some things simply need to remain private because they are the Board and such is the way of Boards.

We will not concede that this is immutable doctrine. Grand Forks provided reasons for cautious optimism elsewhere, and perhaps the squirming we witnessed was simply the natural defensive reaction of people confronted with a question they had never seriously considered. Fine. They have now heard the question. They have plenty of time to consider whether member scrutiny is a nuisance they will route around with private email and text messages, or an essential corrective mechanism in a member organization.

We indeed elect Directors to do a job. We are entitled to know how that job is being done. If some Directors ultimately decide that insulation from the membership is more important than engagement with it, elections provide a useful repair mechanism. If instead the changing Board decides that transparency is an asset rather than an inconvenience, no repair may be necessary. We would much prefer the latter. After all, replacing parts is expensive, messy work, and sometimes all the machine really needed was for somebody to open the damn cover.

Let Us Pray

On the heels of an excellent Eyeball that united attendees in a glorious celebration of fellowship, we see great hope for the future in the form of a smaller, but friendlier organization. Our vision is a Club in which all net participants can concentrate on “Having Fun” while the Board we elect to represent us handles the serious end of running the business responsively and openly.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 73: Fast-Moving Debate appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

After a series of first-half mistakes by the Wisconsin Badgers handed Penn State a 17-0 lead, the Nittany Lions could only manage to score one field goal. Meanwhile, the Badgers scored once before the intermission, then went on to match Penn State’s field goal in the third quarter. Leading 20-10, PSU seemed to be content to sit on the lead. But the Badgers had other ideas, closing out the game with two late touchdowns that left the Lions in their dust.

To my credit, I predicted a 24-20 game, although I had the wrong winner.

You could say that Rocco Becht had an off day, but that would be like saying the Ides of March was an off day for Julius Caesar. Clearly missing his go-to target, Koby Howard, Becht’s anemic stat line was 12-29 for 114 yards and an untimely interception. He did manage to gain 23 yards on the ground, including the Lions’ single offensive touchdown.

The running game never approached any semblance of competence, producing just 119 yards.

Wisconsin outgained Penn State 355 to 233. Three turnovers and nine penalties by the Badgers should have handed the Nittany Lions an easy win, but their sputtering offense never found a rhythm. When they did, it was the lugubrious rhythm of a funeral dirge.

Not only was Becht missing targets all day, but also Wisconsin tipped at least four of his passes around the line of scrimmage, one of which produced a disastrous pick-six. The 6’1″ senior apparently could not loft the ball over the outstretched cheese-hooks of the meaty Badgers.

The Badgers Are Back!

Wisconsin is clearly not Buffalo, but despite Luke Fickell’s post-game bragging, “the Badgers are back!”, they sure as hell are not Ohio State, either. Hey, it is early. I haven’t finished my coffee. This was the best I could do to characterize Wisconsin as middle-of-the-pack Big Ten non-contenders. No, Luke, the Barry Alvarez glory days are long gone. But you were still good enough to give the catatonic Nittany Lions the spanking they deserved.

And Then, There is Social Media

Social media is abuzz, already reflecting the foreshortening of the Matt Campbell honeymoon. You knew they would turn on him the instant Penn State lost. Hell, some were already calling for his head on a plate after a lackadaisical performance against Temple. But a loss, especially a Homecoming loss when favored by 9.5 points over a lightly regarded conference opponent? Oy vey is mir, now you are going to see some bitching, already!

One Facebook comment gave me Chris Matthews tingles all up and down my legs. “This is not a Penn State team. It an Iowa State team coached by an Iowa State coach.” I had visions of a halftime reveal, whereby the boys would exit the tunnel clad in cardinal and gold instead of blue and white while singing “ISU Fights”.

Peacock Sucks and So Do the Announcers

Others were bitching about the TV coverage. “Peacock sucks and so do the announcers.” Well, they were at least half right. Peacock, NBC’s pay channel, exhibited technical glitches throughout the first half. Condemning the announcers is standard procedure for Penn State homies, who expect announcers to genuflect before the non-existent Paterno shrine and never give opponents credit for anything. In this case, the announcers merely expressed enthusiasm where it was warranted.

Yes, Penn State sucked. Not the announcers. They properly reacted to Penn State suckage, by turning their attention to underdogs who were passionately playing to win. Disgruntled fans need to do the same. After overcoming their disastrous start, the Badgers played well, right until the final Rocco Becht pass sailed past the end zone out of everyone’s reach as the clock hit zero.

So, STFU about announcers already. Get back to “Fire Matt Campbell”. Of course, I’m being facetious. Penn State fans want every season to be 1982, 1986, or 1994. Wait, we’re talking the last century here. It’s a different game now. Money rules, and loyalty is such a passe concept that even Congress wants to step in to fix the mess. Meanwhiles, fans are mired in the past, a simpler time before NIL and the dreaded Transfer Portal.

Just Ask the Accountants

Winning matters, for sure. Just ask the accountants. The bottom line is what counts. More TV revenue, more corporate sponsorships, more gelt at Hanukkah. Show me the money!

Yeah, the Nittany Lions have 24 so-called student-athletes who transferred from Iowa State like puppy dogs following Matt Campbell. But even if they didn’t, are FBS college teams today composed of home-grown students who just happen to want to play a team sport on Saturdays? No. One way or another, paid athletes are paid athletes. They are mercenaries with lip service loyalties when questioned, but their only true loyalty is to their bank account.

So, don’t give me all the rah-rah crap. We’re paying for entertainment. Bitch about the quality of the product we receive for our money, but call a spade a spade.

Hey, I noticed that Culver’s had bought advertising space in the form of Badgers jersey patches. The light-blue of the Culver’s logo clashed with Wisconsin red. Meanwhile, Pat Kraft is still holding out for the highest bidder for Penn State’s own jersey patch sellout.

Other so-called fans are pissed off because they lost money gambling on their dear alma mater. Sports gambling is a big business now. Everywhere you turn, you see ads wanting to suck you in. More societal decadence, entropy, as it were.

I’ll end this rant by saying that fans will be fans, regardless of their misunderstanding of the true game being played out before their jaundiced eyes. Let them blow wind if it makes them feel better.

Forthcoming Cat Fight

Now, the Nittany Lions face a Friday night trip to Evanston to take on the surprisingly resilient Northwestern Wildcats, who gave #5 Indiana quite a battle on their home turf, eventually losing 29-23. The 2-1 Wildcats are 4.5-point underdogs, who will open their newly renovated Ryan Stadium against Penn State.

I’ll be back later in the week with a better look at the Wildcats, with the same snarky attitude.

The post Cheesy Performance appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

That last comment deserves amplification. Mac insisted that QRP nets be limited to the SSB nets plus one digital net. We hope future Eyeball hosts adopt this beneficial policy, as it provides members time to experience the hallmark camaraderie that characterizes these events—the primary incentive for attending. Restricting QRP nets further improves the Club landscape by reducing the diluting effect of a plethora of gratuitous, manufactured contacts that have become a disturbing trend of late.

We will say more about that trend later, but the Eyeball itself deserves a few more paragraphs.

A Very Good Eyeball

Although at the outset some high-profile members briefly voiced vitriolic comments regarding The Absurdist Papers, the predicted Vox Incommoda assassination did not occur. In fact, we were warmly greeted by all our old friends and several newcomers. This is a good sign that friendship takes precedence over divergent opinions and harsh realities.

I’ll ditch the editorial “we” momentarily. I wish to emphasize that I had a great time thanks to Mac and the 3905 Century Club gang. Significantly, this was my first non-working Eyeball since 2015, although I pitched in to help a bit with the mobile shootout. I finally managed to participate as a competitor instead of the show-runner in that event, somehow managing to achieve the ignominious distinction of last place. “Pop Gun” is a nadir I last attained at the Branson Eyeball in 2016. I didn’t even get a hat for my effort there. In contrast, the baseball cap I received in Grand Forks was top quality, like those seen in a sporting goods store for $30—yet another major upgrade thanks to Mac.

Mac also allowed me some time after lunch to present a memorial reminiscence for Dwight Greenberg, WF4H, who became a silent key last December. Although his passing was a sad event for the Club, the shared moments reflected happy times at past Eyeballs where Dwight’s presence was always larger than life. Future Eyeballs will be less smoky, but we will continue to miss his ebullient presence.

Last, but certainly not least, the food was a cut above the usual Eyeball fare. I must say I had a few too many donuts.

Mac began his planning a year in advance of the event, which certainly paid dividends in the form of a flawlessly executed Eyeball. Kudos to him!

Reasons for Optimism

Our outgoing President, Dean Davis, KL7OR, chose to avoid the gathering. However, he and retired Board Chairman Clay Mayrose, WA6LBU, oddly operated proximally mobile. Thus, Dean eschewed an opportunity to execute a graceful exit, boycotting the Eyeball instead. His absence allowed Kirk Frazier, AA1NA, current Vice President and presumptive President as of Halloween, to take center stage.

We had been calling for Kirk to clearly state to the membership that he intends to assume the presidency. His hesitance in doing so was somewhat disconcerting. In an organization that frets over whether an assistant director can represent his area when the director resigns, it is strange that the Vice President is not automatically sworn in when the President resigns. Instead, he or she must announce it or decline it. Although Kirk had confided in some directors previously, he had not declared his accepted ascension to the general membership. He waited five weeks after Dean resigned to do so. Finally, we have clarity, and Kirk has positioned himself to be a positive presence at the helm.

In what could be described as his acceptance speech, he maintained an uplifting posture. Alas, Kirk is soft-spoken, which when coupled with our octogenarian ears caused significant information loss. We caught the gist of his position statement nonetheless. Expanding the membership to provide new opportunities was one stated goal. However, to our dismay, he paid lip service to continuing promotion of “incestuous contacts,” a practice that we have decried in these Papers.

We will have more to say about those manufactured contacts later.

Other Good Signs

There were other reasons for cautious optimism. Incoming Treasurer Clay Statmore, WA2JIM, expressed a determination to reconcile awards revenue with actual treasury receipts. He wondered aloud why this elementary accounting exercise had been such a stumbling block previously. We wondered too, as we thought the prior Treasurer’s rationalization for deliberately avoiding the simple process lacked substance. You cannot stumble on the way to the finish line when you never make it to the starting gate.

Eighth Area Director Gene Marsh, W8NET, also quietly told us, “We’re trying.” We believe him. A changing administration and the upcoming odd-numbered Area Director elections present a genuine opportunity to recompose the Board and improve both governance and accountability. Whether that opportunity produces lasting momentum rather than another burst of organizational heat remains to be seen.

Via Zoom, newly appointed NCS Training Coordinator Jeff McCulloch, K4JEL, thanked his predecessor, Joe St. Columbia, N5MIG, for his service and for developing an excellent set of training materials. Jeff said he would carry on Joe’s good work and would strive to schedule training to fit prospective NCS needs. And speaking of Joe, he was awarded the KD3FM Annual Service Award for his valuable service to the Club.

For my decade of service as Awards Secretary, I, AE4NT, received perfunctory acknowledgment in the form of a pedestrian certificate printed on copy machine paper. I designed that certificate template many years ago, but later replaced it with something fancier. Yea, verily, what goes around comes around. Nevertheless, I am relieved to have received this minuscule recognition instead of the Preparation-H award I so richly deserve.

The Board Meeting

Craig McLoughlin, VE3CMB, newly elected Board Chairman conducted the Board meeting.

Nobody had anything to say about reports, which was interesting because the Awards Committee Report was nowhere to be found. It has become a hit-or-miss proposition. Furthermore, the President’s report took the form of a resignation scoreboard, including a comical misspelling of Century Club Chairs (sic). Finally, the NCS Guide Review Ad Hoc Committee report still lists Joe St. Columbia as a committee member despite his August resignation.

The Board considered two items of new business. They voted favorably on a 50th Anniversary Award proposal. This new award provides yet another avenue for churning up contacts with the same old suspects in what is becoming an increasingly closed system.

For the 50th Anniversary Award, unique contacts consist of the same call sign contacted on different bands and modes. Because the Club currently operates nets using 14 band/mode combinations, up to 14 contacts with a given station will count toward the award. Club call signs can be used, so the old drag-along contact multiplier will yield considerable credit.

Oddly enough, contacts with special event call signs are not eligible for this award. We can only imagine the extent of the Awards Committee debate on that issue. Who knew?

The 50th Anniversary Award will likely serve to stimulate net participation among those who want an incentive to augment their inventory of contacts with the same players.

The Board’s second order of business was a two-word clarification to the Constitution that fixes the head-scratching over area representation when a director resigns. When adopted, this will codify the authority of the assistant director to represent the area.

Constitutional amendments require a two-step process: the Board tables the motion for announcement to the general membership and brings it off the table at the next Board meeting for a two-thirds vote.

Adjournment was swift and painless. Another Board meeting in the books.

The Member Meeting

After Kirk delivered his prepared statement, he opened the meeting for general questions. Vox Incommoda, operating as AE4NT, asked a two-part question to the Board: “First, what, if anything, would you consider a valid reason for conducting Board business in private where members could not observe? Second, would you consider allowing general membership read-only access to the ccnboard reflector?”

Some vocal directors posited that events such as censuring or revoking members would require private sessions. On this we do not disagree, as the bylaws provide for direct intervention by affected area directors in complaints against members. However, if not resolved, the matter would be referred to the full Board for resolution, and at that point, deliberations should be open. Other directors mused nebulously about executive sessions and mission alignment. Those who spoke were defensive and offered no solution other than saying they can do as they please. We do not think they can, per the bylaws and Florida not-for-profit corporation law.

The legal issue is not whether directors may ever speak privately with one another. Obviously they may. The issue is when private coordination crosses the line from conversation into Board deliberation or action. Our Bylaws require Board meetings to be observable by interested members. Florida law separately provides that Board action taken without a meeting ordinarily requires unanimous written consent describing the action taken. Our concern is that private deliberations can effectively settle the substance of an issue, leaving the public meeting with nothing more than a ceremonial vote on a conclusion already reached elsewhere.

Opening the Reflector

As to the second part of the question, there was some mumbling, but nothing suggested a change in policy that would allow members access to the presently private deliberations of Board members. With a straight face, one director opined that if such access were allowed, then directors would communicate with each other via private email or by phone.

Perhaps Maxwell Smart’s “cone of silence” anticipated the machinations of this Board a decade before the Club existed.

To reiterate, our concern is open access to substantive Club business decisions. We do not need to know what one director states privately to another about band conditions on 160 meters.

Some directors said more with their silence than others did with their foot-in-mouth ministrations.

After the meeting, Kirk asked us whether they had adequately answered our questions. We said, “No, but you side-stepped them quite well.”

We will continue to watch for further signs of retreats to the Board cave, but we hope that we got our point across. Nothing the Board might touch on, other than the aforementioned sensitive member issues, needs to be hidden from the membership. If the Board is afraid of public embarrassment, perhaps they should clean up their act and stop doing embarrassing things.

A Surfeit of Manufactured Contacts

Despite Kirk’s “lady doth protest too much” promotion of legitimized manufactured contacts, our feelings are somewhat contrary. Entropic churning proceeds apace.

We thought SSB QRP nets were implemented with the intent to serve a very useful purpose other than contact proliferation. Through these nets, Eyeball attendees may contact each other “off-line” to avoid congesting the regular open evening nets with local contacts. Despite that premise, after making all those internal contacts on the Thursday QRP nets, stations operating at the Eyeball still called each other on the regular nets. When asked why, someone told us that some of them were portable during the QRP nets and mobile during the regular nets, or vice versa.

Oy, vey.

A veritable plethora of club and special event callsigns accompanied many of the attendees’ basic callsigns. And there was the switching from mobile to portable and back again. Plus, before and after—and sometimes during—the Eyeball, stations migrated to state lines, tri-points, and—gasp!—even an international border to claim operation from multiple entities simultaneously. Same old suspects; combinatorics is our mathematical friend. Getting 75 contacts from the same individual is a concept worthy of grandiose exploitation.

Straddling the 49th Parallel

The international boundary takes the cake. We asked how that could even work. It is impossible to legally straddle the boundary between Canada and the U.S., so club rules ordinarily would not permit such a thing. Furthermore, one cannot operate under two sovereign countries’ communication laws simultaneously.

We heard some faulty rationale, but nothing about it was convincing. Manufactured contacts at invented locations have become a way of life in the Club’s late-stage entropy.

What has happened here is convenient de facto liberalization of the rule that requires an individual to be right on the boundary. Once again, a collection of disparate facts provided the rationale. The Tri-Point Award established that one could be one-half mile from a tri-point to claim all three states, which although lavish, made some sense because landing precisely on a point might be difficult. However, this characterization is a travesty because it has permitted such nonsense as claiming all four states at Four Corners from outside the closed monument where one can only physically operate in at most two states simultaneously. Nothing in the original tri-point accommodation contemplated its migration into a general-purpose half-mile doctrine for state lines, much less international boundaries

The Club’s FAQ states the rule for operating “on the line”, adopted by the Board: “Also note, when it comes to declaring yourself as being on a line, a statement saying, ‘I’m 50 feet from the line’ is the same as saying ‘I’m NOT on the line.’ If you know for a fact you are 50 feet (or even just 5 feet) from the line and can get closer practically and safely, then you need to get closer. If you are as close as you can practically and safely get, then you need to just say, ‘I’m on the line.'”

So, say it is so and it shall be so.

Participating in the Mayhem

I joined the fray to provide mobile contacts from Tennessee, North Dakota, and Montana. No state lines, no tri-points, and no clubs or special events, just AE4NT operating solo in a Tesla that wound up completing a 4,784-mile trek in 11 days.

One might think that with all the multiple state/multiple contact competition, I would receive no calls. Yet I bagged several QSOs, for which I am grateful.

One helpful factor was the modified net procedure our lame-duck President implemented for Eyeball week nets. Every night was a rodeo night, in which each station on the check-in list gets 30 seconds to make as many calls as he or she wish. Indeed, yet another way to maximize contacts with the same old suspects.

Rodeo nets have evolved to operate very much like the Eyeball QRP nets. Signal reports become a convention. Everybody is 59, so the response can be brief: “also 59”. Amusingly, some stations clearly could not hear each other but were nevertheless 59. Why should we let propagation anomalies or atmospheric noise interfere with a guaranteed contact charade, anyway?

A few members refused to play the 59 game. Good for them. Honesty in signal reporting is not a lost art after all.

The More, the Merrier

Incestuous contacts are not worthless. At the moment, they are sustaining a considerable amount of activity among the Club’s existing core. The danger lies in mistaking that internal circulation for organizational vitality. A closed system can remain extremely busy while slowly exhausting the external inputs required for long-term survival.

That we repel potential new blood by all the insider contacts dominating the nets does not portend well for the future.

But it sure feels good for now. The Club can certainly continue creating new awards and ever more ingenious ways to leverage contacts with the same suspects. Alternatively, a new generation of leadership can recognize that heat is not the same thing as momentum and begin directing some of that remarkable energy outward.

For the first time in a while, we are not prepared to rule out the latter.

Onward and Upward

The Grand Forks Eyeball reminded us why we keep coming back. Mac put on a first-class event, the fellowship was genuine, the accommodations were excellent, and even Vox Incommoda managed to survive the weekend without being shot, censured, or fed to the Red River. More importantly, beneath all the procedural silliness and award-churning machinery, we saw signs that a change in leadership might bring some fresh air into the Club. We are not yet ready to declare a renaissance, but for the first time in a while we can at least imagine one. That is progress, however cautiously we choose to measure it.

Organizational Nutrition

But organizations, like people, can become unhealthy while consuming enormous quantities of something they enjoy. A man who eats the same lavish dinner every night may never go hungry, yet still develop scurvy because abundance is not the same thing as nourishment. So it is with contacts. Club calls, special-event calls, line operations, tri-points, mobile/portable permutations and other multipliers can all be entertaining in moderation. But when the same finite group repeatedly works itself through ever more ingenious combinations, the resulting mountain of contacts can disguise the absence of something more important: new people, new relationships, new ideas and new reasons for outsiders to become insiders. A closed system can be very busy while slowly starving.

We hope the next administration recognizes the difference between heat and momentum. The Club has plenty of energy, plenty of committed people, and, as Grand Forks demonstrated, plenty of capacity for genuine fellowship. The challenge is to direct more of that energy outward rather than endlessly recirculating it among the same old suspects. If the coming changing of the guard can improve transparency, restore administrative discipline, and make the Club more inviting to people who are not already members of the contact-production cooperative, perhaps the 50th anniversary really can mark the beginning of something rather than merely another excuse to print certificates. We would very much like to see that happen.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 72: Eyeball Observations through a Jaundiced Eye appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Homecoming comes early for Penn State alums, as the big bad Badgers momentarily infest Beaver Stadium with their gigantic, cheese-fueled presence. Penn State opened 9.5 point favorites.

I say “gigantic” because their lightest starting offensive lineman is center Austin Kawecki, who weighs in at 310 lbs. As a unit, they average about 321. This always seems to be the case up there. Those Culver’s Butter Burgers clearly produce beneficial O-line bulk, and that ain’t Swiss cheese!

And there’s lots of cheese in Wisconsin. I just spent a couple of days there. There are cheese castles, cheese chalets, and cheeseburgers at Culver’s.

This will be the first game of consequence for Penn State this season. After three cupcake wins against the likes of Marshall, Temple, and Buffalo, we still do not know what to think. What we know, however, is that rising star wide receiver Koby Howard is injured and will not play, which removes a significant chunk of offense. Penn State has been averaging 287 yards per game passing against tune-up opponents.

The Badgers have put up some mediocre numbers in their 2-1 season thus far. Their time of possession ranks 107th in the FBS. Nevertheless, they displayed muchos cojones scheduling Notre Dame for their opening game, although they lost 41-13.

They are led by Old Dominion transfer Colton Joseph, who sports a 63.5% completion rate, with 5 TDs and 2 INTs this season. Three of those TDs were against cupcakes, and one was against Notre Dame.

Wisconsin’s last game was a 54-10 rout of Eastern Michigan, while Penn State similarly decimated Buffalo 55-13. Those two outings tell us next to nothing, if not less.

What tells us something is that the TV scheduling gods chose the 5 PM time slot for this “Helmet Stripe” game. We now have “Stripe Out” and “Helmet Stripe” games in addition to the signature “White Out”. Oy, such a bag of baloney, but I digress in a Guido d’Eliaesque manner. The 5 PM start is neither here nor there—neither prime time nor prime afternoon. It will create a huge surge in 9 PM dinner reservations in State College at the behest of the anticipated sellout crowd.

Da Wedda

Looks like a nice football evening in State College for Homecoming. AccuWeather says Saturday afternoon will be partly sunny and pleasant with no precipitation and a high of 69.

Da Bottom Line

Another Big Ten season provides yet one more opportunity for this foul old fowl to screw up predictions. This game is particularly unpredictable, as we do not know how Rocco Becht will perform without his ace receiver. What’s worse, one of his tight end targets, Andrew Rappleyea, is questionable. And then, there’s the question about not having experienced and real opposition, unless you count Temple.

Well, what do the bookies tell us? As I write this, the betting favors PSU by 10, with an over/under of 44.5. This works out to a 27-17 PSU victory. Here’s a stat for you: the Nittany Lions have a 0% red-zone defense this year. Anyone who gets the ball inside the 20 can count on scoring. If that doesn’t get cleaned up, I can see Wisconsin scoring 17 or more. We’ll see. I’m going to base my prediction on what happened with Temple plus the absence of some prime talent. Penn State 24, Wisconsin 20. Don’t bet the over/under.

I’ll be back after the game for a chat with you about this brilliant prediction. Enjoy the Homecoming game! (If you’re not attending, you’ll need to have a Peacock subscription).

The post Culver’s, Colby, and Colton appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Boy, did that first half suck! Two big plays early in the game should have put 14 points on the board for Penn State and left the Owls sucking exhaust fumes.

Instead, the Nittany Lions came up empty.

The first play from scrimmage was a 56-yard pass from Rocco Becht to Koby Howard. That drive culminated in a missed field goal.

Then, after both teams traded three-and-outs, Tony Rojas intercepted a Jaxson Smolek pass, returning it to the Temple 5 yard-line, but four downs were not enough to produce a Penn State score.

The first quarter ended tied with all goose eggs on the Board.

Temple broke the ice with a field goal after a 91-yard drive that consumed over half of the second quarter. Penn State tied it up on its next possession when a drive stalled at the Temple 18 This time, Barker didn’t miss.

The Lions finally scored a touchdown in the waning minutes of the second quarter on a Rocco Becht pass to Ben Brahmer. They went into the locker room to think about this crappy half with a 10-3 lead.

That first half was reminiscent of Franklin Era noon games on the road, when PSU came out flat, which inspired Franklin to deflect media comments with his declaration that “we’re a second-half team.” They finally seemed to wake up late in the second quarter after those early flashes of competence I mentioned.

The Nittany Lions scored 27 straight points before giving up a Temple touchdown with under two minutes on the clock. Temple inexplicably went for two but failed, which kept them out of double-digits. However, they do have the distinction of having scored the first touchdown on the Penn State defense this year.

That defense seemed absent at times, as Temple broke quite a few runs that should have been contained. Temple wound up with 176 yards rushing, and just 107 passing.

Meanwhile, the Nittany Lions had 416 yards, 268 passing and 148 rushing. Rocco Becht had another good day, 21-27 for 268 yards and 3 TDs with no INTs. His favorite target today was big tight end Ben Brahmer, who caught 5 for 79 yards and 2 TDs. The leading rusher was Carson Hansen with 19 carries for 84 yards.

We wanted to see the running game get more established. We still do. It is moving in the right direction, and it better get to where it’s headed two weeks from now. That’s when the Big Ten schedule commences. The Lions’ first conference opponent will be Wisconsin.

Perhaps the dose of humility offered by their first-half struggle will motivate Penn State to clean up its act as it prepares for Buffalo, which should be an easy win. They need to hit the ground running instead of laying down on the ground and sleeping through the first half.

This game was Late Franklin all over again. Second-half team, indeed. And they failed to cover the spread, reminiscent of yet another Franklin habit.

Elsewhere, the #1 Schmuckeyes got circumcised by the #4 Longhorns 24-23 in a thrilla in Austin. #6 Oregon became duck soup at the behest of Oklahoma State, 39-31. And Michigan beat #11 Oklahoma 17-10.

I’ll be traveling starting Monday. I’ll definitely miss the Buffalo game. Wisconsin is 50-50.

The post That Blew appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

For some ungodly reason, my original post disappeared. I’m rewriting this from memory, which, when one is pushing 80, is bound to be a tall order.

Noon starts on the road have long been anathema to this Penn State squad, but this game is more like a home game on a different field. I expect that there will be more blue and white in the stands than Temple cherry.

Penn State has dominated the series with Temple 40-4-1. Last time out, back in 2016, Temple offered some resistance. The Nittany Lions ultimately prevailed 34-27.

Both teams won last week. Penn State shut out Marshall 45-0, while Temple easily handled the FCS Rhode Island Rams 38-14.

Temple’s defense notched two pick-sixes in last week’s game. The Owls’ offensive effort was run-heavy. Sophomore running back Keveun Mason had 158 yards and 2 TDs. Senior quarterback Ajani Sheppard was 5-10 for just 85 yards with no TDs or INTs, but he added 5 carries for 23 yards.

One stat that stood out in that Rhode Island game was Temple’s absolutely putrid third-down conversion rate: 25%. With performance like that by the offense, they sure as hell need the defense to score for them.

Penn State fans hope to see a continuation of the strong start they witnessed in the Marshall game. Quarterback Rocco Becht was 13-18 for 271 yards with 4 TDs and no INTs. Sophomore wide receiver Koby Howard broke out as the go-to guy with 6 receptions for 161 yards and a TD.

I hope to see more of a ground game against Temple. The Lions’ top rusher last week was Senior running back Carson Hansen, one of Matt Campbell’s Iowa State transfers, with 48 yards on 11 carries. I’d also like to see some production from tight ends Ben Brahmer and Andrew Rappleyea. Last week, Brahmer’s only reception was an 8-yard TD pass, while Rappleyea caught one for 18 yards.

Writing all this for the second time is boring. I hope the game is not. Another strong effort by the Nittany Lions will set the tone for a decent season. Some pundits have opined that Penn State should be favored to win all its remaining regular season games. That’s not a stretch, given the soft schedule in which USC and Washington seem to be only potential sources of serious resistance. But these expectations are premature, and we will not join the Sanguinarians in predicting a perfect season based on a single Saturday outing.

Da Wedda

Looks pretty good in Philly. Partly cloudy with a predicted high of 82 and with rain holding off until evening. Aside from the air quality rated as poor, a noon game should have no weather impediments.

Da Bottom Line

Straight from the cloaca of this foul old fowl, you are about to get a dose of the Turkey’s finest: The Official Turkey Poop Prognostication. This is where I tell you how to bet on the game so you can wisely take a contrary wagering stance. After all, I’m just a turkey, not a god. And I sure as hell don’t have an operational crystal ball.

All that having been said, the oddsmakers have settled on Penn State as a three-touchdown favorite, while ESPN’s dreaded Matchup Predictor gives the Owls a mere 5.9% shot at doing the unthinkable. The current line is Penn State — 21.5, with an over/under of 50.5. This works out to a break-even around 37-13. Remember that Matt Campbell took his foot off the gas in the final drive against Marshall. Otherwise, the final score would likely have been 52-0.

The Lions held Marshall to just 44 yards rushing, an average of 1.7 yards per carry. Temple’s Keveun Mason averaged 7.9 ypc against RI. The kid is good, but Penn State is not Rhode Island. Sheppard is going to need to get the passing game in gear. Doubtful that will be enough. Plus, the mighty Temple defense gave up 292 yards to the Rams.

I see the Owls having only 3 by halftime and maybe scoring a late TD in garbage time. Let’s go with Penn State 38 Hooters 10. Take the under.

I’ll be traveling starting Monday, so I’ll likely miss the Buffalo and Wisconsin games. However, if I get bored on the road, I’ll be writing something. You never know. As for the Temple game, I’ll write my ex post facto observations if I can interrupt my disorganized road-trip prep.

The post Cupcake Test #2 appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Absurdist Paper #71, likely the final essay before the Grand Forks, North Dakota extravaganza, dives into the Special Board Meeting on September 10, the first Board meeting run by new Chairman, Craig McLoughlin, VE3CMB.

We then take a comic relief side-trip to the unusually active reflectors.

The Fourth Area Vote

Dave Yarbrough, AI4K, was elected Fourth Area Director for the remainder of the term, replacing Gary Slagle, K9GWS, who resigned effective August 8. Dave had been representing the area as Assistant Director since Gary’s resignation.

The Board of Directors was required to confirm the reported election results. The vote was unanimous among those present. The Fifth Area was the only area completely unrepresented.

The election report attached to the agenda was an email from Election Monitor Keon Hayes, KE3HAY, which reported that Dave won 76% of the votes cast.

We congratulate Dave and wish him well in his fledgling directorship.

Dave has appointed Jeff McCullough, K4JEL, as his Assistant Director, who also was recently tabbed as the new NCS Training Coordinator. Jeff also serves on the Presidential Advisory Committee. Good appointment, but a clear example of role compression in a shallow volunteer pool.

We wish Jeff success in all his positions.

Treasurer Vote

Clay Statmore, WA2JIM, was nominated for the role of Treasurer, which is to be vacated on September 30 due to the resignation of Gary Slagle, K9GWS. Clay’s resume paints a picture of an individual who not only possesses skills appropriate to the position, but is substantially overqualified.

However, he is not a favorite of lame-duck President Dean Davis, KL7OR, and that is putting it mildly. Dean opposed Clay’s nomination, and former newsletter editor Buddy Spiegel, W3BS, also raised old concerns from Clay’s background in arguing against his confirmation. Those matters were known to others in the Club, but they plainly did not prevent Clay from subsequently having a successful business career. He has also served the Club as Second Area Awards Manager for more than twenty years.

Buddy brought up similar concerns about the retiring treasurer, Gary Slagle, when he was nominated in 2016. However, Gary surmounted the expressed concerns, was confirmed, and served the club well for almost a decade.

There was little in the current record to suggest that Clay could not do the same, while much of the opposition appeared to be emanating from the familiar lame-duck singularity.

Fortunately, directors were not bamboozled by the negative machinations. Seven directors and the Vice President voted in favor of confirming Clay, outweighing “no” votes from the First and Seventh Areas, as well as a proxy delivered “no” vote from President Dean Davis. The Sixth Area abstained for unspecified reasons, and the Fifth Area was not represented.

Thus, Clay was confirmed as the Club’s next Treasurer, 8-3-1, with one not present.

We wish Clay well in his new position and thank him for volunteering for this crucial role.

What We Can Draw from the Vote

The complete absence of Clay Mayrose, WA6LBU, from the past two meetings is interesting. Not only did he not show up, but his area was completely unrepresented. He did not even take the time to execute a proxy. His Assistant Director is in poor health and rarely attends meetings.

A fair inference is that Clay is disengaging from active Club leadership. Having resigned as Board Chairman last month, he has now missed two consecutive Board meetings without arranging Fifth Area representation. Whether that culminates in his declining to seek re-election in January remains to be seen.

Another interesting phenomenon is Vice President Kirk Frazier, AA1NA, voting “yes”, while holding Dean’s proxy “no” vote. It was good to see Kirk, who will likely be the next President, distinguish between faithfully exercising another man’s proxy and exercising his own judgment.

More broadly, it was encouraging to see a divided Board behave like a governing body rather than a loyalty test. Directors were free to vote yes, no, or abstain. Nobody was required to explain his vote. The majority prevailed, the minority survived, and no emergency workgroup was required to restore civilization.

Constructive disagreement, particularly when open and transparent, is healthy for a mature organization. Lock-step, rubber-stamp groupthink is not.

Entropy may have been averted for a brief moment.

The vote was split, the outcome was fair, and while there was dissent, civilization survived.

The Board showed that disagreement does not have to be dysfunction. Certain members then proceeded to demonstrate how easily disagreement can be converted into melodrama.

Grousing, Moaning, Whining, and Victimhood

While the Fourth Area election was still underway, its Election Monitor became openly defensive when members questioned his interpretation of the procedures and had the temerity to cite the Club’s own rules.

Mutual Admiration Society Supplies Insulation

Before the assignment was even complete, a fellow Director publicly thanked him for his hard work and assured him that “MOST of us” appreciated his service. Another Director chimed in with a “me too”.

The timing was instructive.

Praise was not being offered after successful completion of the job. It arrived while the quality of the work itself was still under dispute.

Thus, appreciation became insulation. The volunteer was reassured before anybody bothered to determine whether the criticism was correct.

In the Mutual Admiration Society, performance reviews may be issued before performance is complete, and forgiveness may precede the offense.

Patience Is a Virtue

Our Election Monitor, Keon Hayes, KE3HAY, whose contributions to organizational science already include the celebrated Keon Mediocrity Theory we described in Absurdist 70, soon expanded the literature.

Responding to criticism that he was not following procedures contained in the Club’s Election Handbook, last published in July 2023, Keon concluded one particularly exasperated paragraph with:

“My patience is getting very thin right now, and trying to appease everyone’s interpretation of antiquated rules is simply not happening.”

Rules, antiquated or otherwise, are not generally known to require appeasement. They have no feelings. Volunteers, apparently, are another matter.

Nevertheless, this was a useful clarification.

Apparently, once a rule becomes inconvenient to the person charged with administering it, it may be reclassified as antiquated.

We believe the technical translation was approximately:

“Please stop reading the instructions while I am operating the machinery.”

After all, the critic was not on the Board, which apparently reduced his observations to background radiation.

One can only admire the efficiency. Why amend rules through established procedures when one can simply grow tired of them?

A Farewell, and a Call to Arms

Then came another contribution to the pre-Eyeball atmosphere.

Joe St. Columbia, N5MIG, former NCS Training Coordinator, had resigned several weeks earlier. Only now, however, did he publish a lengthy farewell explaining why.

Joe had served in the position for more than a decade and, by most accounts, had done a conscientious job. That deserved acknowledgment. The resignation itself was not especially surprising in a period of leadership turnover.

What was more interesting was the delayed editorial.

Rather than merely saying farewell, Joe used the occasion to lament the Club’s internal discord, its declining public image, and what he regarded as deteriorating standards among Net Control Stations. He described being confronted at a major hamfest by members of another Worked All States organization, one of whom reportedly suggested that the 3905 Century Club’s internal hostility had become excellent advertising for competitors.

Ouch.

When rival clubs begin using your governance disputes as promotional material, the optics department may wish to schedule a meeting.

Joe also complained that some NCSs were disregarding established rules to suit personal preferences rather than using the proper process to change them.

On this point, we agree completely.

Guilty As Charged

Indeed, the timing was exquisite. On the preceding day, an Election Monitor complained publicly about being expected to follow “antiquated rules.”

Apparently procedural drift enjoys vertical integration.

Where Joe lost us was in his prescription.

He called for a “kinder and gentler” Club and suggested that disagreements be handled privately and personally rather than in public forums.

That sounds pleasant enough. So does upholstered furniture.

Unfortunately, excessive reliance on private resolution is one of the mechanisms by which accountability disappears. When substantive disagreements migrate behind closed doors, members are left with rumors, sanitized minutes, unexplained decisions, and the occasional farewell letter hinting darkly that something somewhere has gone terribly wrong.

Public disagreement can be ugly. Private governance can be invisible.

The trick, apparently revolutionary in some quarters, is to conduct public disagreement like adults.

The Club cannot simultaneously complain that members do not understand what is happening and then insist that meaningful disagreements should occur where members cannot see them.

Stripping away years of accumulated bad habits will inevitably produce friction. Reform is rarely accompanied by harp music and scented candles. People accustomed to an equilibrium, however dysfunctional, may interpret disruption as deterioration simply because the furniture has begun moving.

Joe’s departure is unfortunate. His years of service remain worthy of respect. We are not alone in recognizing the impact of his resignation.

But an organization cannot repair itself by pretending tranquility is the same thing as health.

Predictable Reactions

The reflector reaction was exactly what one would expect when somebody throws a grievance-shaped object into a room full of amateur radio operators.

Some agreed, some reminisced, some added grievances of their own, some offered philosophical observations, and some apparently discovered that their keyboards possessed a dedicated MOAN key.

One response was actually useful. Rob Gibbs, K8GIB, observed that most members do not see the behind-the-scenes infighting and therefore lack enough information to understand what is really happening. He argued that members should be able to see the issues for themselves rather than depend on competing summaries from opposing camps.

Precisely.

An informed membership is not a governance problem. It is a governance requirement.

Another Perspective, Albeit Muddy

Another response came from Tim Myers, WA8MD, who agreed that members should watch Board meetings and form their own opinions. Sensible enough. But the tone wandered into the familiar territory of generalized exasperation with “what is happening” among this “group of adults (?)”.

This is becoming a recurring rhetorical genre in the Club:

Something is terribly wrong.

What?

You know. Things.

Who caused them?

People.

What specifically should change?

Everybody should behave better.

Passive-aggressive prose saves considerable wear on nouns.

Tim has also decided not to attend the Eyeball, reportedly because of his dissatisfaction with recent events. He expressed that publicly, too. That is certainly his prerogative. But vague withdrawal is not diagnosis, and generalized disappointment is not reform.

Signs of Progress

Leadership turnover was always going to disturb people who had become comfortable with the previous arrangement. A President is leaving. Board relationships are changing. Longstanding assumptions are being questioned. New people are moving into consequential jobs.

That is not necessarily institutional collapse.

Sometimes it is merely the sound made when furniture that has not moved in twenty years is dragged across the floor.

As we have repeatedly argued in these Papers, the Club can do better once leadership becomes less concentrated, new ideas are permitted oxygen, and the familiar handful of volunteers no longer occupy every available chair.

Change is inconvenient. So is stagnation. The difference is that stagnation becomes comfortable enough that eventually people begin defending it.

We expect some grousing, pissing, moaning, wounded dignity, farewell manifestos, and declarations that things were better before everybody started asking questions.

That is fine.

The important thing is that the institution keeps moving.

And on September 10, for at least one evening, it did.

The Board disagreed, the President lost a vote, the Treasurer was confirmed, and nobody was excommunicated. Civilization survived.

Progress, as General Electric once reminded us, is our most important product.

For once, the 3905 Century Club appeared to have some in inventory.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 71: Adult Governance, For a Change appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Nary a peep was heard from the Thundering Horde as the Nittany Lions notched their first win of the season against Marshall. It was a decent win, showcasing an early season team that seemed to be more cohesive and ready than any in recent years.

I know it is early and we played a Sun Belt opponent in what everyone knew was a cupcake tuneup game. But still, it was heartening to see some polished performances at this juncture.

And, as our TV announcers pointed out, it was the first opening shutout by a brand new coach since 1915. Quite a feat, but then again, we haven’t seen all that many new coaches.

We were speculating on whether Campbell would tell the boys to take a knee on the final, meaningless drive when the Lions were inside the ten yard line. The consensus opined that Franklin would have gone for the TD while Paterno would have taken a knee. (No one had any opinions on what Bob Higgins, Rip Engle, or Bill O’Brien would have done). As you know, Campbell took the knee. And all was well with the Sanguinarians and the Paternoites.

The Game, Already

Rocco Becht looked pretty good at QB, and so did his hyphenated opponent, Carlos Del Rio-Wilson. Becht was 13-18 for 271 yards, 4 TDs and no INTs. As for Del Rio-Wilson, the numbers aren’t as impressive (17-25/102 and 0/0) but he is a true dual-threat, adding 30 yards on 13 carries.

We saw the emergence of Koby Howard as a go-to guy. He caught six passes for 161 yards and a TD. Wide receivers Brett Eskildsen and Zay Robinson also scored receiving TDS, as did huge tight end Ben Brahmer.

Although the first half mainly featured the passing game, with a comfortable 24-0 lead, Penn State turned to the run at the half, spreading rushing duties among Carson Hansen, Cam Wallace, Quinton Martin Jr., and James Peoples who contributed to the 163 yard rushing attack. Wallace and Martin had TDs on the ground.

Defensively, D’Anton Lynn’s Nittany Lions held the Herd to just 44 yards rushing and 103 yards passing. The much anticipated return of post-ACL Tony Rojas did not disappoint. Rojas wound up with seven tackles, six of which were solo, including one sack and two tackles-for-loss. Good day for the returning Rojas.

Marshall came to play, and they played hard, but their defense could not contain Penn State’s outside speedsters.

Remember that in recent Franklin years, covering the spread in these cupcake games was never assured. Against Marshall, the Lions easily covered the 23.5-point closing spread. We hope this portends well for the next two easy games, versus Temple and Buffalo.

Frankly, I was amazed at the preparedness of this team, conditioned by Franklin’s teams to seeing a plethora of errors in early outings. Penn State had four penalties all day.

So, it’s on to Temple. I’ll be back toward the end of the week with my usual uninformed commentary on the big game, which favors Penn State by 23.5. (Sound familiar?)

The post The Herd Not Heard appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Greetings, Penn State fans, homeys, Sanguinarians, and haters. The Nittany Turkey is back for another season of thrills, chills, overachieving, underachieving, and everything except Franklin-bashing. Wait—let’s reserve judgment on that last item. Anything south of a 10-2 regular season record will probably be blamed on the actual hokiest Hokie, James Franklin himself, while new Head Coach Matt Campbell enjoys a brief honeymoon before the fans turn on him.

I know. These recent pretenders are all just temporary aberrations until we can figure out how to bring back Joe Paterno, of sainted memory.

Before I proceed, let me express my condolences to Rutgers’ fans, particularly the lady with the Princeton t-shirt whose Hampton Inn raisin toast I ate in 2019. The Scarlet Knights paid the UMass Minutemen something like $1.55 million cupcake cash for a sacrificial slaughter in Piscataway, but wound up losing 37-21. By the time Penn State plays them at home on the day after my 80th birthday, they’re liable to be 0-10.

Anyhow, what do we know about this team? I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I see guys on our sideline wearing cardinal and gold, I won’t adjust my TV. A couple dozen transfers later, we have last year’s Iowa State Cyclones playing in the Big Beave. Only they’re wearing blue and white. Go figure.

I do think their old logo was cool, though. It’s a cardinal with teeth waving a human fist whose ass has been transformed into a tornado. That’s a lot of symbolism rolled into one pictorial presentation.

Back in the 1970s I had a client who played tight end for the Cyclones in the mid-1950s, when they were the Big Eight whipping boys for Nebraska and Oklahoma. He told me some great football stories. I heard that he passed away a few years ago. That was sad news. Cliff was a great guy and a helluva good industrial engineer.

But I digress.

So, while we can’t talk much about this group of Nittany Lions, we can talk about the Cyclonic Whirlybirds’ performance last season. Led by their QB Rocco Becht, the Cyclones cruised to an 8-4 regular season record in the Big 12. Their losses were to Cincinnati, Neon Deion, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and the Sun Devils. Right there, you have heaven, Earth, the Devil, and Cincinnati, which is purgatory.

The season ended in controversy, however. The Cyclones voted to decline a bowl bid, which cost them a $500,000 fine by the conference.

Then, the Big 12 turned around and signed a $20 million deal with Monster Energy Drinks to be distributed among the member institutions. The Cyclones’ take will be about $1 million.

Anyway, Becht threw for 2,584 yards with a completion percentage of 60.5. His TD to INT ratio was 16:9. And, his slow ass was sacked 21 times for 145 yards lost on sackage.

Other than Rocco’s decidedly cardinal and gold stat line, I can turn back to blue and say we welcome back Tony Rojas, who we hope stays healthy and proves to be the decent linebacker he showed signs of being. The Penn State Linebacker U tradition deserves no less.

And welcome back D’Anton Lynn, former Nittany Lion defensive back who is Matt Campbell’s defensive coordinator this year after various NFL jobs and most recently, defensive coordinator at UCLA and then USC.

During the game, Penn State will honor the late Dr. Wayne J. Sebastianelli with a moment of silence. Sebastianelli, the team doctor for almost forty years, passed away in May at the age of 68.

We Are? Who Is? They Is.

Now, let’s take a look at Marshall. What comes to mind when you think of Marshall?

Plane crash.

Yeah, well, that tragedy was 1970. A long time ago. Nevertheless, it still impacts the Huntington community and the University.

What else do you think of?

WE ARE MARSHALL!

Yeah, they hijacked “our thing”. And what else?

Why, Marco the Bison, of course!

He’ll gore your ass if you hang around Huntington drinking Carling’s Black Label for too long and making a dick out of yourself. He leads a thundering horde of angry giant furry cattle who don’t like your ass.

Anything else?

Well, they still play football, in the Sun Belt Conference. Last year, they had a roller coaster season, but this herd ain’t afraid of no one! I’ll prove it to you. Their opener last year was against Georgia in Athens. Although they lost 45-7, it was a nice payday and they left Athens with their heads held high, albeit with the shit beaten out of them.

After a loss to Mizzou State, they beat a couple of directionals, Eastern Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, before losing to Louisiana, 54-51 in two overtimes. Then they beat Old Dominion and Texas State. Two more losses, to Coastal Carolina and James Madison, preceded their final win of the season, over Georgia State. They closed ‘er out losing squeakers to App State and Georgia Southern for a 5-7 overall record.

So, they suck, and it should be an easy victory for Penn State, and an easy payday for the Herd.

Famous Marshall Alumni

Well, there are a few. For brevity, and because I’m tired of typing, I’ll list them instead of writing three paragraphs of bullshit about them. Robert C. Byrd, who was the longest serving U.S. Senator ever; Billy Crystal, who was the longest serving Oscar host ever; Hal Greer, who was one of the best 76ers of all time; and Randy Moss, a pain in the ass who holds the record for NFL receiving touchdowns in a single season.

There.

Da Wedda

Late summer at Beaver Stadium. A laborious Labor Day Weekend. What could be grander? Our hot little weather girl predicts a high of 77 with a nice breeze, partly cloudy and less stickiness than in recent days.

Da Bottom Line

Well, here we have reached what our remaining two readers will recognize as the most ridiculous section of our weekly pre-game blather: The Official Turkey Poop Prognostication. For those new to this column, this is a worthless game prediction no addicted gambler should ever refer to, as we disclaim any and all liability for losing all your damn money on ridiculous sports bets.

First, let me say that I am not predicting the season in advance. That’s too big a crapshoot at this point. Besides, all the sports idiots do it because they think they must. It’s expected. It’s bullshit. No one knows. No one can know. However, we can say that our Nittany Lions have a decidedly soft schedule this year, so they will look better than they actually are. How good that is will be anyone’s guess.

Note also that I use grammatical tense and mood here in my prose. I eschew sportswriter abominations. You know what I mean. If you don’t, you’re illiterate.

That having been said, if Penn State shows up, they win. And what, pray tell, do the gamblers say? The line is Penn State -22.5, with an over/under of 52.5. Very strange. It works out to break-even of roughly Penn State 37, Marshall 15. I don’t know how good or bad Penn State’s defense will be, but I don’t see them giving up more than 13, just on general principles. (See, I TOLD you I am a bullshitter). Meanwhile, if Georgia could spank them for 45 last year with their third team, PSU’s starters can hit them up for 42. So, there you have it. Penn State 42, Marshall 13. Take the over.

I’ll return sometime after the game with a synopsis of the walkover victory (we hope). Meanwhile, Penn State football is back! Enjoy!

The post Marshalling Our Resources appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

“…improvement cannot occur in an organization that treats criticism of mediocre performance as a greater offense than the mediocrity itself.”

This Absurdist Paper proposes that mediocrity is not inevitable unless we continue to concede to it. And while the Club continues to proceed toward that inevitability, we now have a golden opportunity to reverse this dangerous trend. After examining and diagnosing the patient, we will discuss the treatment possibilities that might lie ahead.

As entropy takes firmer hold on the Club, its leadership increasingly engages in behavior that rewards mediocre performance with praise rather than correction. Success in office is judged less by substantive results than by style, collegiality, and the number of feathers left unruffled. Difficult assessments are avoided. Critical judgment becomes socially expensive.

This is the late-stage organizational phenomenon we call entropy masking: the maintenance of an outward appearance of health and stability while important internal systems steadily deteriorate.

No Lack of Material

The Absurdist Papers have repeatedly returned to this entropy theme. Having modeled the series loosely after The Federalist Papers, we set out to write eighty-six installments and wondered whether the 3905 Century Club could possibly provide enough material to support our theory.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending upon one’s perspective, we have now reached Absurdist Paper #70 with a considerable backlog still waiting in the hopper.

Entropy masking has been very good to a lazy journalist. We seldom need to dig for stories. They fall into our lap.

Waking Up to Reality

We recently told a Director that we wished he and his colleagues would stop giving us so much to write about. Yet in this well-aged organizational plumbing system, no sooner is one leak patched than another springs somewhere else.

Eventually leadership must recognize that the problem is no longer a succession of isolated leaks. The plumbing itself requires attention. Otherwise, enough temporary patches will eventually fail at once, and the resulting flood will accomplish the repipe by considerably less elegant means.

The deeper problem is a vicious feedback cycle. Mediocre performance is praised instead of corrected. Avoidable mistakes are excused as the inevitable product of volunteerism. Those who point out deficiencies are criticized for tone, negativity, or insufficient collegiality. Uncomfortable discussions migrate behind closed doors. Appearance gradually becomes more important than diagnosis.

Thus, shortcomings that should generate corrective feedback instead generate reassurance.

Good enough becomes not merely an accommodation to human imperfection but an organizational standard.

That is the subject of Absurdist 70: ‘Good Enough’ is Not Good Enough.

The Theory of Mediocrity

The Theory of Mediocrity rests upon a deceptively simple proposition: Nobody is perfect.

From this unassailable premise, the late-stage organization derives a considerably more questionable conclusion: Therefore, preventable mistakes should not be criticized too harshly.

The final transformation completes the theorem: Because mediocrity is inevitable, expecting better performance is itself unreasonable.

We recently criticized a botched election notification issued by an Election Monitor who also happens to be an Area Director. One of his fellow Directors promptly rose to defend his colleague against what he characterized as an unwarranted “spanking.”

We replied that if an organization cannot confront mediocre performance, it is doomed to mediocrity.

The Election Monitor had required three attempts to get the announcement straightened out. His subsequent explanation created another problem: he said the initial errors resulted from rushing to distribute the announcement as soon as nominations closed.

Unfortunately, the announcement had appeared four hours after the nomination deadline.

When criticism followed, he first said he had not even seen our comments and then proceeded to rebut them. Finally came the philosophical breakthrough that inspired what we shall henceforth call the Keon Hayes Mediocrity Theorem: perfection exists only in heaven, while here on Earth mediocrity is unavoidable.

At least that is where the logic leads if one accepts the argument.

We do not accept it.

Bogus Binary Logic

Human performance is not a binary system possessing only two states, PERFECT and MEDIOCRE.

Between those poles lies a rather substantial operating range called competence.

There is excellent performance, good performance, and satisfactory performance. There are occasional mistakes by otherwise competent people, mistakes acknowledged and corrected. and recurring preventable mistakes. And somewhere considerably farther down the scale lies mediocrity.

Nobody reasonably expects volunteers to operate at the theoretical limit of perfection.

We do, however, expect responsible people to recognize avoidable errors, correct them, learn from them, and attempt to perform better the next time.

That is not perfectionism.

It is improvement.

And improvement cannot occur in an organization that treats criticism of mediocre performance as a greater offense than the mediocrity itself.

But They’re Volunteers!

It is perilous to criticize volunteers in an organization that already struggles to find enough warm bodies to perform necessary work.

Someone doing a barely adequate job might take offense and quit, leaving leadership in a lurch. So everyone walks on eggshells.

Volunteers leave anyway. Uncompensated financially, they grow tired, find other interests, pursue more rewarding opportunities, or simply move on to other roles.

But while volunteerism explains why compensation is absent, it does not require standards to be absent as well.

Nor does it follow that every volunteer performance must be praised merely because someone was willing to perform it.

A non-praiseworthy performance that receives rote congratulations for fear of offending the volunteer or his peers benefits neither the Club nor the people who must later clean up the consequences.

Good Enough?

During the past twelve hours, for example, the Club Secretary posted two incorrect links to the minutes of the August Chair-selection meeting. We have previously criticized his recurring problems with agenda and minutes production and his habit of inserting himself into procedural disputes during Board meetings. Yet he routinely receives assurances that he is doing a wonderful job.

The entropy masker sees recurring mistakes and says, “good enough,” “minor typo,” or “he’s a volunteer.”

An organization interested in improvement says, “Why does this keep happening, and how do we stop it?”

Occasional clerical mistakes are inevitable. Recurring mistakes are information.

Praising the performer while ignoring the pattern suppresses that information.

The Keon Hayes Mediocrity Theorem acquired an important corollary during the Fourth Area election. Asked a routine question about eligible voters and turnout, our Election Monitor explained that he wished to avoid a situation in which “precision becomes more important than the question itself.”

We confess to being old-fashioned.

In elections, we rather thought precision was part of the question.

Whither the Board Goest…

The problem becomes more serious when the same protective instinct is applied not merely to clerical work but to Directors and senior officers.

At that level, entropy masking becomes institutional self-protection.

A Director who speaks too bluntly may be labeled “toxic.” A Chairman who repeatedly mishandles meetings may nevertheless be publicly congratulated for doing a great job. When that Chairman later resigns, even after reportedly being challenged by several Directors over an attempt to schedule the September meeting contrary to the bylaws, his successor thanks him for “all he’s done for the Club in the past and all he’s still doing for the Club.”

There is nothing wrong with courtesy.

“Thank you for your service” is courteous.

“You did a great job” is an evaluation.

Those are not interchangeable.

It Costs Nothing to Be Nice, but…

Civility does not require fabrication of a mythically robust performance record, particularly when many of the people around the table privately understood that the Chairmanship had become a problem.

Yet the Board apparently lacked either the inclination or collective resolve to address that problem directly. The matter was allowed to persist until he himself chose to step down.

Only then could everyone relax, thank him warmly, and proceed without having endured the unpleasant business of formally judging his performance.

That is entropy masking in its purest form.

Avoid the evaluation while the person serves. Praise him when he leaves. Preserve harmony. Learn nothing.

The Mutual Admiration Society

Our late-stage organization increasingly exhibits a management culture of apathy mixed with studied avoidance. Real problems are judged too difficult, too contentious, or too labor-intensive to confront. Yet the steady stream of congratulations and gratitude can leave the casual observer believing that all is well.

We call this the Mutual Admiration Entropy-Masking Society.

Consider the required committee reports that arrive late, deficient, inaccurate, or not at all. When a Director points out the pattern too insistently, he risks being labeled “disruptive.” The Board retreats into private discussion to address the resulting conflict. The dissenting Director becomes the problem, while everyone else congratulates one another for restoring harmony.

But the problem was never the Director who spoke up.

The problem was that too few others did.

The Silence Doctrine

Thus operates what we might call the Silence Doctrine: if nobody complains publicly, the underlying deficiency can be treated as tolerable. Silence becomes evidence of success rather than evidence of avoidance.

That protects the Board from uncomfortable confrontation while protecting weak committee performance from corrective pressure.

Entropy masking at its finest.

Another example involves the recently departed former Board Chairman, who hosted the 2025 Eyeball. The Board requires a final report and accounting from the host. One year later, that report still has not appeared.

Month after month of delay and excuses produced little visible consequence. Clay ran the Eyeball. Apparently, that was “good enough.”

Yet hosting the event was not the entire job. Completing the required reporting was part of it too.

Instead of confronting that unfinished obligation, the organization later bestowed the customary retrospective praise for “all he has done for the Club.”

We asked a Director when he expected to see the missing report.

His answer, in substance: never.

That is the institutional equivalent of saying, “Nothing we can do about it.”

But that is not entirely true.

Leadership can insist that assigned work be completed. It can stop confusing partial performance with satisfactory performance. And it can stop lavishing praise where praise has not been earned.

Again: Mediocrity unchallenged is mediocrity preserved.

Not Even ‘Good Enough’

Clay is still an Area Director. His performance as Chair was, by any reasonable criteria, deficient. He purposefully failed to represent his area for the Chair selection meeting. He repeatedly evades the Board by not delivering a required report. Yet, he is praised for “all he has done for the Club.”

Our intent is not to beat on a guy when he is down. However, he is not an innocent victim. He is capable of doing better, but he chose to operate as he did. It is fair to acknowledge his service and wish him well in future endeavors. Perhaps he will learn from his mistakes if they are not legitimized by specious praise.

The Board’s self-protective culture sets a poor tone for management throughout the organization. When weak performance is insulated from criticism, weak performance becomes normal. Praise ceases to function as meaningful recognition because it is distributed regardless of outcome.

The result is a closed loop:

Poor performance is tolerated.
Criticism is discouraged.
Silence is mistaken for harmony.
Harmony is praised as success.

Thus, the Mutual Admiration Society serves primarily to reassure itself.

The organization receives considerably less benefit.

A Brief Excursion to Utopia

Let us now indulge in fantasy.

With apologies to Sir Thomas More, imagine a mythical 3905 Century Club in which management behaves rationally rather than emotionally, governing documents are regarded as instructions rather than impediments, criticism is treated as information, and disagreement does not automatically qualify someone for exile.

Preposterous, certainly.

But stay with us.

The timing for such foolish optimism is unusually favorable.

A New Day Is Coming

The Club has a new Chairman of the Board. The Fourth Area is electing a new Director. Odd-numbered Area Director elections are approaching, creating the possibility of additional changes around the Board table. And, barring another plot twist from the authors of our continuing serial, the Club may soon receive what we have mischievously described as a presidential upgrade.

Taken together, these changes represent something more important than a routine turnover of names and call signs.

They represent an opportunity to change the governing culture.

In our mythical Club, institutional courage would replace institutional avoidance, and as well:

• A Director who discovers a problem would be expected to raise it, not calculate first whether doing so might hurt somebody’s feelings.
• A Chairman confronted with a clear provision of the bylaws would enforce it, even when enforcement inconvenienced friends, officers, or the majority.
• A President would regard an independent Board not as an obstacle to administration but as the mechanism through which legitimate authority is exercised.
• Committee members would regard criticism as part of oversight rather than evidence that the critic was insufficiently collegial.
• Minutes would record meaningful disagreement rather than sanitizing it into institutional oatmeal.
• Private communications would be reserved for matters genuinely requiring privacy, not merely matters leadership would prefer members not hear discussed.
• And “he’s a volunteer” would explain why someone receives no paycheck. It would not excuse work that repeatedly fails to meet reasonable standards.

Mutual respect would survive too.

Respect Does Not Equal Agreement

Real mutual respect does not require universal agreement, perpetual congratulations, or ritualized praise. It requires something considerably harder: accepting that intelligent people acting in good faith may reach different conclusions.

A Director could say, “I think you’re wrong,” without declaring the other Director disloyal, disruptive, toxic, negative, or insufficiently supportive of the Club.

A minority vote would not be regarded as an act of rebellion.

A dissenting idea would be evaluated on its merits rather than on whether it originated inside the familiar circle.

And perhaps most revolutionary of all, leadership could occasionally respond to criticism with:

“You’re right. We’ll fix it.”

Civilization would presumably continue.

Inertia vs. Progress

Such a Club would also distinguish institutional memory from institutional inertia.

Experience matters. Tradition matters. The accumulated knowledge of longtime members matters enormously.

But “we have always done it this way” is not institutional knowledge. It is merely historical information.

New Directors should be encouraged to ask why established practices exist, whether they still serve their intended purpose, and whether changing circumstances require something better.

Old ideas should survive because they remain good ideas, not because they have achieved tenure.

Organizational entropy cannot be reversed merely by replacing officeholders. New names can reproduce old habits with depressing efficiency.

Reversal begins when the feedback mechanisms start working again.

Problems are identified rather than hidden. Poor performance is corrected rather than praised. Governing rules constrain authority. Dissent carries information back into the system. New volunteers are recruited instead of the same few people collecting additional hats. Responsibilities are delegated to the appropriate level instead of Directors spending scarce attention on matters better handled elsewhere.

In other words, the organization stops spending energy maintaining the appearance of equilibrium and starts using that energy to restore it.

Can It Happen?

We are not naive enough to expect Utopia.

The incoming Chairman will make mistakes. The next Fourth Area Director will make mistakes. New Directors will disappoint us periodically, and any future President will discover that possessing authority is considerably easier than exercising it wisely.

Good.

Perfection was never the standard.

Improvement is.

The coming leadership transition offers the Club an unusual opportunity to demonstrate that it has learned the difference.

Institutional courage would be a good place to start.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 70: ‘Good Enough’ Is Not Good Enough appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Or, Much Ado About One Pain in the Ass

A wholly fictitious Shakespearean tragedy in three acts, assembled from several incompatible plays because consistency would be an alarming departure from established Club practice.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

BEN, VOX INCOMMODA
Former Awards Secretary, recovering Bylaws Committee member, asker of questions best left unasked.

LADY JENNY
His considerably more sensible wife, who suspects that amateur radio governance is an inadequate reason to get killed in North Dakota.

DEAN, THE DEPARTING PRINCE
Outgoing sovereign of uncertain departure velocity, whose influence lingereth after the scheduled expiration thereof.

DEACON DOUG
Secretary, ecclesiastical authority, parliamentarian when convenient, and interpreter of Scripture according to local conditions.

KIRK, KEEPER OF THE ANIMALS AND THE CLOCKS
A master of many beasts to whom UTC is an attractive theory.

KEON, HERALD OF MIDNIGHT PROCLAMATIONS
Issuer of decrees, corrections to decrees, and explanatory decrees concerning previous decrees.

GENE, CRITIC OF DELIVERY
Who knoweth suckage when he heareth it.

CRAIG, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
Keeper of the Gavel and defender of whatever the agenda presently says.

SIR BUDDY SPIEGEL, CALLED FALSTAFF
A merry knight of expansive presence and still more expansive confidence, companion to power, dispenser of unsolicited wisdom, and steadfast survivor of every regime.

THREE FLORIDA WITCHES
Who have read the bylaws and therefore no longer fear damnation.

THE BOARD
Eleven Area Directors, two officers who vote exactly as though they were Area Directors, various proxies, assistants, innocent bystanders, and several people who thought they were merely attending an amateur-radio gathering.

THE GHOST OF DWIGHT
Who, having escaped mortal governance, wisely declines to participate.

A HAMPTON INN COFFEE URN
Silent, metallic, and possessed of sounder judgment than nearly everyone else.

ACT I

The Florida Prophecy

Scene I

A steamy Florida swamp.

Night.

Spanish moss hangs from cypress trees. Mosquitoes the size of Cessna 172s circle overhead. An alligator watches from the black water and, having considered the proceedings, decides against involvement.

Thunder.

Enter THREE WITCHES.

ALL THREE WITCHES:
Chanting.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

THIRD WITCH:
We already used that one on Macbeth.
Now we shall summon the spirits to foresee the fate of a lesser tyrant.

FIRST WITCH:
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or Board Zoom?

SECOND WITCH:
When the hurly-burly’s done.

THIRD WITCH:
So sometime in 2029.

FIRST WITCH:
Where the place?

SECOND WITCH:
Upon the heath!

THIRD WITCH:
This is Florida. We have no heath.

SECOND WITCH:
Then behind the Publix where goeth the feral cats.

FIRST WITCH:
There to meet with Lady Jenny.

Enter LADY JENNY carrying a cat trap, a flashlight and a can of bug spray.

JENNY:
Which one of you spastic weirdos left a note upon my windshield saying, “Beware the Ides of September”?

ALL THREE WITCHES:
We did.

JENNY:
That narrows it down tremendously.

FIRST WITCH:
Hail, Lady Jenny!

SECOND WITCH:
Hail, wife to Vox Incommoda!

THIRD WITCH:
Hail, she who hath better things to do than attend Board meetings!

JENNY:
Finally, a prophecy I can believe. You people talk funny. Get on with it.

Thunder.

FIRST WITCH:
Mark us well. When September hath reached its ides…

JENNY:
September doesn’t have ides.

SECOND WITCH:
Every month hath an Ides.

JENNY:
Fine. Whatever. Continue.

THIRD WITCH:
When Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane…

JENNY:
In North Dakota?

FIRST WITCH:
Symbolically.

SECOND WITCH:
Probably landscaping.

THIRD WITCH:
And when the winter of our discontent is made glorious summer by this bare bodkin…

She produces a plastic Hampton Inn breakfast knife.

JENNY:
That’s from at least three different plays. Even I know that.

The witches confer.

FIRST WITCH:
Is it?

SECOND WITCH:
Damn.

THIRD WITCH:
We had an AI summarize them.

JENNY:
Figures. Continue, Siri, Alexa, and … who’s #3?

THIRD WITCH:
Shaneequa.

FIRST WITCH:
Nevertheless, beware!

SECOND WITCH:
For Vox Incommoda shall travel north.

THIRD WITCH:
Beyond Fargo.

JENNY:
Nobody goes beyond Fargo voluntarily.

FIRST WITCH:
He shall.

SECOND WITCH:
And there, upon the Ides of September…

THIRD WITCH:
…immediately following luncheon…

FIRST WITCH:
…and a eulogy…

SECOND WITCH:
…but not before pie…

ALL THREE:
HE SHALL FALL!

Thunder crashes.

JENNY:
Killed?

FIRST WITCH:
Possibly.

SECOND WITCH:
Censured?

THIRD WITCH:
Maybe.

FIRST WITCH:
The paperwork remains unclear.

JENNY:
Can I prevent it?

SECOND WITCH:
Aye.

JENNY:
How?

THIRD WITCH:
Keep him home.

JENNY stares at them.

JENNY:
You don’t know Ben.

ALL THREE WITCHES:
Fair point.

From offstage comes BEN’S voice.

BEN:
Jenny! Have you seen my Eyeball packing list?

JENNY:
No!

BEN:
How about the Tarheel antenna?

JENNY:
No!

BEN:
My copy of the bylaws?

JENNY:
Unfortunately, yes.

The witches recoil.

FIRST WITCH:
He carries them with him?

JENNY:
Everywhere.

SECOND WITCH:
Then fate is sealed.

THIRD WITCH:
Poor bastards.

JENNY:
Which poor bastards?

THIRD WITCH:
We haven’t decided.

The witches vanish into the mist.

JENNY:
Ben!

BEN, OFFSTAGE:
What?

JENNY:
Apparently you’re going to be assassinated in Grand Forks.

Pause.

BEN:
Before or after the eulogy?

JENNY:
After.

BEN:
Good. I’d hate to inconvenience Dwight.

BLACKOUT.

ACT II

The Hampton Inn Conspiracy

Scene I

The breakfast nook of the Hampton Inn & Suites, Grand Forks, North Dakota.

The hour is 0500Z.

Several shadowy figures gather around a table littered with Styrofoam cups, powdered eggs, artificial sausage, and an agenda marked CONFIDENTIAL despite having been left beside the waffle maker.

Enter DEACON DOUG.

DEACON DOUG:
Brethren, the hour approacheth.

KIRK:
Nay. By my reckoning, ’tis but one in the morning.

DEACON DOUG:
That is because thou hast calculated in Eastern Daylight Time.

KIRK:
But are we not east?

KEON:
Of Montana.

KIRK:
Then Eastern it is.

DEACON DOUG:
God help us.

Enter DEAN, although his reign approacheth its supposed conclusion.

DEAN:
What news of Vox Incommoda?

KEON:
He liveth.

DEAN:
Most inconvenient.

GENE:
And worse.

DEAN:
Speak, knave.

GENE:
He writeth.

All gasp.

DEACON DOUG:
Then righteous action is demanded. For did not Matthew write, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there shall also be a quorum”?

KIRK:
Matthew who?

DEACON DOUG:
The Apostle.

KIRK:
What was his call sign?

DEACON DOUG:
Silence.

Enter SIR BUDDY SPIEGEL, CALLED FALSTAFF, carrying three breakfast plates.

BUDDY:
Good morrow, gentlemen! What conspiracy hath assembled before the gravy congealeth?

DEAN:
Buddy, this concerns Ben.

BUDDY:
Say no more.

He sits.

BUDDY:
What hath he done?

DEAN:
Nothing yet.

BUDDY:
The villain.

DEAN:
We seek counsel.

BUDDY:
Then thou hast summoned the proper knight.

DEACON DOUG:
We contemplate his removal.

BUDDY:
From what office?

DEAN:
None.

BUDDY:
Excellent. Thus no vacancy need be filled.

KEON:
Perhaps we could revoke him.

BUDDY:
Revoke what?

KEON:
We’ll determine that afterward.

BUDDY:
Sound governance.

He attacks a waffle.

DEAN:
The deed must occur after Dwight’s eulogy.

BUDDY:
Naturally.

GENE:
And luncheon.

BUDDY:
Naturally.

DEACON DOUG:
And pie.

BUDDY freezes.

BUDDY:
How long after pie?

DEAN:
Immediately.

BUDDY:
Then I object.

DEAN:
On what grounds?

BUDDY:
There may be seconds.

CRAIG:
Point well taken.

BUDDY:
I have always maintained that discretion is the better part of valor, especially when dessert remains unsecured.

DEACON DOUG:
Falstaff said that.

BUDDY:
A wise man, forsooth.

DEACON DOUG:
You’re Falstaff.

BUDDY:
Then wiser still.

The conspirators lean inward.

DEAN:
Here is the plan. Once Vox Incommoda concludes the eulogy and the diplomatic immunity of bereavement expires, Keon shall strike first.

KEON:
With what weapon?

DEAN:
A proclamation.

KEON:
Binding?

DEAN:
Certainly not.

KEON:
Excellent.

GENE:
Then I shall follow.

DEAN:
With steel?

GENE:
Worse.

He shakes his head.

GENE:
Criticism.

The others shudder.

BUDDY:
And what role hath Falstaff?

DEAN:
Stand ready.

BUDDY:
For battle?

DEAN:
No.

BUDDY:
Good.

DEAN:
We may need someone afterward to explain how the entire thing was Ben’s fault.

BUDDY:
At last, a task suited to my gifts.

The HOTEL COFFEE URN makes a wet, dying noise.

DEACON DOUG:
An omen!

KIRK:
What sayeth it?

BUDDY:
It sayeth the coffee is terrible.

DEAN:
Then all is agreed.

CRAIG:
Was there a motion?

Silence.

DEAN:
Craig…

CRAIG:
Just checking.

DEACON DOUG:
Tomorrow, after luncheon, Vox Incommoda shall be no more.

BUDDY:
Provided the pie hath been served.

ALL:
Provided the pie hath been served.

They raise coffee cups solemnly.

BUDDY:
Now, gentlemen, if treason be concluded, someone hath left half a Danish unattended.

EXEUNT, pursuing pastry.

ACT III

The Fall and Rise of Vox Incommoda

Scene I

The fellowship hall.

Saturday afternoon.

Folding chairs stand in orderly rows. Half-eaten plates remain on tables. A crockpot hath entered the dangerous period between luncheon and food poisoning.

BEN stands at the lectern.

BEN:
And so we remember Dwight not merely for the contacts he made, nor certificates accumulated, but for the friendships he formed and the lives he touched.

Silence.

BEN:
Thank you.

Applause.

BEN steps away.

Several BOARD MEMBERS rise simultaneously.

BEN:
Well, that’s ominous.

KEON:
Ben!

BEN:
Keon.

KEON:
By authority vested in me through an email distributed at an hour when responsible men sleep…

He produces a sheet of paper.

KEON:
…I hereby proclaim…

BEN:
Is it binding?

KEON:
No.

BEN:
Then have at thee!

KEON strikes.

BEN:
Treachery! Slain by a non-binding proclamation!

GENE advances.

GENE:
Ben.

BEN:
Oy, vey. Not you too.

GENE:
I must speak truth.

BEN:
Speak, then.

GENE shakes his head gravely.

GENE:
Thy delivery…

Pause.

GENE:
It sucketh.

BEN:
Villain!

BEN staggers.

DEACON DOUG steps forward.

BEN:
Et tu, Deacon Doug?

DEACON DOUG:
Nothing personal.

BEN:
Then fall, Vox Incommoda!

BEN begins to collapse, then suddenly straightens.

BEN:
WAIT!

Everyone freezes.

BEN:
Point of Order!

CRAIG:
Ben…

BEN:
Mr. Chairman, I question whether the body possesses a quorum sufficient to execute a former Awards Secretary.

CRAIG:
For God’s sake.

BEN:
I believe the customary ruling is, “Point well taken.”

KIRK:
What time did the execution officially begin?

BEN:
UTC, Kirk.

KIRK:
Damn.

BEN clutches his chest.

He commences a death scene so extravagantly overacted that, thousands of miles away, Al Pacino awakens suddenly and wonders whether he hath been too restrained.

BEN:
Friends… amateurs… net controls…

Lend me your ears.

I came not to bury governance, for governance hath apparently come to bury me.

Was I ambitious?

I sought no crown.

Was I treacherous?

I carried merely questions.

Was I disruptive?

Only unto those who preferred answers unexamined.

Tell my brethren of the Fourth Area that I died as I lived:

asking where in the bylaws it actually says that.

Several conspirators recoil.

BUDDY, FROM THE REAR:
Must this take long?

BEN:
Buddy?

BUDDY emerges carrying pie.

BEN:
Wilt thou not strike me too?

BUDDY:
Nay.

BEN:
Friendship?

BUDDY:
Indigestion.

BEN:
Then there remaineth honor in thee.

BUDDY:
Let’s not get carried away.

BEN turns back toward the assembly.

BEN:
Remember me…

He sways.

BEN:
Remember my words…

He grips the folding table.

BEN:
Remember…

Long pause.

BEN:
…to get the friggin’ minutes right.

He crashes magnificently across the table.

Paper plates fly.

Iced tea overturns.

A microphone squeals.

Someone catches the pie.

Dead silence.

CRAIG:
Is there any unfinished business?

Scene II

The Permanent Record

Twenty minutes later.

BEN’S BODY remains draped across the folding table.

CRAIG pounds the gavel.

CRAIG:
Order! Order!

BOARD MEMBER:
Should somebody move Ben?

CRAIG:
Was that on the agenda?

BOARD MEMBER:
No.

CRAIG:
Then no.

DEACON DOUG sits before his laptop composing minutes.

DEACON DOUG:
How shall we describe the incident?

CRAIG:
Objectively.

DEACON DOUG:
“At 1847Z, several directors assassinated AE4NT following his memorial remarks.”

CRAIG:
Inflammatory.

DEACON DOUG:
“AE4NT experienced an adverse governance outcome.”

CRAIG:
Better.

BUDDY:
Too specific.

DEACON DOUG:
“Following luncheon, the membership participated in a brief procedural transition.”

CRAIG:
Much better.

KEON:
What about the stabbing?

CRAIG:
Discussion item.

GENE:
What about his final speech?

DEACON DOUG:
Detailed summary?

Everyone looks at him.

DEACON DOUG:
Right. Never mind.

BUDDY:
Write that he left voluntarily.

CRAIG:
Buddy, he’s dead.

BUDDY:
Did anyone compel him to fall onto the table?

Silence.

BUDDY:
There you are.

DEACON DOUG:
“AE4NT voluntarily departed the proceedings.”

CRAIG:
Excellent.

BOARD MEMBER:
Shouldn’t we mention the body?

CRAIG:
Was there a motion concerning the body?

BOARD MEMBER:
No.

CRAIG:
Then officially there is no body.

BUDDY:
Besides, institutional memory is overrated.

The lights dim.

A strange wind sweeps across the North Dakota prairie.

BEN’S GHOST slowly rises from the folding table.

GHOST OF BEN:
O cursed spite!

O governance most foul!

O minutes bleached whiter than Hampton Inn bedsheets!

DEACON DOUG:
Did anybody hear something?

BUDDY:
Probably HVAC.

The Ghost ascends higher.

GHOST OF BEN:
When Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane…

KIRK:
Where’s Dunsinane?

GHOST OF BEN:
Shut up, Kirk.

Night falls.

The 75-meter band crackles alive.

A net control station calls into the darkness.

NET CONTROL:
Any further check-ins?

Static.

Then, faintly:

GHOST OF BEN:
Contact!
AE4NT.

NET CONTROL:
Ben?

GHOST OF BEN:
Aye. Portable Purgatory, forsooth.

NET CONTROL:
Thought thou wert dead.

GHOST OF BEN:
Only provisionally.

NET CONTROL:
State thy business.

Long pause.

GHOST OF BEN:
I have…

…a bylaws question.

Every receiver from Florida to Manitoba suddenly goes silent.

At precisely that moment, upon the 3905ChatGp reflector, there appeareth a new message from an account nobody remembers approving.

Its subject:

ONE MINOR PROCEDURAL OBSERVATION

Screams echo across the continent.

Back in Florida, LADY JENNY looks up from her phone.

JENNY:
He’s posting again.

The THREE WITCHES emerge from the swamp.

FIRST WITCH:
Thus prophecy is fulfilled.

SECOND WITCH:
But he liveth?

JENNY:
Apparently.

THIRD WITCH:
Then what exactly was the point of all this?

JENNY:
You’ve obviously never attended a 3905 Board meeting.

Far away, BUDDY raises the final piece of pie.

BUDDY:
The better part of valor is discretion.

He eats it.

GHOST OF BEN, DISTANTLY:
That’s not how you use that quotation!

BUDDY:
Close enough.

Curtain falls.

GHOST OF BEN:
The rest is silence.

Pause.

GHOST OF BEN:
Subject to correction when the minutes are approved.

EXEUNT OMNES

The post Absurdist Paper 69 appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

We hope this special election portends a reversal of stagnation as the 3905 Century Club approaches its 50th anniversary.

Before considering the candidates and their respective governance philosophies, however, our funny bone was once again tickled by procedural approximation and management ineptitude.

Election Monitors Needed

Recall that before the Club could conduct this election, at least two election monitors were required, but only one remained on the roster.

That was Vice President Kirk Frazier, AA1NA, already carrying several important Club responsibilities while widely expected to succeed Dean Davis, KL7OR, as President.

Although several members expressed interest in helping, Dean selected sitting Third Area Director Keon Hayes, KE3HAY, as the second election monitor and declined suggestions that additional monitors be appointed to spread the workload and provide redundancy.

Thus, much of the visible administrative burden of the special election fell to Keon.

What could possibly go wrong?

Announcing the Nominees

As the nomination period wound down, the Club website indicated that nominations had closed. Apparently, two candidates would compete for the directorship.

We chose not to await the formal announcement from the election monitors.

That proved wise.

Before discussing candidate questionnaires, election forums, comparative responses, or any other adult machinery intended to help members cast an informed vote, we should pause at the threshold and admire the Club’s current election-administration baseline.

Four hours after nominations closed, an official notice appeared on 3905ChatGp announcing the candidates as:

[Insert candidate names and call signs]

Apparently, the candidates had not yet survived the template.

A correction followed eighteen minutes later on the Dean-designated official reflector. This one contained actual candidates, although Dave Yarbrough’s name was misspelled.

The third attempt finally got everything right: Ken Simmons, K9TPT, and David Yarbrough, AI4K.

Progress!

The Gang That Couldn’t Tell Time

The timing provided its own little exhibit.

The bylaws use Universal Time. Nominations closed at 23:59:59 UTC, which was 7:59:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time. The first announcement appeared at midnight Eastern, almost exactly four hours later.

That four-hour delay just happens to equal the UTC-to-EDT offset.

Keon’s subsequent apology explained that he had tried to distribute the notice “as soon as the nomination period was over.” If so, the evidence rather strongly suggests that the election monitor treated 23:59:59 UTC as though it meant midnight Eastern.

This came not long after Dean opened the August 27 Chair-selection meeting by announcing an incorrect Universal Time for that proceeding as well.

One UTC mistake is human. Two UTC mistakes in successive Board proceedings begin to look like a training requirement.

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight has apparently expanded into timekeeping.

This concludes the comedic portion of Absurdist 68. Now let us get serious.

Refining the Election Process

Several years ago while our alter ego, AE4NT, served as Fourth Area Director, he proposed that candidates in Club elections be given a common set of standardized questions. Their responses would be published on the Club website alongside their candidate statements, with both linked directly from the ballot page for convenient reference by voting members.

Responses would be optional. If a candidate chose not to respond by the deadline, the page would simply say so.

The proposal went nowhere.

Perhaps it was too ambitious. It might have required a couple of hours of work each year for overworked election monitors.

As demonstrated above, election administrators already appear dangerously overtaxed by such demands as substituting candidate names for template placeholders and converting Universal Time.

So the Club continued doing what it had always done: publishing candidate statements.

There is nothing wrong with candidate statements. They are useful.

But candidate statements tell us who people say they are. Standardized questions give us some idea how they might actually govern.

For years, the Club has fretted about member participation while treating elections largely as exercises in name recognition and personal biography. Perhaps one way to encourage informed participation would be to provide members with something worth thinking about.

Thus, we revived the old AE4NT proposal in the microcosm of the Fourth Area special election.

Both candidates were asked the same five governance questions, and their answers were reproduced exactly as submitted.

The exercise required no consultants, no software project, no strategic plan, and no special workgroup.

It consumed perhaps a couple of hours.

We realize this places it dangerously close to the outer limits of what Club governance presently considers administratively feasible.

Five Questions for the Candidates

We asked each Fourth Area Director candidate to respond to five detailed questions about how they would govern.

Both candidates replied promptly.

Questions and responses appear below. The two candidates, Ken Simmons, K9TPT, and Dave Yarbrough, AI4K, are identified by their call signs.

1. Bylaws and Board Independence

If you believed that the President or most of the Board wanted to take an action that conflicted with the bylaws, what would you do? Would you vote against the action even if doing so placed you in a small minority or created friction with other directors? If you believed the governing documents needed to be changed, how would you approach that?

AI4K:

I would oppose any motion that conflicts with the Club’s governing documents. The COB has a responsibility to ensure that any motion affecting the bylaws is reviewed by the Bylaws Committee before it is placed on the agenda, and I fully support that requirement.

I would oppose any attempt to bypass or shortcut this process. If a change to the bylaws is needed, the governing documents provide the proper procedure to follow. I do not support “emergency” or one-off amendments that circumvent the established process. The integrity of the bylaws depends on consistent, orderly, and transparent review.

K9TPT: 

If the desired action conflicts with the bylaws, I would strongly state my opposition to the proposed action and engage in direct conversation explaining why the idea conflicts with the bylaws and what any other suggestion might be. If the action continues after pointing out that it violates the bylaws, I would vote against the action. Being in a small minority and having friction with other board members is not pertinent to the decision. I am not seeking this role to become a member of the good old boy club or to have a title beside my name. I want to see improvements to the club, its procedures, membership inclusion, and club growth, all while following the rules and keeping it fun for everyone.

If I believed the governing documents need change, I would first reach out to the membership and explain my position and ask the membership to provide their concerns or suggestions.

After receiving feedback from the membership and re-examining the situation, I would then bring the feedback to the appropriate committee for their review, thoughts, and recommendation. After the investigation by the proper committee, I would bring the matter to the board for consideration.

2. Representing the Fourth Area

How would you determine the views and concerns of Fourth Area members, and how would you ensure that those views were heard by the Board? If the wishes of your constituents differed from your personal position on an issue, how would you handle that conflict?

K9TPT: 

There are several ways to solicit and receive the 4th Area members’ views and concerns.

First and foremost would be to make myself available to the membership. Assure them that this is their club and that their views and concerns are important and will be brought to the attention of the proper people. I would keep the membership updated and assure them that their suggestions do not fall on deaf ears.

If my personal position is in conflict with the membership, I would strive to have meaningful conversation about the matter and see if there is a way that our opinions might be changed to come into alignment with each other. In the end, I would base my position on the benefit of the greater good to the club and membership. This position is not a dictatorship. All matters must be handled in a way that promotes the club and its membership. Not all issues will be solved in a way that aligns with my position, but the membership must have an honest liaison between them and the club leadership.

AI4K: 

I believe effective representation begins with consistent communication. I would use the Fourth Area reflector regularly to share information, listen to concerns, and solicit input from members. Email and phone calls are always welcome, and I encourage members to reach out whenever they have questions or perspectives to offer.

When a motion is proposed, I would communicate my position openly and invite feedback from the membership. Their views are an important part of the decision-making process. Ultimately, my decisions would be guided by the bylaws, the input I receive from members, and my own judgment, with the goal of representing the Fourth Area fairly and responsibly.

3. Appointments, Master’s Degrees, and Independent Judgment

When the Board is asked to approve an officer, volunteer, or other appointment, what factors should directors consider beyond the fact that someone has volunteered or meets the minimum qualifications?

Similarly, a candidate for the Club’s Master’s Degree may satisfy the objective awards prerequisites, but Board approval also requires consideration of such subjective qualifications as participation, dedication, service, courtesy, and conduct.

Under what circumstances would you vote against either an appointment proposed by the President or a Master’s Degree candidate who had satisfied the mechanical prerequisites, but whose conduct or service record gave you significant concerns?

AI4K: 

When considering appointments to Club offices, it’s important to evaluate both the candidate’s qualifications and their capacity to serve effectively. Objective experience matters, but so does the broader context of their involvement and availability. I would ask myself:

• What positions does the individual currently hold, or have they held in the past
• Whether they are already overextended in other roles
• Whether they have the time and commitment needed to fulfill the responsibilities of the office
• Whether their actions demonstrate support for the Club and its members
• Whether their conduct reflects positively on the organization 

If an appointment proposed by the President raised significant concerns about a candidate’s conduct, service record, or ability to fulfill the role, I would not hesitate to vote against it. Independent judgment is essential to ensuring that appointments serve the best interests of the Club.

The Master’s Degree has objective award prerequisites, but approval also requires evaluating subjective qualities that reflect a member’s overall contribution to the Club. Meeting the mechanical requirements alone is not sufficient.

Members’ levels of involvement naturally vary depending on their life circumstances, and that context should be considered. A member who primarily participates in nets may be contributing as much as they are able, and their consistent participation may represent meaningful service even if they are not active in other areas. The goal is to evaluate each candidate fairly, based on both their achievements and the ways they support the Club within their personal capacity.

In reviewing a candidate, I would consider:

• Are they generally helpful and supportive of other members
• Do they QSL their contacts so others can pursue the awards they are working toward
• Do they participate constructively in nets and Club activities
• Do they demonstrate courtesy, cooperation, and respect in their interactions
• Does their conduct align with the spirit and values of the Club

If a candidate satisfied the award prerequisites but their behavior or service record raised serious concerns, I would vote against approval. The Master’s Degree should recognize not only achievement, but also character, service, and positive contribution to the Club community.

K9TPT: 

All approvals and appointments must be made in a manner that is beneficial to the club and its membership. If an appointment has to be made with only one option, we must look at what we can do to get more members excited to help and become involved in the club’s operations.

If only one person volunteers for a position and has the minimum qualifications, I feel it is important to consider if this person will be an asset or detrimental to the club.

I think another thing to consider is what can I do as a director, or what the leadership can do, to help encourage this person to not just fill a position but to truly excel and succeed.

If a candidate’s conduct or service record gave me significant concerns, I would have to decide if this is really a club concern or a personal concern. I realize not all decisions will be what I personally desire. After careful consideration of my concerns and the membership’s concerns, if I truly believe this candidate would be harmful to the club, I would have to vote no.

4. Transparency and Board Conduct

What information concerning Board discussions and Club business do you believe should routinely be available to members? If you believed that the Board was conducting substantive Club business privately, inadequately documenting discussions in the minutes, or otherwise avoiding meaningful member scrutiny, what action would you take as an Area Director?

K9TPT: 

I believe that all information regarding board discussions and business not only should be shared with the membership. It must reflect the membership’s opinions, desires, and concerns.

The one exception to making information readily available to the membership would be any information that is of a disciplinary matter or that would release personal information regarding a specific member. The final outcome of this action should be released to the membership, but not specific personal details when possible.

As an Area Director, if I believed that the Board was conducting substantive Club business privately, inadequately documenting discussions in the minutes, or otherwise avoiding meaningful member scrutiny, I would remind the offending parties that this was unacceptable and make sure that this activity is brought out and handled in a public board meeting. I would do everything I can to make sure that all of the club’s business is, in fact, the club’s business and not just the business of a few select individuals that are trying to conduct business to their personal benefit and not the benefit of the club.

AI4K: 

Transparency is essential to maintaining trust between the Board and the membership. The Board is accountable to the members, and its work should be conducted openly. As a matter of principle, I do not support closed-door Board meetings. In rare situations involving sensitive matters—such as member censure or revocation—the question of privacy may arise. Even then, private deliberations can create understandable concerns about fairness. In those cases, the Board should evaluate the situation collectively and determine whether privacy is truly necessary, ensuring that any decision aligns with the Club’s values and governing documents.

Board meetings should remain open for members to observe, and I believe that practice must continue. If I ever believed the Board was not being transparent or was withholding information that should be shared, I would raise the concern immediately and insist that the governing documents be followed. If the issue persisted, I would communicate openly with Fourth Area members so they are properly informed and aware of the situation.

5. Reform and the Club’s Future

The Club has a shrinking volunteer pool and repeatedly relies upon many of the same people for leadership and volunteer positions. What specifically would you do as Fourth Area Director to recruit and develop new volunteers and future leaders, particularly people who might bring different ideas, question established practices, or otherwise challenge the status quo?

AI4K:

 I believe the future strength of the Club depends on engaging members, recognizing their abilities, and encouraging them to take part in its work. I would actively talk with Fourth Area members to learn about their backgrounds, interests, and strengths. When someone expresses interest in volunteering, I would help identify roles where they can contribute meaningfully. The President also plays an important part in this process and should remain open to appointing new people to committees and offices so that fresh perspectives and talent can be brought into the organization.

I would also encourage new stations to complete Net Control Station training. NCS operators are essential to the Club’s operations — without them, there would be no nets, and the Club could not fulfill its purpose. Supporting and developing new NCS volunteers is a key part of ensuring the Club’s long-term health and continuity.

K9TPT:

Looking forward:

Membership engagement and participation has to be a priority.

I would like to see a president that openly works with the board and a board that works with the president.

A chairman of the board that has the knowledge and actually handles the requirements of that position in a respectful but efficient manner.

Club leadership that openly and honestly conducts the club’s business while being truly transparent, keeping the membership informed and engaged in the club.

See the club run by the constitution and bylaws that are in place for that purpose.

If the bylaws or other procedures need to be modified, then modify them for the good of the club in a timely manner and actually implement them.

Stop the nonsense currently going on and get back to an organized, well-managed, and fun club for everybody.

I envision a day where all nets have better band conditions, more white lines than regular check-ins, an abundance of DX, and everyone involved is having fun.

The Fourth Area Decides

Two good men. Two approaches to governance.

The Fourth Area now faces the sort of choice we hope will become commonplace in future Club elections.

As we have noted throughout these Absurdist Papers, too many Club elections have become perfunctory exercises in satisfying governing-document requirements while affirming an uncontested candidate. Others amount largely to popularity contests in which substance takes a back seat to familiarity and visibility.

Not this time.

Here we have a genuine election between two credible candidates who have told the membership something substantive about how they would govern.

As a proud Fourth Area member, Vox Incommoda regards that as progress.

A Modest Proposal

Although the candidates are the principal focus of Absurdist 68, the process that brought their views before you is also worth considering.

A mature organization should be able to conduct elections routinely, accurately, and with enough substantive information to permit members to make informed choices. It should not need to reinvent the process each time a vacancy occurs, nor should fielding two credible candidates seem like an extraordinary achievement.

Yet the Club’s shrinking volunteer pool and recurring reliance upon familiar names are part of the organizational entropy we have examined throughout this series. Elections cannot reverse that condition by themselves, but they can either reinforce it or help counteract it.

The Fourth Area experiment required very little. Five identical questions were sent to both candidates. Both responded. Their answers were reproduced without editing. Members now know considerably more about how Ken Simmons and Dave Yarbrough might govern than candidate biographies alone could have told them.

Therein lies our modest proposal.

Give candidates a common set of substantive questions. Publish their answers alongside their personal statements. Link both directly to the ballot. Let the members compare.

This is neither revolutionary nor administratively difficult. It is merely useful.

We believe the standardized-question proposal deserves serious consideration by the Board. Thus, we would be delighted if one of our Directors, perhaps even the newly elected Fourth Area Director, picked up the ball and ran with it.

We won’t even demand attribution.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 68: Two Good Men for the Fourth Area appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Fortunately, the big game barely lasted a half-hour. It was a special meeting called with the sole intent of selecting a new Board Chairman. Despite its serious intent and the usual 3905 Century Club sloppiness and procedural improvisation, it produced considerable unintended levity.

At one point, Voltaire was invoked, albeit through a spectacularly misattributed quotation. Despite the inaccuracy, we certainly appreciated the mention of our French Enlightenment hero. Indeed, Vox Incommoda aspires to be a latter-day Voltaire, albeit blessed with a significantly less consequential subject to satirize.

Accordingly, we will lace up this basketball allusion with a few carefully chosen observations from, or at least concerning, Voltaire.

From far up in the cheap seats, Absurdist 67 peers in on more Board double-dribbling, replete with specious legal interpretations, orphaned Fourth Area volunteers, and misplaced Biblical references.

Let the game begin.

Opening Tip-Off: a Bit Cockeyed

“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”
— Voltaire

After a wry, albeit blue, pre-meeting joke from Vice President Kirk Frazier, AA1NA, who still has not publicly declared his intention to assume the presidency, President Dean Davis, KL7OR, announced that he was opening the meeting at 0600Z on August 27.

We were time-tripping from the outset. The meeting actually began at 0100Z on August 28.

Dean stated the purpose of the meeting and properly asked for nominations for an acting Chair to conduct it.

Confusion. Muttering.

Are we electing the permanent Chair?

Are we electing an interim Chair?

Several voices explained the difference between selecting somebody to conduct this meeting and electing the permanent Chairman. Eighth Area Director Gene Marsh, W8NET, then moved to nominate DX Director Craig McLoughlin, VE3CMB, as the “interim Chair.” He made a big point out of using that language, which is not supported by the bylaws.

Dean clarified that this meant Craig would chair only this meeting. That inspired more mumbling about whether Craig could also become permanent Chairman, but when the fog finally lifted, the Directors present approved him to conduct the proceedings.

Change of Possession: Craig Took the Gavel

Craig called the roll.

All areas were represented except the Fifth.

That just happens to be the area represented by Fifth Area Director Clay Mayrose, WA6LBU, whose resignation as Chairman created the reason for this meeting. Dean had previously announced that Clay would remain Fifth Area Director. Nevertheless, the Fifth Area was completely unrepresented while the Board selected Clay’s successor.

Perhaps Clay simply wanted no hand in choosing the next Chairman. His absence does, however, invite some curiosity about how enthusiastically, and for how long, he intends to continue serving as Fifth Area Director.

Both President and Vice President were present, as Craig declared, “for the minutes.” Neither votes in the selection of Board Chairman.

Two areas were represented by Assistant Area Directors, the Fourth and Ninth. Ninth Area representation attracted no controversy.

Fourth Area representation supplied enough for an entire section.

Substitution: Selection of the Permanent Chairman

Craig called for nominations for Chairman. This time, we meant the permanent position.

Gene again nominated Craig. Seventh Area Director Joe Bevier, KF7HNC, seconded the nomination.

Nominations closed, and Craig started the voting beginning with the DX Area.

The voting proceeded smoothly until it encountered the dreaded Fourth Area.

Recall that in Absurdist 66 we initially suspected this might create a problem. After further study, we gave the governing-document ambiguity another chance and concluded that Fourth Area Assistant Director Dave Yarbrough, AI4K, had a defensible claim to cast the Area’s vote.

Craig intentionally omitted the Fourth Area while calling the roll, but someone stopped him.

Time Out: Check the Rulebook

Craig explained that there was a problem with an Assistant Area Director voting in place of an Area Director who had resigned rather than merely being absent. This was an unusual convergence of circumstances, and the current governing language does not address it neatly.

But as longtime Absurdist readers know, when organizational entropy increases, unusual combinations of circumstances begin appearing with disconcerting frequency.

Dave’s desire to vote launched a wandering discussion about whether Gary’s resignation had extinguished the appointments of both Dave and Fourth Area Awards Manager Johnny Allen, KI4WCQ.

Competing interpretations soon produced appeals to flexibility, including memorable suggestions that the Club should “soften” the bylaws. The big deal seemed to be that a resigned area director was not “absent.”

Dave pointed out that the Constitution said he could vote in place of the director.

Gene and Keon disagreed. Because they thought they knew.

Someone eventually suggested that Dave simply vote provisionally and that everybody figure out the legal niceties later. Of course, that option is not supported by any known bylaw.

Craig found another practical escape route: Dave’s vote could not possibly change the outcome anyway.

Onward.

Lane Violation: Go Ahead and Vote, Already!

Craig ultimately allowed Dave’s vote to stand. He correctly noted the hierarchy of governing documents: Articles of Incorporation, Constitution, then Bylaws.

More pragmatically, he observed that Dave’s vote could not alter the result.

Earlier, Craig had suggested that the governing documents might need some tweaking. We agree that clarification may eventually be desirable. We merely hope any future tweaking will be performed in accordance with the documents being tweaked.

Otherwise, we have once again solved a bylaw problem by violating the bylaws.

Team Meeting: Sideline Conference

 “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.”
— Voltaire (or was it Vox Incommoda?)

The discussion’s low point arrived when Dave asked Third Area Director Keon Hayes, KE3HAY, to clarify his position:

“So, if appointments end when a Director resigns, then the Fourth Area lacks an Area Awards Manager, too?”

As is his wont, Keon responded rather conclusively that this was indeed the case. If Fourth Area members required award application processing, he said, unfortunately they would need to reach out to the Third or Fifth Area Awards Managers or whoever was available for the time being.

He did not explain exactly how this newly invented arrangement would be implemented, but certainty had already carried the possession downcourt.

Thanks to Keon’s pronouncement, Vox Incommoda could not resist indulging in some deliciously hyperbolic ridicule.

Johnny was not logged into the Zoom meeting, so we texted him:

Keon just fired you LOL

At that moment Johnny happened to be reviewing a member’s Poker Player Award application.

That got his attention.

He quickly logged in to watch the rest of the meeting and later told Vox Incommoda that upon receiving notice of his sudden unemployment, he tossed the Poker Player application into the trash. After all, why continue processing awards after being summarily dismissed by the Third Area Director?

Fortunately for the applicant, Keon’s dismissal proved non-binding.

As the meeting wound down, Dave asked whether Johnny could continue serving as AAM. Kirk stated rather definitively that Johnny still had a job.

We think so, too.

Johnny can retrieve the Poker Player application from the trash and get back to work. The Fourth Area needs him.

Keon fouled out. Buzzzzzzzz!

When the procedural smoke finally cleared, Craig was elected permanent Chairman unanimously.

The slam-dunk eventually went through the hoop. Nothing but net. It merely required considerably more dribbling than anyone anticipated.

Don’t Rewrite the Rulebook

“Common sense is not so common.”
— Voltaire

The Fourth Area situation is a temporary aberration created by an unusual convergence of circumstances. It will become moot when the Special Election for Fourth Area Director concludes on September 8.

The bylaws could, of course, be rewritten to anticipate a broader range of contingencies. But no governing document can foresee every bizarre combination of vacancies, resignations, assistants, proxies, and timing anomalies that human beings may someday contrive.

We therefore hope the Board and the Bylaws Committee resist the temptation to waste precious time “tweaking” the bylaws in pursuit of a combinatorial surfeit of howevers.

Governing documents should establish sound general rules. They should not attempt to become an exhaustive troubleshooting manual for every improbable circumstance.

Sometimes the correct response to an anomaly is simply to survive it.

Technical Foul: Deacon Doug Discovers Voltaire in Matthew

Kirk repeatedly suggested that the bylaws need to be “softened” and that the Board must be more flexible.

Club Secretary Doug Wittich, N3VEJ, apparently deciding that the discussion required both jurisprudence and theology, then entered the fray.

“Live by the sword, die by the sword,” Doug announced, attributing the saying to “a fellow named Voltaire.”

Unfortunately for Deacon Doug, Voltaire had nothing to do with it.

The familiar expression derives from Matthew 26:52, where Jesus tells Peter that those who take up the sword will perish by it.

Thus did the Club Secretary reach for the Enlightenment, come back holding the Gospel of Matthew, and repurpose the resulting theological train wreck into a governance principle: Live by the bylaws, die by the bylaws, therefore perhaps stop living by the bylaws.

Forever and ever. Amen.

Invoking the Gospel According to Vox Incommoda: Oy, vey!

Closing Buzzer: Craig Is Elected

And so it ultimately came to pass, tortuously, after a half-hour of metaphorical basketball comedy worthy of The Harlem Globetrotters, that Craig was elected unanimously as Chairman by the 3905 Century Club Board of Directors.

Amen.

Rookie Nerves: New Chairman’s First Examination

Craig had not yet been elected permanent Chairman when his first real procedural problem landed in his lap.

The question was not whether Dave’s vote mattered numerically.

It was whether Dave had the right to cast it.

That distinction matters.

A governing rule does not become optional merely because violating it fails to change tonight’s outcome. Otherwise, the Board establishes a wonderfully convenient standard under which procedural defects need be addressed only when the vote is close.

Craig knows the governing documents considerably better than most of his colleagues. That is one reason we regarded him as a plausible compromise candidate.

His knowledge was never our principal concern.

The test is whether, as Chairman, he will enforce what he knows when everybody else wants to move along, reach consensus, “soften” the rules, or otherwise make an inconvenient procedural problem disappear.

The Club does not need a Chairman who merely recognizes violations.

It needs one willing to stop them.

That will require considerably more than expertise.

It will require backbone.

We wish Craig good fortune and strength going forward.

A parting word for the Board, courtesy of Voltaire: “Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.”

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 67: French Enlightenment Entropy appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Updated again later to reflect rapidly breaking developments, and a corrected impression of the voting eligibility of the acting Fourth Area Director. —Ed.

Vox Incommoda has learned of the latest high-profile resignation. The beleaguered Board Chairman, Clay Mayrose, WA6LBU, has resigned from that role.

The announcement trickled out of closed Board quarters, eventually reaching Fourth Area members courtesy of our conscientious Acting Area Director, Dave Yarbrough, AI4K. Later, Dean made a formal announcement on two reflectors.

Clay will retain his Board seat as Fifth Area Director.

Meanwhile, his departure opens the betting on who the remaining Area Directors will select as their next Chair, how that selection will occur, and who might attempt to influence it from behind the scenes.

Recent late-term maneuvering by our supposedly lame-duck President makes such speculation unavoidable.

The Fourth Area Conundrum

Is Dave eligible to vote in this chair selection meeting or not?

In an earlier edition, we expressed the opinion that he could not. Since then, we have been convinced by some area governance scholars that our position is shaky.

We wrote that Dave would appear neither eligible to become Chair nor entitled to vote.

The governing documents are less clear about whether Dave may vote. The Constitution provides that an Assistant Area Director may vote in place of an absent Area Director, without distinguishing between temporary and permanent absence. The bylaws, however, separately provide for filling an actual vacancy and direct the “remaining Area Directors” to elect the Chair. Doug’s published agenda resolves the ambiguity, at least provisionally, by assigning AI4K the Fourth Area vote. Dave clearly cannot be elected Chair because he is not an Area Director, but his right to cast the Fourth Area vote is considerably more defensible.

We will give him the benefit of the doubt.

Who Called This Thing?

We previously questioned whether the Area Directors might sit around waiting for Dean to arrange a meeting that the bylaws actually direct them to hold.

Dean spared them the trouble.

He has called an emergency Board meeting for Thursday.

We give him credit for acting promptly.

Now we will see whether the Area Directors demonstrate equal diligence by ensuring that the selection itself follows the governing documents.

That last sentence is the pivot.

What the Job Requires

No matter how this selection shakes out, the Club needs considerably more than another warm body persuaded to occupy Clay’s seat.

It needs a Chair.

The bylaws actually provide a respectable job description. The Chair schedules and conducts Board meetings, oversees preparation and publication of agendas, ensures certain motions receive required committee review, verifies that minutes satisfy bylaw requirements before approval, calls elections when necessary, orients incoming directors, and counsels directors in preparing motions.

That is not ceremonial employment.

The next Chair must work diligently toward restoring order and purpose to a Board that has lately demonstrated a remarkable capacity for improvisation.

He must understand the Constitution and Bylaws. More importantly, he must be willing to enforce them when doing so becomes inconvenient.

He must be capable of explaining procedural questions when they arise rather than simply declaring the bylaws imperfect and proceeding according to whatever seems agreeable at the moment.

As we argued in Absurdist 63, the Club does not need a Parliamentarian if the Chair performs his job properly and completely.

The Chair must orient new directors to Board procedures and governing documents. He must counsel directors on preparing motions. He must see that motions requiring prior committee consideration actually receive it before they reach a vote.

He must oversee a properly constructed agenda and ensure that required material is received and published on time.

He must review proposed minutes before they are presented for approval and insist that the permanent record accurately reflects what occurred.

The bylaws themselves make those responsibilities explicit.

What Else?

Beyond those written duties lies an equally important practical requirement: independence.

The Chair should not function as the President’s floor manager.

He should not belong to a Presidential faction, an anti-Presidential faction, or any other little clubhouse caucus. He should be sufficiently neutral and sufficiently assertive to tell anybody, President or director, when something is out of order.

The President is accountable to the Board.

The Board is not supposed to be accountable to the President.

Somebody occupying the Chair should understand the distinction.

Who Do We Get?

Now comes the entertaining part.

Let us assume that the Area Directors are capable of selecting their own Chair without external choreography, an assumption we make provisionally and with admirable generosity.

How will they choose?

Will they evaluate the duties of the office and determine which director possesses the procedural knowledge, independence, temperament, diligence, and backbone required?

Or will somebody merely ask who is willing to do it?

Absurdist 63 described the recent selection culture rather less delicately:

“Too often the process resembles a group of people joking about which unfortunate soul can be persuaded to accept a chore none of the others wants. That bullshit needs to end. The Chair is not the guy who drew the short straw. It is a consequential governance position requiring preparation, judgment, knowledge of the bylaws, and enough backbone to tell Directors and Presidents when they cannot do something.”

Nothing has happened since to change our mind.

The Board must strive to select a Chair who is neutral, assertive, procedurally competent, and willing to do the work.

We particularly stress neutrality because recent events have demonstrated how easily Presidential influence can flow through a compliant Board.

A Chair should be part of the institutional brake, not additional lubrication.

The Field

We could handicap the field like a horse race, but we will refrain from publishing the morning line until the scratch sheet firms up and track conditions become clearer.

Among the current directors, several names naturally attract attention because of prior experience, visibility, or recent involvement in Board affairs: Keon Hayes, KE3HAY; Gene Marsh, W8NET; Mac McCracken, W6PNY; and Craig McLoughlin, VE3CMB.

Roger Callewaert, W9ROG, has previously served as Chair, although we have reason to doubt that he is eager for an encore.

Keon has also occupied the Chair before. Recent efforts to increase his involvement and visibility keep him plausibly in the field.

And there is no reason the best candidate must necessarily be the most obvious one, assuming the directors actually evaluate the job before voting. A compromise candidate can clearly emerge.

Breezes from the Stable

The aroma from the stable suggests that Craig could be a smart money choice. We do not wager big bucks on hunches, but we would be willing to blow a few on this pick.

We view Craig as something of a compromise candidate because of his recent conduct concerning Motion 2026-08-A, which passed despite serious procedural defects. Craig recognized those problems and was vocal about them before the Board, quoting chapter and verse from the bylaws. Nevertheless, when the time came to vote, he relented and supported the motion.

That cannot become the operating style of the Chairman. If selected, Craig will need to uphold the bylaws despite cajoling, whining, appeals to consensus, and whatever other shenanigans his fellow directors produce. Recognizing that a procedure is improper is not enough. The Chair must be willing to stop it.

In short, he will need to become an expert cat herder.

One other concern with that selection is that, like Gene, Craig sits on the Presidential Advisory Committee. In Absurdist 65, we argued that sitting directors serving as private Presidential advisers create an unhealthy overlap between Board independence and Presidential influence. For the Chairman, that overlap would be even more pronounced.

The Chair should be the Board’s neutral procedural officer, not simultaneously one of the President’s private counselors. Even absent any actual impropriety, the dual role creates an appearance problem and unnecessarily muddies the line between advising the President and presiding over the body to which the President is accountable.

If Craig becomes Chair, stepping away from the PAC would be a prudent first demonstration of that independence.

How It Might Play Out

At this moment, anyone claiming to know how the Chair selection will unfold is speculating.

So are we.

The helter-skelter manner in which the Club has been governed lately naturally invites theories about whether particular events are connected. The sudden Chair vacancy occurs amid a Fourth Area Special Election, a forthcoming Treasurer vacancy, uncertainty surrounding the President’s announced resignation, recent reshuffling of the Presidential Advisory Committee, and continuing questions about where Presidential authority ends and Board responsibility begins.

Perhaps that is simply an unfortunate convergence of events.

Perhaps not.

Lame Duck Influence?

One theory circulating among knowledgeable observers is that organizational instability could ultimately benefit Dean by making his continued presence appear indispensable. A weakened or confused Board might conclude that this is hardly the time for an experienced President to leave.

That is an intriguing theory.

It is not yet evidence.

We will therefore resist the temptation to promote political suspicion into historical fact merely because the pieces fit together attractively.

What will matter is what happens next.

Jaundiced-Eye Observations

One element of the developing record cuts against the theory of deliberate paralysis. Dean did not drag his feet on filling the Chair vacancy. He promptly called a meeting for August 27.

We note that because Vox Incommoda is interested in patterns, not prosecuting a predetermined verdict.

The more interesting question now becomes not whether the Chair will be selected, but how, by whom, and under whose influence.

And if our supposedly departing President begins quietly shaping the selection of the officer whose job includes keeping the Board independent of him, that too will be worth noting.

Whatever happens, this one deserves to occur in full public view.

The Club has had enough business conducted behind curtains.

For the moment, the music is still playing.

We will soon discover who gets the Chair.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 66: Musical Chairs appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Vox Incommoda received word that our departing President, Dean Davis, KL7OR, with a mere ten weeks supposedly remaining in his tenure, has replaced a member of his Presidential Advisory Committee who had repeatedly provided him with advice he apparently did not care to hear.

Or perhaps more fairly, the departing member had the troublesome habit of applying diligence, historical information, and comprehensive knowledge of the governing documents when formulating his advice. When the rules produced an inconvenient answer, he was inclined to point out that the rules could always be amended properly rather than simply ignored.

Apparently, Dean wanted something closer to an echo chamber.

The troublesome member who got the axe was Johnny Allen, KI4WCQ, who also sits on the Bylaws and Awards Committees. He was replaced by Gene Marsh, W8NET, currently the Eighth Area Director and master of the logo contest.

We confirmed the change by observing the Club website, which had already been updated less than twenty-four hours after Johnny was notified. We rarely see such efficiency in information dissemination. The change was implemented with considerably greater urgency than most ordinary Club business, reminiscent of the abrupt disappearance of AE4NT, our alter ego, from Club information eight months ago.

The Big Question: Why?

But the timing is what makes this interesting.

With barely ten weeks supposedly remaining in his presidency, Dean is nevertheless reshaping his advisory machinery. The member being removed is one who repeatedly insists that inconvenient rules must either be followed or properly amended. His replacement is a director who recently defended procedural improvisation on the ground that the bylaws are imperfect.

So now the choir will be singing something closer to Dean’s tune.

However, we must ask: Why spend political energy fine-tuning an advisory committee with only a couple of months left?

That question will recur throughout Absurdist 65 because it lies at the heart of the peculiar Presidential transition now unfolding. Perhaps Dean is merely arranging things to his satisfaction before leaving. Perhaps he wants to leave his successor a particular set of people and decisions. Or perhaps the assumption that he will leave when promised should not be treated as immutable fact.

We do not know.

What we do know is that Dean’s late-term behavior and the Board’s resistance to meaningful change are not separate problems. They are complementary parts of the same system. Dean can rearrange the furniture because the directors rarely make him explain why.

The PAC

Dean’s pool of candidates for the PAC is limited to Masters and past Presidents. That automatically eliminates several of Dean’s usual fellow travelers from consideration, which is probably just as well for appearances.

One must wonder whether W3BS was considered. He is a Master, a friend of Dean’s, and firmly believes he possesses all the answers concerning how the Club should be run. But perhaps even Buddy would recognize the questionable utility of accepting what might amount to a ten-week appointment.

There is another wrinkle.

The bylaws say the PAC is appointed each year at the beginning of the fiscal year, has a five-member limit, and serves for a one-year term. They say nothing obvious about removing and replacing a member in midyear. That does not necessarily mean Dean lacks the authority to do so, but it raises another perfectly reasonable question: why is a supposedly departing President tinkering with the composition of a one-year advisory committee halfway through the fiscal year?

Gene is an interesting choice because he and Dean have not always seen eye-to-eye. Politically, however, that might be precisely what makes him useful. Appointing an occasional critic provides the appearance of independence without necessarily introducing the sort of procedural resistance Johnny supplied.

Structural Aberrations

At present, two of the five PAC members are sitting directors. We find that arrangement problematical.

The President is accountable to the Board, yet two members of that Board are simultaneously serving as his private advisers. Their individual advice does not constitute Board policy, but the arrangement inevitably blurs the distinction between personal advice and Board sentiment. It also provides the President with a channel through which individual directors can be persuaded, influenced, or sounded out away from the confines of an actual Board meeting.

Thus, instead of a Presidential Advisory Committee, the PAC risks becoming a Presidentially Advised Committee, with information and influence flowing conveniently in both directions.

There is a complication on the other side as well. Removing a sitting director from the PAC can create political consequences of its own. A director conspicuously rejected by the President might become less inclined to support him in subsequent Board votes. An incoming President could likewise find himself inheriting directors whom his predecessor placed on the advisory committee only months earlier.

Whether the successor can simply wipe the slate clean immediately is not particularly clear from the bylaws.

Perhaps the real name should be the Presidential Advisory Conflict-of-Interest Committee.

And again we return to the unanswered question: why bother doing any of this now?

The Centurion Appointment

The selection of a new Centurion editor provides another example of the same curious late-term behavior, aided by the same passive Board.

After the most recent editor resigned, Dean tasked the Board with finding a replacement. Then, without asking whether anybody had unearthed any candidates, he made a preemptive strike and selected John Reisenauer, KL7JR.

We know Reisenauer was not the only person interested in the position. As an engaged Area Director, Mac McCracken, W6PNY, had identified at least one prospective candidate in the Tenth Area and put him in contact with Brian, the former editor, so he could learn what the job actually entailed before deciding whether to pursue it.

That sounds suspiciously like vetting: identify an interested person, let him investigate the responsibilities, and determine whether both the candidate and the job are a good fit.

Dean apparently saw no need to wait for such foolishness. He simply selected KL7JR.

This was an especially curious choice because Dean and John, despite their Alaska connection, have not always gotten along.

To be fair, Reisenauer is not without qualifications. He has written a book, has been active in Club operations, and has traveled extensively while providing contacts to members. But he is also a known Peck’s Bad Boy with a documented history of interpersonal conflict. That history need not automatically disqualify him, but it damn well ought to invite some examination before placing him in a position requiring judgment, diplomacy, and regular dealings with contributors who will inevitably disagree with him.

Instead, there appears to have been no comparative process at all. Other interested candidates were still investigating the job while Dean elevated Reisenauer to it.

Then came the really peculiar part.

Why the Board Approval?

The bylaws do not require Board approval of the Centurion editor. In fact, they specifically identify the editor as an example of a volunteer position the President may appoint.

Johnny pointed that out to Dean before the meeting. Dean acknowledged it, saying instead that he thought the Board should conduct a “vote for confidence.” Kirk repeated during the meeting that Board approval was unnecessary. According to the minutes, Dean merely said he wanted the appointment “visible.” According to an attendee, Dean justified the vote in light of “everything going on,” after which Craig and Gene expressed support for holding it.

Then came the Board’s contribution.

Nothing.

No meaningful discussion of Reisenauer’s suitability followed. Nobody asked why other possible candidates had not been considered, raised his history of interpersonal conflict, or asked why they were being requested to approve an appointment they had no obligation to approve.

Everyone present voted yes.

The Unanimous Choice of the Board

Thus, we had the unusual spectacle of a President bypassing any broader consideration of candidates, making his own selection, and then asking the Board to approve an appointment it had no responsibility to approve.

Whatever Dean intended, the effect was convenient.

Reisenauer is no longer merely Dean’s choice. He is now the Board’s unanimously approved choice.

That distinction could become useful if our new editor’s historical difficulty with interpersonal restraint should resurface. Dean made the appointment, but the directors were voluntarily invited to inspect it, question it, and express their confidence in it.

They chose instead to ask nothing and rubber-stamp it.

Perhaps Reisenauer will make everyone happy and become an exemplary editor. We sincerely hope so.

But if the Peck’s Bad Boy emerges from behind the printing press, there will be plenty of ownership to go around.

Dean did not have to outwit the Board. He merely had to hand them the rubber stamp.

They were happy to use it.

Comfort in Familiarity

That brings us to the larger problem.

We have enough experience with this President and the sitting, complacent Board to predict how vacancies will normally be filled. At this stage in our decaying organization, making the empty box on the organizational chart disappear expeditiously, preferably with a known entity, often seems to be the primary objective. Proven competence, temperament, and suitability take a back seat to being familiar, available, and unlikely to make everybody uncomfortable.

The volunteer pool is small and contracting, but we cannot pretend that this has occurred independently of the way the Club has been managed. Familiarity, deference to existing leadership, and willingness to operate comfortably within the established circle too often appear to count for more than bringing new talent or ideas into the organization.

Under this paradigm, a familiar member already stretched across several jobs can seem preferable to an unfamiliar volunteer who might question how things are done.

That is organizational entropy in action.

High-profile resignations, inconsistent management, favoritism toward an inner circle, and weak engagement with rank-and-file members further constrict the pool. The process then becomes self-reinforcing. Fewer people volunteer, so leadership relies increasingly upon the same familiar names. Those familiar names become more entrenched and overworked, while outsiders see progressively less reason to become involved.

The Club does not consciously decide to resist reform.

It simply selects people who will not require much of it.

Pervasively Self-Protective Philosophy

That philosophy extends well beyond Presidential appointments. Even the selection of the Board Chair illustrates the same vacancy-filling mentality. Rather than starting with the question, “Who among us is best qualified to conduct meetings, understand the governing documents, enforce procedure, and keep the Board on track?”, the practical objective appears to have become finding somebody willing to take the chair.

The result is now available for inspection every month.

If the Club continues along this path of insular familiarity, drawing repeatedly from an aging and shrinking collection of the same volunteers, eventually it will not merely have difficulty filling positions. It will run out of people willing and able to fill them.

And a Board accustomed to patching holes will discover that there is nobody left holding the bucket.

Renaissance by Acclimation

Various directors speak hopefully of a coming renaissance, as though some messianic age will arrive after the next election and straighten everything out.

But renaissance requires considerably more than waiting for different names to appear on the Board roster.

Waiting for the messiah is a passive activity. Developing new people requires effort, recruitment, mentoring, tolerance for unfamiliar ideas, and a willingness to accept some discomfort when newcomers challenge the established culture.

The forthcoming odd-numbered Area Director election is already being discussed as though it might somehow be transformative. Perhaps it will be. But the present Board’s behavior gives little reason for confidence.

The most conspicuous newcomer on the Board, Mac, has hardly been welcomed into the inner circle for speaking his mind. That sends a message to anybody else contemplating reform-minded service.

This Board does not appear comfortable with outsiders. It prefers familiar faces who know the customs and can adapt to the prevailing culture. Outspoken newcomers are less convenient. Rock the boat too vigorously and eventually somebody will invite you overboard. Play nicely, avoid troublesome opposition, vote comfortably with the group, and admission to the inner sanctum becomes much easier.

That is why merely electing several new directors will accomplish little if the newcomers are selected for their willingness to acclimate.

Replacing old faces with new faces cast in the same mold is not reform.

It is succession planning.

It wasn’t always this way. Unfortunately, during our own stint on the Board, we could see the organization beginning to move in this direction. After five years, we stepped away. By then, we neither wanted to fight them nor join them.

What has happened since has repeatedly validated that decision. Each Board meeting provides another data point.

They want change.

They simply do not want to change.

Ten Weeks to Go. Maybe.

And so we arrive at the uncomfortable question hanging over this Presidential transition: what happens next?

We have our suspicions about Dean’s motives. Some recent moves look less like stewardship than positioning, insulation, and perhaps the settling of old scores. But suspicion is not evidence, and Vox Incommoda will not convert conjecture into fact merely because the conjecture fits the pattern beautifully.

Fortunately, we do not need to know his motives.

Whether these moves are deliberate, vindictive, shortsighted, or merely inept, the more consequential problem is that a complacent Board appears unwilling to provide meaningful resistance.

Appointments are rubber-stamped. Procedural improvisation is tolerated. Familiar names are recycled. Vacancies are patched instead of thoughtfully filled. Inconvenient provisions of the bylaws are treated as imperfections rather than obligations. When an opportunity arises to ask hard questions, silence generally wins.

An Environment of Accommodation

That is a dangerous environment for any President.

It is particularly dangerous during an uncertain transition in which the supposedly departing President still has time to make appointments, reshape committees, influence elections, fill vacancies, and create decisions his successor may inherit.

The remedy is obvious enough. The Board should stop behaving like an approval machine. It should insist upon compliance with the governing documents, demand reasons for appointments, examine candidates rather than merely celebrate their availability, advertise vacancies broadly, recruit beyond the familiar circle, and consider consequences beyond the next meeting.

None of that requires revolutionary reform.

It requires directors willing to govern.

Therein lies the problem.

Physician, Heal Thyself

The same Board that must provide the corrective action is the Board whose passivity helped create the condition requiring correction. A change of President will not magically alter an organizational culture built around deference, familiarity, procedural convenience, and avoidance of confrontation.

A renaissance cannot simply be awaited.

Somebody must cause it.

That would require directors willing to challenge bad decisions before they become faits accomplis, recruit people who might disturb the existing equilibrium, enforce rules they personally find inconvenient, and accept that governing occasionally means telling a friend, colleague, or President, “No.”

We have seen precious little evidence that this Board possesses that appetite.

And all of this assumes that the ten-week countdown is real.

Oh, No, Baby, Please Don’t Go

Not everyone is making that assumption. We have heard from directors who believe Dean may reconsider his announced resignation and remain through the normal end of his term. Some might even be encouraging him to rethink his position. Indeed, there are practical reasons why his presumptive successor might not object. Kirk is reportedly still winding down two businesses and has not completed his own retirement exit plan.

We have no evidence that Dean has changed his plans, and we will not promote speculation into fact.

But the uncertainty changes the way his late-term housekeeping must be viewed.

Is Dean reshaping committees, filling positions, and cultivating agreeable voices merely for the ten weeks remaining before his departure? Is he attempting to leave a particular organizational configuration behind for Kirk? Or does he regard his October departure as less inevitable than everyone else has been led to believe?

We do not know.

That is precisely why the Board should be providing institutional stability now instead of reflexive acquiescence.

Whatever the next ten weeks bring, and however many weeks ultimately follow them, the Board remains the principal institutional brake on Presidential improvisation.

At present, that brake appears to be disconnected.

And time will tell whether the lame duck leaves the pond at all.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 65: Lame Duck Quackery appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

The Absurdist Papers have regularly lambasted long, boring meetings. Well, glory, glory, hallelujah, the August 17 Special Board Meeting was delightfully nonconforming. Lasting only nine minutes is something no man should be proud of, but we are proud of the Board for dispatching its business quickly.

However, attendees almost witnessed a premature ejaculation when Clay asked for a motion to adjourn without having completed one of the principal purposes of the special meeting: calling the special election for the Fourth Area Director vacancy. Once again, Doug needed to step in and remind Clay what he was there for.

And once again, Doug’s minutes sanitized the ensuing embarrassment.

After being reminded that there was still an election to call, Clay apparently forgot how elections work. Johnny reports that Clay suggested they could start voting the next day. Kirk then reminded him that the election website had to be set up, notices had to be published, and nominations had to come first. “We can’t start nominating tomorrow,” Kirk reportedly told him.

In the minutes, that little impotent episode emerged from the spin cycle looking like this:
“The Chairman calls for the election monitors to initiate an election for the fourth area director’s
position in accordance with the bylaws. WA6LBU asked that the nominations begin 8/18. AA1NA said they can start the nominating in about three days. AA1NA will announce the exact schedule when the web page is ready to go, and announcements are prepared.”

No mention of Clay’s premature ejaculation.

The Votes

We predicted two rubber-stamp votes. We were not disappointed. Specifically, we were not disappointed in the accuracy of our prediction. For different reasons, however, both votes were problematic.

Election Monitor(s)

The first motion, 2026-08-F, asked the Board to approve Keon Hayes, KE3HAY, as an Election Monitor. We will not argue for or against Keon as a viable Election Monitor. He is well qualified. The problem was not Keon. The problem was that some members had already pointed out to Dean that the bylaws require a minimum of two election monitors, and that there would be considerable benefit in appointing more than the bare minimum.

Presumably, at the end of October, Kirk will become President and the Club will need to conduct a Vice Presidential election. If Kirk should then step away from his Election Monitor duties, we will be right back where we started, scrambling to recruit another monitor.

We also know that there were additional volunteers. Acting Fourth Area Director Dave Yarbrough advised three of us who had volunteered that Dean had agreed to consider appointing more than one Election Monitor. Yet when the motion came up, none of those other volunteers was even mentioned. There was no discussion, and Keon was approved.

That was the disappointing aspect of Motion 2026-08-F. The Board solved today’s problem while declining even to discuss tomorrow’s.

Centurion Editor

The Centurion editor vote was stranger still because the bylaws did not require one. So why the hell did it happen?

Dean had been apprised before the meeting that Board approval was unnecessary. His response at the time was that he thought the Board should have a “vote for confidence.” During the meeting, according to an attendee, Dean justified the vote in light of “everything going on.” Kirk again pointed out that Board approval was not required. Craig and Gene reportedly thought having the vote was a swell idea. Nobody questioned the candidate. Nobody questioned the wisdom of the appointment. The Board unanimously approved Motion 2026-08-G.

Votes of confidence? What are we now, Parliament?

The further disappointment was that the Board had been handed a golden opportunity to examine Dean’s choice and did nothing with it. Nobody raised the candidate’s documented history of hostile interactions with Club members. Nobody asked whether temperament might be relevant to a position requiring an editor to deal diplomatically with contributors, complaints, corrections, rejected material, and inevitable disagreements.

For the Record

The minutes record: “AA1NA said it’s great that Dean submitted it to the BOD, but not needed. KL7OR indicated he wanted to have it visible.”

Visible potential blame-shifting. We’ll give you visible.

Then come the votes, followed amusingly by: “Minutes approved by 10 votes, One Abstain, Two Absent. APPROVED.”

Good to know that copy-and-paste is working well, although proofreading still leaves much to be desired. The motion, not the minutes, had just been approved. Apparently nine minutes was insufficient to proofread three pages.

If Doug rushed the minutes to publication to beat Vox Incommoda to the punch, congratulations! You scooped us!

Whatever Dean intended by requesting an unnecessary Board vote, its practical effect is obvious: the Reisenauer appointment now belongs to the Board, too. Dean selected him, but the directors were invited to express their confidence in that selection, and every director present obligingly did so.

To say Dean outwitted them would be too kind to the Board.

The Treasurer Discussion

After the meeting, the boys settled down to a fireside chat about the forthcoming Treasurer vacancy. Craig asked why Dean had not announced it to the membership.

Dean’s response, according to an attendee, was that he could not inform the entire membership.

Wait, what?

Dean then reportedly explained that he could only make an announcement to members through the reflectors and chat groups.

We are not entirely certain what that means, but we can dissect it and offer a few conjectures.

A Few Suggestions

This is not rocket science.

Start by posting announcements on the existing reflectors. Publish the vacancy on the Club website’s home page. Put it in the Reisenauer Gazette. Send an email through whatever membership mailing facilities are available. Announce it on the nets. Ask Area Directors to circulate it. Hell, run a Treasurer contest.

There. We conceived several exotic communications technologies in less time than it took to say, “I can’t inform the membership.”

The object need not be to reach every Club member simultaneously by divine revelation. The object should be to make a reasonable effort to reach as many potentially qualified members as possible.

Instead, we appear to be getting another installment of The President Who Has No Power: a forthcoming vacancy in an important Club office, coupled with an explanation of why broadly advertising it is apparently beyond the capabilities of the presidency.

We suspect lame-duck Dean is slow-walking the process for reasons known only to him and perhaps his close confidantes. That is conjecture, and we label it accordingly.

For public consumption, however, the explanation seems to be much simpler: He cannot effectively communicate the need to the membership.

Apparently the communications problem is so severe that nobody has yet thought of communicating about it.

Conclusion

Nine minutes. Two predictable votes, one nearly forgotten special election, and another demonstration that this Board can improvise procedure faster than it can understand it.

The meeting once again exposed the procedural incompetence that has become routine. Clay nearly adjourned before completing one of the principal purposes of the meeting and then apparently confused nominations with voting until Kirk straightened out the timetable. Meanwhile, the minutes transformed the confusion into an orderly sequence in which the Chairman simply called the election and requested that nominations begin the following day.

More disappointing was the Board’s characteristically pusillanimous handling of the Centurion appointment. Dean handed the directors an unexpected opportunity to examine a candidate whom the bylaws did not even require them to approve. Yet rather than ask a single meaningful question about Reisenauer’s suitability, temperament, or history of conflict with other members, the directors simply rubber-stamped the President’s selection exactly as he undoubtedly knew they would.

Thus ended another short exercise in 3905 governance: procedural improvisation, institutional timidity, organizational impotence, and unanimous approval before anyone accidentally began governing.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 64: Short and Limp appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Do We Need a Parliamentarian?

The August 8 Board meeting could be subtitled, “Tear Up the Bylaws and Wing It.” Uttered during that meeting, an acerbic comment by the President summed it all up: “We kinda pick and choose what we do in the bylaws.” The conduct of the meeting validated his comment six ways to Sunday.

Absurdist 63 examines the inevitable, periodic hue and cry suggesting the Club needs a parliamentarian to repair its broken meeting and responds with a resounding, “Oh, hell no!”

Naturally, the Mr. Fix-Its in the crowd saw this botched meeting as an opportunity to offer solutions based on their perception of the problem. Vox Incommoda’s better half, known here as Artificially Sweetened, after reading our recap of the meeting declared, “I’ve got it. What they need is a Parliamentarian.” Having heard that tune before, our response was swift and brutal. “No they don’t. Adding another layer won’t fix what is wrong. The problem is not merely ignorance of bylaws and procedure. The bigger problem is that when somebody, even one of their own, points out the correct procedure, they sometimes ignore him. Why would they treat a Parliamentarian any differently?”

After all, paraphrasing Keon, “he’s not on the Board, so I could care less.”

On the Fourth Area reflector, a member arrived at the same conclusion as Artificially Sweetened: the Club needs a parliamentarian. “I suggest the board consider appointing a Parliamentarian to ensure our meetings strictly follow Robert’s Rules of Order. This role would assist the chair with procedural issues, keep discussions on track, and ensure motions are handled correctly.”

He offered his services.

Oh, Hell No!

That inspired an impassioned plea by Jim Higgins: “No, no, no, PLEASE NO.” He said that the Club had rejected Robert’s Rules of Order back in 2011 for good reason.

Back in May 2011, Third Area Director Bill Dobson, N3WD, moved to require Robert’s Rules of Order for all Club meetings. The proposal was crushed, 8-1, with two abstentions. Dobson cast the only affirmative vote. Three members of today’s Board also occupied Director seats then: Craig voted Nay, Peter abstained, and Gene was absent, with a good excuse. He was in the the Philippines marrying Jackie. But I digress.

Fifteen years later, some concerned people have somehow arrived at the same proposed cure for a different outbreak of procedural incompetence. We and Mr. Higgins disagree.

Jim went on to say that he had witnessed two clubs almost destroyed through the deliberate misuse of RRO.

The Heart of the Matter

He then stated what has become the hypothesis for Absurdist 63: “If an Area Director whose position is created by our Articles of Incorporation, supported by our Constitution and Bylaws, and elected by our members can be ignored, how can anyone expect an appointed parliamentarian will be listened to let alone heeded?”

The member who offered the suggestion disagreed, which is understandable. Anyone peering in at one of these ragged-ass Board meetings for the first time (or even the 100th time) can see that they are a train wreck, and something needs to be done. He stated, “All I want to see is an effective club and leaders that know how to run a corporation. Right now, that isn’t what I see!”

On this, we agree. The current group could not run a lemonade stand, let alone a corporation. Although one recently retired Area Director once claimed managerial DNA tracing to Jack Welch, little of that genetic material appears to have spread through the organization.

So, why not? Imposing order on this wandering caravan of organizational improvisers is better than what we have, right?

No.

Two problems are being conflated here. Keeping people from talking over one another is meeting management. Ensuring that a bylaw amendment receives mandatory committee review is governance compliance. The Chair is already responsible for both. Neither failure proves that the Club needs a six-hundred-page parliamentary operating system.

Nothing New

As we noted in the introduction, neither Robert’s Rules of Order nor the notion of hiring a parliamentary chaperone is new to this Club. Whenever a Board meeting wanders beyond forty-five minutes and begins resembling group therapy conducted over an open microphone, someone inevitably concludes that Robert’s Rules will save us.

We previously stated that we went through this exercise in 2011, when Third Area Director Bill Dobson proposed requiring all Club meetings to be conducted under the latest edition of Robert’s Rules of Order. The Board rejected the idea decisively, 8-1, with two abstentions. Dobson supplied the lone affirmative vote.

Eight years later, the subject resurfaced. In response to another call for parliamentary salvation, our alter ego AE4NT circulated a March 2019 memo entitled Why We Don’t Want Robert’s Rules of Order.

The argument was fairly simple.

First, Robert’s Rules was not legally required. Neither Florida nonprofit corporation law nor the Club’s governing documents imposed it upon us. Adopting it would therefore be a policy choice, not compliance with some mysterious higher authority.

Second, the cure came with substantial overhead. The full Robert’s Rules ran more than six hundred pages, while even the abbreviated edition approached two hundred. The nonprofit-governance material cited in the memo warned that unless an organization has someone willing and able to master the parliamentary minutiae, the rules can become more burdensome and time-consuming than helpful.

Therein lies our problem.

The Basic Failure

We are now being asked to cure a Board that routinely fails to understand or follow its own comparatively short Constitution and Bylaws by handing it several hundred additional pages of procedural rules.

What could possibly go wrong?

The 2019 memo also argued that Robert’s Rules was designed primarily for formal parliamentary and legislative bodies and could be a poor fit for a small nonprofit social organization whose meetings ought to emphasize collaboration rather than procedural combat. AE4NT closed by invoking the Club Constitution’s own desire to preserve the “basic simplicity” of the organization.

Nothing that has happened since then persuades us that the reasoning was wrong.

Quite the contrary.

The August 8 fiasco did not occur because the Board lacked an obscure parliamentary rule governing Motion 2026-08-A. The applicable rule was sitting plainly in the Club’s own bylaws: proposed bylaw amendments must receive Bylaws Committee review before reaching the agenda.

Craig pointed out the problem.

The Board ignored him and voted anyway.

That is not a deficiency Robert’s Rules can cure. It is a deficiency of knowledge, preparation, judgment, and willingness to follow rules already in force.

You do not fix people who ignore thirty pages of bylaws by handing them six hundred more pages to ignore.

Motion 2026-08-A: A Test Case

Motion 2026-08-A provides an almost laboratory-quality illustration of procedural incompetence at several successive stages.

First, it appeared on the agenda without the Bylaws Committee review expressly required by the bylaws. The motion was even identified as affecting the bylaws, which should have triggered the required review automatically. Until that review had occurred, with any necessary changes made for consistency with the governing documents, the motion was not ready to become an agenda item upon which the Board could properly act.

Thus, the process was broken before the meeting even started.

The motion apparently entered the same agenda-production pipeline we have examined before. Doug, the Club Secretary, assembles the agenda and packet. The motion arrived, and onto the agenda it went.

That is not primarily Doug’s failure. The Secretary is not charged with deciding whether a Director’s motion satisfies every procedural prerequisite. That responsibility belongs to the Chair.

That would be Clay.

Whose Agenda Is It?

The recurring evidence strongly suggests that Clay exercises little meaningful oversight over the agenda before meeting time. He appears largely to roll with whatever Doug assembles, sometimes discovering problems only after the meeting has begun.

We saw exactly that with the Virgil complaint in July. It reached an agenda despite failing the required complaint procedure. When the item came up at the meeting, Clay finally recognized the defect and declared that it “should have never been on the agenda in the first place.”

Precisely.

He could have done the same thing with Motion 2026-08-A.

He did not. After all, as Dean posited, “We kinda pick and choose what we do in the bylaws.”

The Board and the President chose to ignore them. They proceeded as though nothing were wrong, even after Directors specifically raised the missing Bylaws Committee review. A motion to table the matter for the required review was defeated, and the Board forged ahead.

Damn the Torpedoes. Pass the damn thing!

Then came the procedural improvisation.

The Board changed the wording during the meeting, despite the fact that changes affecting the bylaws also require committee review. Somehow, because the author agreed with the change and the President and Secretary were sitting there nodding along, the participants persuaded themselves that this spontaneous rewrite was good enough.

Golly, gee, wow. We don’t need no steenking Bylaws Committee!

Craig, who actually serves on the Bylaws Committee, identified the procedural problem.

The Board ignored him. The revised motion passed.

All of this occurred under the supervision of the Chairman, whose bylaws-assigned responsibility was to prevent precisely this sequence from occurring.

Then Mac asked Gary, “Will it still go to the Bylaws Committee?”

“Yes,” Gary replied.

At that point, the procedure had turned completely inside out. The proper sequence was Bylaws Committee review, agenda publication, and Board action. What the Board produced was agenda publication, improvised amendment, Board action, and then perhaps Bylaws Committee review afterward.

A Fine Mess

As we asked in Absurdist 62, what exactly is the Committee supposed to accomplish after the Board has already purported to adopt the language? It cannot retroactively perform the review that was supposed to inform the Board before the vote. If it recommends different wording, the Board has already approved something else. If it recommends rejection, the Board has already declared the motion passed.

There is only one meaningful thing the Committee can do now: formally recognize that the August 8 action failed the mandatory procedure and recommend that the Board declare the purported amendment void and start over correctly.

That is not ordinary committee review. It is damage control.

And therein lies the lesson for our proposed Parliamentarian. The applicable rule existed. The Chairman already had responsibility for enforcing it. A Director who knew the rule identified the violation during the meeting. The Board chose to continue anyway.

What exactly would the Parliamentarian have done?

Stand next to Craig and say it louder?

The failure of Motion 2026-08-A was not caused by the absence of Robert’s Rules of Order. It was caused by a Board unwilling or unable to follow the much simpler rules already governing it.

Adding another rulebook and another volunteer will not cure that.

It merely gives the Board one more person to ignore.

The Ponderous Pachyderm in Headquarters

The problems of this dysfunctional Board of Directors will not be solved by adding yet another layer of bureaucracy. The solution lies within, and it starts with the leader of the pack.

A Chairman who treats the job as a drive-by has no business controlling an agenda and running Board meetings. Clay routinely cedes much of the agenda-production process to Doug, who serves as the collection point for reports and motions and dutifully packages whatever arrives. But Doug is the Secretary. He does not possess the Chair’s authority or responsibility to determine whether motions have satisfied the procedural requirements for reaching the agenda.

That responsibility belongs to Clay.

His busy schedule apparently permits little more than a cursory review before meeting time. Sometimes he appears unfamiliar with material on the agenda. Once in a while, as we saw August 8, he does not even possess the correct agenda. Then come the improvisation, excuses, confused discussion, and occasional bad joke while everybody waits for the meeting to find its way back onto the highway.

Fix the Chair, Fix the Agenda

The bylaws already describe what should happen. The Chair must ensure that motions affecting the bylaws or awards are routed through the appropriate committees and that other motions are suitable for Board consideration. The Chair bears ultimate responsibility for what reaches the agenda.

A properly reviewed agenda would eliminate a remarkable amount of wasted meeting time. Directors would not need to conduct archaeological expeditions into the bylaws while a motion is already on the floor. Defective motions could be returned to their authors for clarification or correction before publication. Motions requiring committee review would arrive with that work already completed. Directors could then debate the merits instead of spending forty minutes trying to determine whether the damned thing should be there at all.

A competent Chair would not cure every problem, but it would remove one of the largest sources of procedural chaos. Directors who actually read the governing documents, prepare for meetings, and object forcefully when those documents are violated would take us considerably farther.

The Chair Is Not the Booby Prize

The Board therefore needs to take selection of its next Chair much more seriously than it has in the past. Too often the process resembles a group of people joking about which unfortunate soul can be persuaded to accept a chore none of the others wants. That bullshit needs to end. The Chair is not the guy who drew the short straw. It is a consequential governance position requiring preparation, judgment, knowledge of the bylaws, and enough backbone to tell Directors and Presidents when they cannot do something.

If the Directors cannot summon enough interest to manage themselves properly, perhaps it should not surprise us that they prefer private circle-jerk sessions where governance can devolve into a procedural drum circle, everybody singing Kumbaya while the campfire consumes what remains of the bylaws.

And somebody thinks the missing ingredient is a Parliamentarian.

In Conclusion

The Club does not need a Parliamentarian.

It does not need Robert’s Rules of Order.

It does not need another layer of procedure, another specialized volunteer position, or another rulebook thick enough to stun a rhinoceros.

What it needs is considerably less exotic.

It needs Directors who read the Articles of Incorporation, Constitution, Bylaws, and applicable policies before they vote on matters governed by them. It needs Directors who understand that these documents are not suggestions, historical curiosities, or obstacles to be bypassed whenever somebody wants to get something done quickly. They are the rules of the organization.

More important, it needs Directors with enough backbone to insist that those rules be followed even when doing so is inconvenient.

Motion 2026-08-A demonstrated the problem perfectly. The applicable procedure already existed. A Director identified the violation. The Board chose to proceed anyway. No Parliamentarian could have supplied a rule that was already sitting in front of them, and no edition of Robert’s Rules could have forced them to care about a requirement they had already decided to ignore.

The Board also needs a competent Chair selected from among those Directors, not merely somebody willing to accept a chore nobody else wants. The Chair must know the governing documents better than anyone else in the room, review the agenda before the meeting rather than during it, intercept defective motions before publication, route matters through required committees, control discussion, recognize procedural defects, and possess enough authority and confidence to say, “No. We cannot do that.”

That requires work.

Leadership, Not Guidance

It requires preparation before meetings instead of improvisation during them. It also requires reading material nobody particularly enjoys reading. And it requires occasionally sending a motion back to its author, disappointing a President, cutting off pointless discussion, or telling a fellow Director that the proposed shortcut is not available.

In other words, it requires leadership.

Robert’s Rules cannot manufacture that. Neither can a Parliamentarian.

A good Parliamentarian advising a weak Chair and an indifferent Board merely becomes another knowledgeable person for them to ignore. A six-hundred-page parliamentary manual in the hands of people unwilling to follow thirty pages of bylaws becomes additional shelf weight.

The Club already has enough rules.

What it needs are people willing to read them, understand them, and obey them.

Then choose the best of those people as Chair and expect that person to work harder than the rest to ensure that the prescribed process prevails.

Do that, and meetings will improve.

Don’t do it, and hire all the Parliamentarians you want.

They can sit together in the corner and watch the Board wing it.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 63: Robert’s Rules for People Who Don’t Follow Rules appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

What was the momentous pronouncement from the Board on Wednesday? Was it hot news about two high-profile resignations? About a controversial motion? About ninety minutes of endless discussion with no resolution? Nope. It was, “Here’s how we stand on the logo contest.”

Waxing metaphorically, Absurdist 62 views the Club as obsessing over new draperies for the living room while the fire rages in the kitchen.

Fuel for the Fire

The August 8 meeting certainly revealed a plethora of blazing issues. The Chair initiated the meeting working from the preliminary agenda and had to suspend proceedings while the Secretary sent him the final version. There was no substantive President’s Report and no Awards Committee Report. The Board passed Motion 2026-08-A, which, to coin a phrase, had no business being on the agenda in the first place. The Board talked about following rules, eliminating backdoor deals, and stopping the shortcuts out of one side of its mouth, while calling for another private Directors-only gathering out the other. Several Directors complained that the Club’s disciplinary policy was too harsh, yet the two most vocal critics had voted to adopt that very policy in 2019.

Finally, the incendiary bomb dropped. A member who was Fourth Area Director as well as Treasurer and Club Information Coordinator resigned from all three positions. Then, the President resigned.

The fires burn. Instead of running for the hose, the Club runs toward a fun logo contest for the members. Interestingly enough, the logo contest reminder reached the membership Wednesday evening, four days after the meeting and almost a full day before the President bothered to announce the resignations publicly.

Then something unexpected happened.

The members engaged.

What Are We Doing Here?

Unfortunately for the people who invented the logo contest project, they engaged to ask why anyone was doing it.

Absurdist 62 peers into the latest unfortunate confirmation of increasing entropy. Given the potentially transformative effect of the high-profile resignations, we remain cautiously optimistic that turnover in the Presidency and fresh blood on the Board might reverse the trend toward increasing organizational entropy. But transformations do not happen merely because two people resign. The machinery that produced the dysfunction remains in place, and the logo contest offers a timely demonstration of how that machinery establishes priorities without first asking the members what they actually want.

The Club wants to paint the wall knowing full well that termites are devouring it from within. We do not need to be pest-control engineers to understand the proper sequence: first restore structural integrity, then paint the wall.

Economic Priorities

Allocation of scarce resources lies at the foundation of economics. In the Club setting, the scarce resource is competent volunteer labor, measured in finite person-hours. Effective management therefore requires prioritizing those hours among competing organizational needs.

Recent resignations have made the scarcity considerably worse. The supply of experienced volunteer labor has contracted just as the demand for replacements has increased.

In an ordinary labor market, such an imbalance would raise the price of labor until supply and demand moved toward equilibrium. Club volunteers work for the princely wage of zero, so the price mechanism is unavailable. The shortage instead expresses itself through vacancies, overloaded volunteers, delayed work, and rationing of whatever talent remains.

The Club already spreads limited talent too thin. The Vice President, who is expected to become President, currently serves on two important standing committees and is Fifth Area Awards Manager. He is also Election Monitor. His succession would fill the presidential vacancy while creating a Vice Presidential vacancy and potentially requiring replacements for several committee assignments, an important area role, and yet another election monitor.

More Multiple Roles to Fill

Meanwhile, the departing Fourth Area Director also serves as Treasurer and Club Information Coordinator, producing three vacancies from one resignation.

Thus, what superficially appears to be two men leaving or changing roles can require the organization to replace or redistribute seven or eight functions.

We have not even counted the departure of our Centurion editor, who agreed to remain in place until a successor could be selected, yet failed to publish an August newsletter as of this writing. It would ordinarily have been issued on August 1. Whatever the reason, the function is effectively vacant and requires attention now, placing still another demand on the Club’s evaporating volunteer army.

Virgil’s resignation has already created one Election Monitor shortage. If leadership solves it merely by returning to the statutory minimum, Kirk’s succession could recreate the same shortage in November.

Finally, the NCS Training Coordinator recently tendered his resignation, leaving another significant job opening central to the Club’s main mission. Without new NCSs, the Club’s life blood, the nets, will suffer crippling attrition.

Eyeball R & R

One additional constraint makes all of this more urgent. The annual Eyeball arrives in mid-September. For several days before, during, and after the event, many of the Club’s most active members and volunteers will be traveling, operating mobile, socializing, and generally concentrating on the recreational activities for which the Club supposedly exists. Nobody should begrudge them that. But the practical effect will be a temporary contraction in the already limited supply of volunteer labor.

Thus, the Club does not really have the leisurely interval between August and October that the calendar suggests. Much of September will be disrupted by the Eyeball, Gary’s Treasurer resignation becomes effective September 30, and Dean departs one month later. The useful window for recruiting, vetting, transitioning, organizing elections, and correcting procedural damage is considerably narrower than it appears.

In economic terms, an already constrained labor market is about to suffer a perfectly predictable seasonal supply shock. This would be an especially poor time to manufacture optional demand for volunteer labor.

Immediate, Pressing Needs

In this section, we explore the Club’s immediate needs in greater detail.

Election Monitor

The Club needs a viable Election Monitor operation before the Fourth Area and likely Vice Presidential special elections can proceed. Virgil’s resignation left the Club below the minimum required complement. And with Kirk being the only remaining Election Monitor, he will likely depart upon becoming President, just in time for the required special election for Vice President.

The Club’s Election Monitor problem may not be a shortage of willing volunteers at all. Virgil tells us that after resigning he offered to resume the job if his services were still wanted. Nevertheless, the special meeting has been called to appoint Keon, an already-busy Area Director, while other members have also volunteered.

Apparently, even in a shrinking volunteer pool, some available labor remains less attractive than piling another job onto somebody already serving on the Board.

Unfortunately, leadership appears determined to solve the shortage by reaching back into the already overburdened Board rather than expanding the volunteer pool. Several members have volunteered or been recruited as Election Monitors. Johnny urged Dean to appoint more than the bare minimum of two, correctly observing that redundancy would provide continuity while giving willing members an opportunity to serve.

Instead, the announced plan appears to add Keon, already a sitting Area Director.

This is an odd way to manage scarce labor: when new supply appears voluntarily, ignore it and place additional demand on an already committed resource.

Fourth Area Director

Gary’s immediate resignation as Fourth Area Director creates a vacancy with more than six months remaining in the term. The bylaws require a special election, and they assign responsibility for calling it to the Chair.

The machinery finally began moving on August 14, when the Secretary announced that Clay had called a special Board meeting for August 17 to approve an Election Monitor and initiate the Fourth Area special election.

Naturally, even this simple announcement produced confusion. The Secretary stated that the agenda was attached. One member reported that it was not. Another member explained that “attached” meant included in the body of the message. Then an Area Director stated that he had received the actual attachment and offered to forward it.

Thus, before the special meeting could solve the election problem, the announcement managed to create an agenda problem.

Progress comes to the 3905 Century Club wearing clown shoes.

Repairing Motion 2026-08-A

This is a high-priority item that must be placed on the next properly noticed agenda on which it can lawfully be considered. If necessary, the Board should call a separate special meeting rather than allow the invalid action to linger until the Eyeball.

The Board violated the bylaws in several different ways in passing Motion 2026-08-A. They need to man up, recognize the egregious breach of Club governance, and vacate the passage of the motion.

What was wrong with it? Let me count the ways.

First, it should not have appeared on the agenda without review by the Bylaws Committee. This is not optional. It is required that the Chair route it through the Bylaws Committee—before it is published on the agenda. He did not. Second, he could have corrected his oversight by deleting the motion from the agenda. He did not. A Director moved to table the motion to send it to the Bylaws Committee. That motion was defeated by Directors apparently more interested in getting the matter disposed of than following the procedure designed for exactly this purpose.

Perhaps someone was late for Mahjongg.

Next, the Board changed the wording from the floor, although changes from the floor affecting the bylaws cannot simply be adopted without the required committee review. They convinced each other that this was properly done, because the author of the motion was sitting there and agreed to the wording change. The Secretary and President were there, and they both agreed. Golly, gee, wow—we don’t need no steenking Bylaws Committee!

So, they passed it as amended.

Ex Post Facto Boondoggle

Then, Mac asked the author, “Will this still go to the Bylaws Committee?”

Gary, the author, said, “Yes.”

So what the hell is the Bylaws Committee supposed to do with a motion the Board has already passed? It cannot retroactively perform the review that was required before Board action. If it recommends different wording, the approved wording already exists. But if it recommends rejection, the Board has already approved it. If it approves the language exactly as passed, the exercise becomes nothing more than a ceremonial rubber stamp.

Bullshit!

The Board must vacate its August 8 action at the very next meeting and explicitly declare that the vote did not effect a valid amendment to the bylaws. If necessary, call a special meeting specifically to correct it. They must vote to fix what they screwed up. If they do not, the Club might as well tear up the bylaws and wing it.

Once the improper August 8 action is vacated, the proposed amendment can be redrafted as necessary and processed through the proper procedure: Bylaws Committee review first, publication on the agenda second, and Board consideration last. Vacating the earlier action is also important because the bylaws ordinarily prohibit reconsideration of an issue voted upon during the preceding six months. If the August vote is expressly declared procedurally invalid, there should be no valid prior action to trigger that moratorium.

Otherwise, the Board could compound one procedural violation by using the consequences of that violation to prevent itself from correcting it.

If it is not corrected at a separately noticed special meeting and instead reaches the Eyeball agenda, so much the better. Publicly acknowledging and repairing the mistake might provide exactly the institutional embarrassment needed to discourage a repeat performance.

Treasurer and Financial Transition

Dean’s belated announcement of Gary’s resignation as Treasurer contained a small but significant surprise. Whereas Gary’s public resignation at the August Board meeting specified August 31 as his departure date, someone apparently persuaded him to give the Club another month. Dean now reports Gary’s Treasurer resignation as effective September 30.

That is a more reasonable time frame for selection of a candidate with appropriate skills and verifiable integrity from that evanescent volunteer pool. Furthermore, the Audit Committee must perform an audit within sixty days of the position becoming vacant. The bylaws wording seems to require a vacancy, but probably should be changed to read “resignation, removal, or replacement of the Treasurer.” We hope the position does not become vacant at any point.

Thus, another hidden resource cost accompanies the Treasurer turnover: Audit Committee labor. The committee presently consists of Craig, already an Area Director, and Johnny, already Fourth Area Awards Manager and a member of both the Bylaws and Awards Committees. The Club does not merely need another Treasurer. Replacing one creates additional work for volunteers whose labor is already spoken for.

One vacancy therefore consumes labor well beyond the position being filled.

Club Information Coordinator

This position will likely be deferred or absorbed by someone already serving in another capacity. Before the worldwide web rendered much of the job obsolete, the Club Information Officer, now called the Club Information Coordinator, served as a member liaison, mailing information packets, award applications, newsletters, and other Club material to members.

As those functions migrated to the website, the position became less essential and increasingly open to individual interpretation and creativity. Today, most of its remaining practical functions could probably be absorbed by the President and webmaster without serious disruption.

Centurion Editor

The position of Centurion Editor and Publisher involves real work. Unlike Information Coordinator, this job is not one that can be absorbed casually by someone already performing another Club function. The editor must solicit content, edit submissions, handle layout and graphic design, assemble a coherent publication, and meet publication deadlines. Whoever takes the job must be a persuasive self-starter with demonstrated writing, editing, graphic design, and production skills.

Centurion Editor has suffered significant turnover since 2018. Five editors have come and gone, accompanied by substantial gaps in the publication schedule. This is therefore not simply another empty box on the organization chart. It is a demanding position with a demonstrated retention problem, and the Club must now find another qualified volunteer in that rapidly evaporating pond of tired fish.

NCS Training Coordinator

Joe St. Columbia, N5MIG, did a wonderful job in this position for a decade. He deserves the Club’s thanks for all the work he put into the training materials and particularly, for all the NCSs he brought on board. This is not a ceremonial function. It requires significant work and a heavy time commitment. The individual chosen for it must possess the special qualities necessary to be a great teacher, including patience and excellent communication skills.

Presidential Transition

Dean stated that much of the remaining time between his resignation announcement on August 8 and his departure on October 31 would be devoted to transition, clearly proceeding on the assumption that Kirk will succeed him. That decision, however, belongs to Kirk, and we have not yet seen a definitive announcement from him.

Assuming Kirk does succeed Dean, the transition itself will divert time from his work on two standing committees, placing additional burdens on the remaining members of those committees.

More importantly, the transition will require a substantial transfer of institutional knowledge. That task would be considerably easier had the Club ever implemented the formal Operations Manual mandated by a 2010 Board motion and subsequently neglected through multiple Presidents and Boards of Directors. Without such a manual, procedures, responsibilities, credentials, dependencies, and miscellaneous loose ends must instead be transferred piecemeal from one human memory to another.

Sixteen years of avoiding documentation now comes due as transition labor. Some institutional knowledge will almost certainly be lost along the way.

The Club did not eliminate the cost of documenting its operations. It merely deferred the cost, added interest, and presented the bill to Kirk.

Vice President Special Election

Assuming Kirk succeeds Dean as the Club’s twenty-first President, the Chair will need to call yet another special election, this time for Vice President. The election must field at least two and no more than eleven candidates. We suspect a few members will be willing to run, so finding candidates should not place much additional strain on the Club’s dwindling volunteer resources.

We also expect some candidates to be attracted primarily by the title and a vote on the Board. Club folklore tends to portray the Vice Presidency as requiring little more than attending Board meetings and waiting for the President to disappear, resign, or otherwise cease being President.

The bylaws inconveniently say otherwise.

Among the Vice President’s actual duties is responsibility for maintaining the Club Operations Manual discussed above. Given that the required manual has remained unfinished for sixteen years, we hope the next Vice President regards that obligation as something more than decorative bylaw prose and finally completes the damn thing.

Knowledge that the office involves actual work might discourage a few title-seekers. Others may simply ignore the bylaws and opt to vie for the title anyway.

In this Club, that has become less an aberration than an operating procedure. Monkey see, monkey do.

Kirk’s Responsibilities

If Kirk becomes President as of November 1, he will have some serious pruning to do. In addition to serving as Vice President, he currently chairs the NCS Guide Workgroup, serves as Fifth Area Awards Manager, and is currently the Club’s sole remaining Election Monitor.

No rule requires him to abandon all those positions upon becoming President, but common sense strongly suggests that several will have to go. The Presidency will bring a multitude of new responsibilities, and Kirk will presumably want to devote much of his time to righting a rusting ship with a leaky hull rather than continuing to occupy half the organizational chart.

His Bylaws and Awards Committee positions present the most obvious candidates for reassignment. Both committees have specific membership qualifications, which further narrows the pool of eligible replacements. These are not ceremonial bodies. The Bylaws Committee is supposed to prevent precisely the kind of procedural nonsense we just witnessed with Motion 2026-08-A, while the Awards Committee oversees the program around which most Club activity revolves. Especially with a dysfunctional Board, both need knowledgeable, independent members capable of keeping the organization functional.

The NCS Guide Workgroup presents a somewhat different problem. Kirk chairs that effort and has estimated that the revised Guide should be completed within five or six weeks. If that timetable holds, the project might mercifully reach completion before he assumes the Presidency. If it slips, someone else will either have to take over or Kirk will enter office dragging another unfinished project behind him.

A Major Area Role

Then there is his job as Fifth Area Awards Manager, which we almost overlooked in our inventory of volunteer scarcity. If Kirk relinquishes that position, the bylaws require the Fifth Area Director to appoint his replacement.

That would be Clay.

Yes, that Clay.

Thus, one small piece of the presidential transition would fall to the same man whose difficulties managing a major area of his existing responsibilities occupy an entire section below.

Kirk’s elevation therefore does more than create a Vice Presidential vacancy. It potentially creates vacancies or handoffs in two standing committees, an Area Awards Manager position, and an important workgroup project already approaching its deadline.

One promotion can ripple through six separate Club functions.

And somebody wants to spend volunteer labor redesigning the logo.

Replacing the Board Chair

Replacing a Board Chair who cannot even arrive at a meeting with the correct agenda, loses information, and stumbles through the conduct of routine meetings should have become a Board priority long ago. Yet Clay remains in place while the deficiencies accumulate.

We hope the Board comes to its senses and addresses this obvious and increasingly embarrassing problem well before Dean’s departure. If past performance predicts future nonsense, however, the Directors will avoid any action they regard as unpleasant or unseemly.

In simpler language, they seem unable to make difficult adult decisions.

It is also possible that Clay will leave voluntarily, perhaps after Dean returns to private life. With the leadership structure changing around him, he may recognize that the time has come for someone else to take the chair.

Or maybe not.

Work First on the Camels

The latest suggestion is to appoint a Parliamentarian to help the Board follow procedure. This is well intended, but it illustrates another form of organizational resource inflation. The bylaws already assign that responsibility to the Chairman. Motion 2026-08-A did not slip through because nobody recognized the problem. A Director identified it. The Board ignored him.

The solution to an officer failing to perform his assigned duty is not necessarily to recruit another volunteer to stand beside him and perform it for him. Already, Doug presumably does the lion’s share of work on the agenda. Appointing a Parliamentarian to subsume another major responsibility of the Chair misses the point.

The Club decided many years ago not to adopt Robert’s Rules of Order. More important, the Motion 2026-08-A defect was identified during the August meeting and ignored. Craig identified the applicable procedural defect during the meeting, but the Board chose not to heed him.

Find a functional Chair, one who can read and comprehend the bylaws and run meetings accordingly.

Or perhaps the Board will continue coddling an ineffective Chair through another round of confused agendas, lost information, procedural improvisation, and poorly managed meetings.

He’s a nice guy, after all.

Engaging Members

The Fourth Area is emerging as a model of what member engagement should look like after languishing for four years. Even before nominations for Director candidates take place, two potential Directors are opening up communication lines with members. And they are not pontificating. Between them, they are opening communication in both directions: asking members for input while keeping them informed of current Club events.

For example, Ken, K9TPT asked members what is working, what is not, what they expect from their Director, and whether they would help.

Meanwhile Dave, AI4K, has been circulating concrete information about the coming special election, the election-monitor problem, and the Treasurer vacancy.

That is two-way engagement, not merely broadcasting.

Member apathy turns out to be surprisingly curable. The experimental treatment consists of asking members what they think before making the decision.

An Increasingly Insular Board

Our current Board has largely withdrawn into its shell, treating members’ needs as secondary to their own. The Board is not there to serve the Board. It is there to serve the members. The current Board is developing a dangerous habit of retreating behind closed doors to reach agreement among itself rather than conducting its deliberations openly before the members it represents.

In his resignation speech, Dean stated, “We’re not focused on our members.” Speaking to the Board in the first-person plural, he included himself in that indictment. With few exceptions, the diagnosis fits. The Board would rather issue edicts from on high than respond to member input.

Did the members ever ask for a new logo?

Nobody first asked whether the existing logo presented a problem. Nobody surveyed the membership to determine whether change was desired. Instead, leadership skipped directly to the implementation question: who wants to design a replacement?

The Club did not ask, “Do you want a new logo?” It asked, “Who wants to design one?” Those are very different forms of member engagement.

Member engagement should help determine priorities before leadership commits resources to them. When consultation comes only after resistance appears, it is not engagement. It is damage control.

Logo Contest

(this space intentionally left blank)

In Conclusion

Despite everything documented above, we do not believe the Club is doomed. Quite the opposite. Most of the problems confronting it this fall are solvable, and several encouraging signs have already appeared.

Members are volunteering. Potential Directors are talking with their constituents. Long-dormant Fourth Area communication is coming back to life. Experienced people remain available, and an infusion of new talent could greatly expand the Club’s painfully shallow volunteer pool. Existing leaders who understand the problems can provide continuity while newcomers bring fresh ideas, energy, and fewer scars from old battles.

The ingredients for recovery are sitting on the table.

What remains in short supply is the willingness to do the hard work.

That means filling important vacancies with qualified people rather than merely convenient ones. It means conducting elections promptly and fairly. It also means correcting Motion 2026-08-A instead of pretending an ex post facto committee blessing will cure an illegal process. And it means transferring presidential knowledge before it evaporates, finishing the Operations Manual that should have existed sixteen years ago, strengthening the committees that protect institutional integrity, and confronting poor performance instead of creating additional positions to compensate for it.

Respect the Members

Above all, it means listening to members.

Do not retreat into private rooms to decide what is best for them. Moreover, do not confuse internal Board consensus with member support. Finally, do not complain about apathy while ignoring volunteers who raise their hands. Ask members what they want before deciding what they ought to want.

The Fourth Area is beginning to demonstrate how quickly supposed apathy can disappear when members are treated as constituents rather than spectators.

None of this requires revolutionary genius. It requires priorities, discipline, transparency, documentation, communication, and the willingness to make difficult decisions that might leave somebody unhappy. That is what governing organizations are supposed to do.

What they are not supposed to do is distract themselves with cosmetic projects while structural problems pile up behind the wallpaper.

Now Is the Time

The Club has a narrow window this fall to put its house in order. Use it. Hold the elections. Fill the vacancies. Repair the governance damage. Complete unfinished work. Transfer institutional knowledge. Bring new people into meaningful roles. Listen to the members who have suddenly rediscovered their voices.

Do the unpleasant work now.

Because 2027 should be different.

The fiftieth anniversary ought to be a year when members can concentrate on operating, collecting awards, attending nets and Eyeballs, renewing old friendships, making new ones, and generally enjoying the organization they joined in the first place. It should not be another year consumed by procedural crises, resignations, backdoor deliberations, missing reports, and arguments over who was supposed to do what.

There will be plenty of time for fun after the kitchen fire is extinguished.

And once the termites are gone, the structure is sound, and the members have been asked what they think, we can even discuss the draperies.

Maybe they’ll like the ones we already have.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 62: Lovely Draperies, but What’s That Smell? appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Recently, the Board has acted like a wayward teenager seeking to forestall real-world responsibilities. It bumbles ineptly through meetings, botches procedures, acts like it does not want to be there, and retreats to closed-door sessions to assuage the embarrassment of exposing its ineptitude to public view.

What goes on there is anyone’s guess.

The August meeting offered something rare: the patient began describing his own symptoms. Directors complained about broken processes, spoke openly of backdoor deals, dismissed member opinion, demonstrated unfamiliarity with their own agenda, and finally acknowledged that the Club was not focused on its members.

Vox Incommoda hardly needed to diagnose anything. The Board was doing it for us.

As a non-participant, it was hard to resist the urge to open the microphone and tell them to go back to their seats and put their heads down for nap time before cookies and milk.

Absurdist 61 presents a comprehensive analysis of the August 8 Board meeting. Load up an urn of your favorite caffeine-laden beverage. You’re going to need it.

The Chair and the Agenda

Clay Mayrose, WA6LBU, is the Chairman of the Board. Among other responsibilities, he runs Board meetings.

Well, sort of.

Clay managed to get through the roll call without any serious issues. We applaud him on his roll calling ability, which is where he should have quit while he was ahead.

Despite odds stacked strongly against him, he dutifully carried on.

Next, the June minutes were up for approval. Were there any comments?

Yes.

Doug said, “I think the June minutes were accepted last month.”

Bemusedly, Clay protested that he was looking at the agenda, which said the June minutes were up for approval. Doug then corrected him, saying he was looking at the preliminary agenda, not the latest updated one.

Clay is charged with overseeing production of the agenda. Yet the man responsible for the agenda apparently encountered the final version only after calling the meeting to order.

The Scavenger Hunt

Clay said he could not get the agenda from the Board web page and he went looking for it through other means. He implied that his comprehensive search came up empty.

Doug offered to send him the update. The meeting was suspended while the email transfer took place. This ridiculously inept opening stanza set the tone for the rest of the meeting.

The recurring pattern we have observed strongly suggests that Doug assembles the packet while Clay exercises little meaningful oversight until meeting time.

Clay eventually got the updated packet, which had been reordered. He finally located the agenda. The meeting was interrupted for a few minutes while all this nonsense was sorted out.

And it came to pass in the end of days that the July minutes were approved unanimously, albeit anticlimactically. As were the financials. Eventually.

What Reports?

Next came reports. An interested Board would have questioned why there was no substantive President’s Report, no Awards Committee Report, and no Eyeball Progress Report. This Board had no questions. Apparently, only the Tenth Area Director cares about missing or deficient reports, and he is tired of blowing wind about them when everyone else has already left the building mentally.

Old Business: Logo and Discord Reprise

The Board slept through Gene’s report of the logo contest, which has thus far yielded three entries, but still no Board vote, which was to have happened in either May, June, or July depending on who mentioned it at what time. Most recently, the vote was to have occurred at the July meeting. However, in July, the logo issue did not even appear on the agenda. Apparently, someone forgot. Now, they appear to have forgotten that they were going to vote.

Next month, we think they might forget that they forgot to vote or they might forget about the entire affair. Too many Eyeball donuts and pizza can act like opiates.

Then, there is the Discord project, which appears to be dead. Gary said they were looking at other alternatives. But given Gary’s and Dean’s resignations, I would suggest laying a wreath on this project.

Motion 2026-08-A: A Procedural Boondoggle

This motion by Gary would restore a flawed but superseded 2021 bylaws provision that put the President in charge of all Club volunteers including the Vice President, except for elected officers. That language was self-contradictory because the Vice President is an elected officer. Restoring it would undo the correction of a serious error.

Furthermore, by rule this motion should not have been accepted for publication in the agenda. Because it was flagged as a bylaws amendment, the Chair is required to route it through the Bylaws Committee. In yet another unsurprising display of procedural incompetence, Clay failed to do so.

Why?

Because he probably never saw it.

It was probably submitted to Doug, who put it on the agenda. Clay, as Board Chair, bears ultimate responsibility for what appears on the agenda, but in practice it appears that Doug serves that role. Unfortunately, he errs on the side of inclusion. Motions that have no business being on the agenda nevertheless persist there, creating angst and confusion among already befuddled Board members.

Applying the Procedural Monkey Wrench

The Board itself compounded the problem. A motion to table because of conflicting language and the need for Bylaws Committee review failed. Then someone suggested that they could amend the motion with another motion from the floor.

Craig, one of the few Directors who consistently demonstrates familiarity with the bylaws, correctly noted that motions from the floor were not valid for issues affecting the bylaws.

The Board improvised nonetheless. Doug presented revised language removing the Vice President, Dean agreed with the change, and Gary, the author, accepted it.

If this does not sound Kosher, it isn’t.

The required sequence was committee review, agenda, Board consideration. The Board managed to invert it into agenda, amendment, passage, and perhaps committee review afterward.

Bye-bye bylaws.

The motion passed as amended. But wait, there’s more!

Then, Mac asked Gary whether it still needed to go to the Bylaws Committee. Gary said yes.

So, let’s sum this up. First we pass the bylaw change. Then we ask the Bylaws Committee whether it was a good idea.

Weird.

Historical Revisionism

During the discussion of Motion 2026-08-A, Clay commented that the prior Bylaws Committee had “mistakenly” removed the verbiage, therefore “stripping the President of pretty much everything he does.” That is especially rich, given that Johnny Allen, KI4WCQ, a member of both the prior and current Bylaws Committee, had offered Gary documentary proof days earlier refuting the claim that the removal was inadvertent. The deletion was indeed deliberate and part of the unanimously adopted 2024 rewrite.

Here you have the Chair confidently supplying a false legislative history while sitting atop a process that never obtained the required committee history in the first place. Clay’s version of history becomes especially difficult to reconcile with the inconvenient fact that, as Fifth Area Director, he voted for the 2024 rewrite himself. Human beings really do build irony factories without permits.

The egg on the Chairman’s face solidifies.

Motions 2026-08-B, C, and D

All of these motions were Dean’s and he withdrew them all. So three of the five controversial motions disappeared before a vote. We cannot know whether reflector opposition caused Dean to withdraw them. We can observe that significant public criticism preceded their disappearance.

At minimum, the sequence demonstrates why public engagement matters.

Motion 2026-08-E: The Buddy Motion

Craig explicitly connected the last motion of the evening to W3BS, prior disruption, and an attempted presidential policy change for one member.

Gary simultaneously called the proposed Masters privilege “a nice perk” and supported tabling it because the NCS group was already working on the issue.

The motion called for immediate implementation, short-circuiting the default cycle, which would have made the rule change effective on September 1. Apparently, that was not soon enough for this non-issue, which certainly appeared to be a reactionary attempt to resolve a dispute centered on one troublesome member.

The discussion of this motion rambled far afield, requiring a superhuman effort on our part to scrawl out three pages of notes to record the highly nuanced discussion while averting the serious possibility of blowing a brain gasket.

Keon Hayes, KE3HAY, Third Area Director, touched on “a broken process.” He meant the process surrounding the dispute. But the phrase applied equally well to the Board’s handling of the motion itself.

Second Area Director Peter Summers, N2XTT said it can’t be tabled until next month because it is the Eyeball.

Then Dean asked: “Where does it say we can’t bring it to the Eyeball?”

Peter replied, “Not enough directors.”

And it went on for a while longer, pressing against tolerability limits.

Mercifully, the motion was ultimately tabled indefinitely. In other words, after all that urgency, the Board finally discovered the committee process already under way.

More Questions than Answers

As if the prior discussion of “The Buddy Motion” was not nauseating enough, Buddy would be pleased to note that he inspired further significant wasted time in the Question and Answer period.

Keon’s pontification managed to transform the member whose conduct generated the controversy into a victim of a broken process. He continually pounded the broken system, but as usual, offered no substantive solutions other than a patronizing suggestion that, “we need to sit down like grown men, not like we’re in high school…”

Roger wanted the charges against Buddy to be revived for this meeting, but procedural snafus on both Roger and the Chair kept that from happening. Thus, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight was primed for another vacuous discussion that would yield a bumper crop of low-hanging fruit for Vox Incommoda.

The Virgil Complaint Dysfunction

The complaint should never have appeared on the agenda in July. The referral did not follow the required procedure for resolving disputes before bringing the matter to the Board. Yet, it was allowed on the agenda.

The Chair bears responsibility for the agenda and for ensuring that motions receive the required review before they reach it.

Its appearance on the agenda demonstrates the failure of Clay’s required review function, whether he actually reviewed the motion or, as the recurring pattern suggests, simply allowed it to pass through unchecked. In practice, we believe Club Secretary Doug prepares the agenda with little or no involvement by Clay.

When the motion came up during the July meeting, Clay declared that it had been removed because it did not belong there in the first place.

But the ineptitude did not end there.

The Failed Reprise

Roger wanted it back on the agenda for August, because the disciplinary procedure specified by the Bylaws requires a 30-day series of conversations between affected Area Directors and members. Thirty days transpired with no resolution. He sent it to Clay.

Clay said he got it but he did not do anything with it. He unnecessarily took responsibility for that.

Doug could not resist interjecting that if Roger sent it during the week, it would have been too late for the five-day advance agenda deadline. We do not know which day Roger sent the motion to Clay, but if it was on Monday before 9 PM, it would have made the deadline.

Then, Craig suggested that it still could be considered using a floor motion to bring it to the Board even though it was not on the agenda.

That was the springboard for more discussion, more pontification, and more procedural incompetence on parade. The discussion wandered through Buddy, Virgil, double jeopardy, NCS discretion, prior punishment, AIM conduct, Constitutional rights, and whether the entire system is broken.

Nobody knew quite how the matter should reach the Board, but nearly everybody had a lengthy opinion about what the Board should do once it got there.

Keon’s Comment Says a Mouthful (of Foot)

In his diatribe opposing “double jeopardy” and punishment not befitting of the crime, Keon’s seemingly interminable harangue eventually wound down when his brain caught up to his mouth. He stated that the Board needs to have “one of these round-tables” where we can hash these things out and decide.

He was referring to the now infamous July 22 Directors-only meeting, which we opined was a violation of bylaws and warned should not happen again.

Keon then voiced what may prove to be the quotation of the evening: “There have been rumors of other things going on, driving, pushing, but—well, they’re not on the Board. I could care less.”

There you have it. This is the dysfunctional Board behavior we have been decrying here straight through the Absurdist Papers. Directors have ceased to regard members as constituents. Instead, they treat the Board as their real peer group.

In those few words, Keon articulated the very governance inversion we have spent sixty papers describing.

Perhaps this is why he chose to ignore that one of the complaints against W3BS emanated from a member in his own area.

Let’s Take This Off-Line

As Board members slogged through yet more bilious and redundant discussion, Craig suggested that they take the matter off-line. Later, Craig would say the Club needed to stop doing backdoor deals and start following the rules. Same Director, different states.

There, in miniature, was the struggle taking place inside this Board: even a Director who recognizes the disease still occasionally reaches for the infected instrument.

A special Board meeting, by any other name, when conducted behind closed doors in violation of the bylaws, would smell as foul.

So, here we go again.

But it was a good way to get them all to shut up and move on, if nothing else.

And Finally, the Resignations

We covered resignations by Gary and Dean in Absurdist 60. To recap, Gary resigned as Fourth Area Director effective immediately and as Treasurer and Club Information Coordinator as of August 31. Dean resigned as President effective October 31.

While we do not know Gary’s actual motivation, we will note here that Gary’s announcement occurred after a week of vocal, public opposition by area members. He also said that serving was no longer fun for him. The August meeting offered ample evidence of why that might be so.

During Dean’s resignation statement, he agreed with Gary that it was no longer fun. He lamented, “We’re not focused on our members.” We reached that same conclusion before we started writing The Absurdist Papers, and it has been a recurring theme throughout the series.

So, there we have it.

Out of the horse’s mouth.

We’re not focused on our members.

Thank you, Dean.

In Conclusion

Before the long-awaited motion to adjourn and subsequent mass exit, Craig offered what may have been the evening’s most useful diagnosis. We’ll get to that soon. It provides a suitable conclusion to this essay.

The last word came from Kirk, the putative President as of November 1.

He closed with a simple observation: “This is a good time to pull together.”

It is.

But pulling together cannot mean retreating into private rooms until Directors agree with one another. It must mean pulling the Board back toward the members it exists to represent.

That is where Craig’s parting words resonate. As de facto organizational physician, his clinical notes provide a good working diagnosis.

“I think we are in a bad, bad position. But folks, I honestly believe we brought us there. Follow some rules. That’s it. Stop trying to shortchange things. Stop trying to push things through. Stop trying to do backdoor deals.”

—Craig McLoughlin, VE3CMB

Amen. Craig gets it, we think.

But he must now practice what he preaches. Will he?

Otherwise, this was not self-diagnosis.

It was merely another recital of symptoms.

The treatment plan should call for a transfusion of fresh blood on the Board and a radical chairectomy.

After this Absurdist Paper had been put to bed, inspired by some user comments, we felt the need to add something we found hilarious. It is the most blatant example of institutional amnesia associated with the August meeting. Here’s hoping my readers are similarly titillated.

The Policy Apparently Arrived from Outer Space

During the August discussion, Keon and Craig expressed considerable alarm over the severity of the Club’s disciplinary provisions, particularly the six-month censure period and the possibility of revocation following a second offense.

We therefore consulted the archaeological record.

On April 13, 2019, the Board adopted Motion 03_2019_04, creating those provisions. The motion deliberately established six-month censure as a less draconian alternative to immediate expulsion and expressly provided that a second offense could trigger revocation.

Keon voted for it.

Craig voted for it.

Apparently the policy has become much more frightening since they stopped remembering where it came from.

Vox Incommoda possesses unusually good information about the legislative intent. He wrote it.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 61: Self-Diagnosis appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Vox Incommoda was beginning to contemplate unconsciousness when the bombshells dropped.

Two prominent resignations.

Absurdist 60 chooses to view these developments optimistically, although we may soon have fewer dead horses to beat. We are encouraged that the Club may have reached a turning point marking the beginning of a reversal in its increasing organizational entropy.

Some hardship will inevitably follow as roles are rearranged, elections are held, records are transferred, and leadership transitions take place.

Such is the price of progress.

These resignations will require firm management by the Board, strict adherence to the Constitution and Bylaws, and something that has occasionally been in short supply: Adult behavior.

One Note of Caution

During the meeting, some Directors again suggested that they need more private sessions outside the view of the membership.

That would be a step backward.

One Director said, in substance, that he had heard negative comments about what the Board was doing, but because those comments did not come from another Director, he did not particularly care.

That attitude is precisely the problem.

Directors do not represent other Directors. They represent members.

Closed-door governance, elitist insulation, and the notion that criticism matters only when it originates inside the Board room must end if tonight’s developments are to mean anything.

So, Who Resigned Already?

Sorry to keep you in suspense.

Gary Slagle, K9GWS, announced his resignation as Fourth Area Director, Treasurer, Member Communications and Services Manager, and apparently every other Club leadership position he holds except Net Coordinator.

Several Directors asked him to reconsider.

He will not.

Then, immediately afterward, Dean Davis, KL7OR, announced his resignation as President effective October 31.

Dean said he intends to spend his remaining time bringing Vice President Kirk Frazier, AA1NA, up to speed.

No one asked Dean to reconsider.

Make of that what you will.

Paths Forward

The most immediately critical vacancy will be Treasurer. Gary says his resignation from that office becomes effective August 31.

A successor must be nominated and approved by the Board quickly enough to ensure an orderly transfer of bank access, accounting records, PayPal, financial files, outstanding obligations, and whatever other financial machinery exists behind the curtain.

Gary’s departure also automatically triggers an Audit Committee review of the Club’s financial records within sixty days.

That is not an inconvenience.

It is a safeguard, and under present circumstances, a very useful one.

Gary’s departure as Fourth Area Director creates another mandatory process. Because more than six months remain in his term, the bylaws require a special election.

The Fourth Area, whose members just spent a week demanding representation from their Area Director, will now have the opportunity to choose his replacement.

We hope they choose wisely.

Competence over popularity would be refreshing.

Presidential Succession

Dean’s October 31 resignation creates a different succession path.

Under the bylaws, the Vice President assumes the office of President when the President can no longer serve. Thus, unless Kirk is unwilling or unable to accept the presidency, he becomes President when Dean leaves.

If Kirk succeeds Dean, the resulting Vice Presidential vacancy requires a special election.

If Kirk declines or is unable to assume the presidency, then a special election for President is required instead.

Either way, the membership should have an opportunity to participate in choosing at least one major new Club officer.

A genuinely contested election with legitimate candidates would be a healthy sign.

A single-candidate coronation, or a real candidate opposed only by a ceremonial shill, would not.

The Next Election Cycle

There is a larger opportunity coming.

The Club will elect the odd-numbered and DX Area Directors in the coming regular election cycle.

If concerned members can field credible candidates against complacent incumbents in several Areas, the composition and culture of the Board could change substantially in a remarkably short period.

That is cause for hope.

The important thing is not replacing one faction with another.

It is rebuilding a Board populated by Directors who understand whom they represent, read the governing documents, tolerate disagreement, communicate with their members, and recognize that the President works for the Board rather than the reverse.

An Abatement of Entropy?

Systems can tolerate dysfunction for years while individual failures remain isolated.

Once those failures become connected, documented, discussed openly, and recognized as manifestations of the same structural problem, the old equilibrium can collapse very quickly.

For months, we have been describing accumulated organizational entropy. Tonight may have marked a phase transition.

But phase transitions are messy. The old order losing stability does not guarantee that the new one will be better.

Sometimes the ice melts. Sometimes the reactor vessel breaches.

Human organizations, inconveniently, provide no phase diagram. So we are hopeful, but not yet celebratory.

The real test begins now: succession, elections, financial continuity, transparent governance, competent records, and whether the Board finally learns to act like a Board.

Vox Incommoda may indeed need a new job.

Unfortunately for his retirement plans, the Club must first demonstrate sustained competence.

And what about the meeting itself, you ask?

It will take us a while to climb out of the bomb crater and decipher eight-and-a-half hastily written pages of notes. Nearly two hours of posturing, procedural confusion, and only occasional flashes of intelligent reasoning produced remarkably little of substance.

We will return soon. The fallout from these resignations may mark the beginning of an energetic Club resurgence, or merely another stage in its descent.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 60: Been Good to Know You appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

We will not review our positions on agenda items here. Interested readers can find them in Absurdist 57 and Absurdist 58.

Here, we address leadership, or lack thereof.

Some Mice That Roared

“Strong leaders step into the light and defend their decisions.
Mice look for another hole in the wall.”

Something is rustling in the Fourth Area walls. Unfortunately, it is not the Area Director.

When the agenda was released, members smelled a rat. Several prominent voices were moved to comment negatively on the business at hand, particularly a consequential motion authored by their own Area Director, Gary Slagle, K9GWS.

Their chosen vehicle for comments is the Fourth Area reflector, which is owned and managed by Gary.

Members Squeak Up

The first comments appeared on August 3 from Johnny Allen, KI4WCQ, Master #52, a member of both the Bylaws and Awards Committees and an Area Awards Manager appointed by Gary. His thorough critique of the motions was later supported and amplified by other Fourth Area members.

My alter ego, Ben Goldfarb, AE4NT, former Fourth Area Director, Awards Secretary, Bylaws Committee member, and Awards Committee Chair, expressed similar reservations and added several others.

Next came Debbie Yarbrough, K9DBB, a well-engaged member, co-DX Bureau Manager, and member of the NCS Guide Review Workgroup. She reported that both she and her husband, Dave Yarbrough, AI4K, agreed with Johnny’s assessment.

That is particularly significant because Dave is Gary’s own appointed Assistant Area Director.

Then Jeff McCulloch, K4JEL, Master #83, an NCS and constant presence on the nets, expressed agreement with Johnny and Ben.

On Friday, August 7, AE4NT directly asked Gary to respond to his members.

And the response?

Silence.

Later that day, Jim Higgins, KB3PU, former Fourth Area Director, Awards Committee Chair, Club Information Officer, and possessor of more former titles than we care to type, thanked Johnny and Ben for their analysis. He expressed profound disappointment in both the Board and Gary, described the Club’s direction as increasingly monarchical, and urged Gary to vote NO on all five motions.

Still nothing from Gary.

Smart As a Shithouse Rat

Then came a particularly canny observation from Ken Simmons, K9TPT.

Ken wondered why Gary is advertised on the Club website as the Member Communications and Services Manager, the person prospective members are told to contact for information, when he will not respond to members of his own Area.

That is indeed a brilliant little observation.

Presumably, responding to a prospective member can be accomplished with boilerplate. Responding to constituents who are challenging your judgment requires thought, explanation, and perhaps a touch of fortitude.

So far, Gary has supplied none of them.

He remains as quiet as a mouse.

The Silent Representative

Gary last provided Area members with a substantive pre-meeting briefing in December. Since then, his participation on the reflector has been negligible.

I believe the first obligation of an Area Director is to serve the members who elected him. Everything else, including service on the Board, follows from that responsibility.

Service requires communication.

The Fourth Area reflector exists precisely to provide it.

Representative government does not require obedience to constituents. Directors are elected to exercise judgment, not conduct continuous opinion polling.

But representation does require listening, explaining, and occasionally having the courage to admit that the people you represent have made the better argument.

A Director can avoid all that cumbersome interaction, of course.

He can remain in the mouse hole.

From Bunker to Silence

Gary organized the private July 22 gathering of Directors to discuss engagement, mission, priorities, direction, and doing their jobs.

Weeks later, members of his own Area are openly asking him questions about Board business and receiving silence.

Whatever “engagement” meant inside the bunker, it apparently has not yet migrated to the Fourth Area reflector.

This is precisely why we remain suspicious of private governance sessions built around words such as “alignment,” “consensus,” and “common mission.”

The danger is that Directors begin viewing their primary constituency as the other Directors rather than the members who elected them. Consensus inside the Board room then becomes more important than explaining positions outside it.

If private consensus becomes the governing model, the public meeting risks becoming performance rather than deliberation, with Directors arriving already aligned and constituents reduced to spectators.

We do not know that this is what happened on July 22.

But Gary’s continuing silence does nothing to dispel the concern.

We still smell a rat.

How It Used to Work

When I became Area Director, I created the Fourth Area reflector in February 2017 and turned it over to Gary when I stepped down in 2022.

The purpose was simple: communication.

Before Board meetings, I briefed members on the agenda, explained my thinking on motions, and usually told them how I expected to vote. Sometimes members agreed. Sometimes they did not.

Occasionally, someone pointed out a flaw I had missed.

When that happened and the argument made sense, I changed my position.

I did not regard changing my mind as weakness. I regarded it as evidence that the representative system had worked.

The reflector also gave members a place to discuss general Club issues and ask difficult questions. Agree or disagree, the Director should participate.

This is not offered as evidence that I was Mighty Mouse.

It was simply the job.

We Used to Listen to Members

A glaring example of how this relationship should work occurred in 2014, and it is particularly relevant because it involved the Fourth Area.

Jim Higgins was then Fourth Area Director. He brought a motion concerning “on the line” contacts. The proposal had already generated considerable member discussion before the July Eyeball Board meeting in De Pere, Wisconsin.

Jim addressed the live audience and then did something that today’s leadership might find extraordinary.

He voted against his own motion.

The official minutes explain why:

“In voting ‘nay,’ Jim, KB3PU, was representing the wishes of his 4th area constituents.”

His own motion then failed unanimously.

Jim did not hide from criticism, declare that the members lacked the full picture, or retreat into a private Directors’ workgroup to manufacture consensus.

He stood before a live Eyeball audience, acknowledged what his constituents wanted, and voted against his own proposal.

He lost his motion.

He gained something more important.

Credibility.

Changing One’s Mind Is Not Surrender

A Director who changes his vote because members exposed defects is not capitulating.

He is representing.

The Board does not need eleven Directors trained to reach internal consensus.

It needs eleven Directors capable of carrying eleven constituencies into the room.

Gary still has time to demonstrate that his silence was temporary rather than structural. He can explain his position. He can acknowledge the objections. He can withdraw Motion A, support referral of the defective motions, or explain publicly why he believes his constituents are wrong.

He need not vote the way Johnny, Jim, Jeff, Debbie, Dave, Ken, Ben, or anyone else demands.

But he owes his members an explanation of how he reached his decision and how their comments affected it, if at all.

That is representation.

Organizational entropy accelerates when feedback becomes one-way. Members speak upward; leadership remains silent; decisions descend from above.

At that point, representation has ceased to be a conversation.

It has become a delivery system.

Why Mice Hide

Weak leadership fears engagement because engagement creates accountability.

Questions force explanations. Explanations expose reasoning. Reasoning can be examined for flaws, inconsistencies, unsupported assumptions, or simple ignorance. Once a leader answers publicly, he owns the answer and can later be held to it.

Silence is safer.

A weak leader can avoid defending a bad decision, admitting uncertainty, or acknowledging that someone else made the better argument simply by refusing to engage. No explanation means no contradiction. No stated position means no retreat. No dialogue means no uncomfortable accountability.

Strong leadership works differently.

A strong leader does not fear questions because he is prepared to defend his decisions. If his reasoning is sound, he explains it. If members disagree, he listens. If they expose a flaw, he corrects it. Changing course after receiving better information is not humiliation. It is competence.

Transparency therefore does more than inform members. It tests leadership.

A Director who refuses to engage his constituents may preserve his comfort, but he does so at the expense of their confidence.

That is why silence from an elected representative is not neutral.

It tells us something.

Strong leaders step into the light and defend their decisions. Mice look for another hole in the wall.

The Bottom Line: Man or Mouse?

More than a decade ago, a Fourth Area Director walked into an Eyeball meeting carrying his own motion and walked out having voted against it because his members persuaded him otherwise.

Tonight, another Fourth Area Director enters a Board meeting carrying his own motion after days of public criticism from the people he represents.

Changing one’s mind in public takes considerably more courage than maintaining one’s position in silence.

Jim showed us what a representative looks like.

Tonight we find out whether Gary will roar or squeak.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 59: The Mouse That Wouldn’t Roar appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Absurdist 58 examines this unsurprisingly fishy final agenda, still replete with five defective motions and still not providing useful management accounting for its primary revenue stream.

The Reorganization

For whatever reason, the package was reorganized to put the Bylaws Committee Reports and the NCS Guide Review Committee Reports at the front of the package, even before the agenda. The President’s empty report is properly placed at the end.

The packet’s files are numbered 01 through 08: the agenda is 01, the previous month’s minutes are 02, and so forth. A conventional packet would present them in ascending order. This one begins with 06, 07, and 08 before looping back to 01, 02, 03, and 05. File 04, almost certainly intended for the missing Awards Committee Report, has vanished entirely. Meanwhile, the Eyeball Report is listed on the agenda but appears nowhere in the packet. We can only assume the agenda team employed a proprietary sorting method called the Sore Thumb Sort, designed to make selected reports conspicuous while leaving everyone free to pretend the arrangement means nothing.

If cream rises to the top, what does that say about the position of the President’s non-report?

The Minutes Fix

We noted that the preliminary agenda called for approval of May and June minutes, which the Board had already approved at the July meeting. The update fixes that glaring error, reflecting the July minutes that are up for approval.

Congratulations, Doug and Clay. Good catch!

Proofreading was alive and well for a fleeting moment.

The Financials

While the financials are now included, they deserve further explanation.

The Club uses cash-basis accounting, yet the QuickBooks P&L is labeled “Accrual Basis.” That label is wrong and should be corrected in the accounting setup or report format.

More importantly, the reported $521.14 July net income is largely a timing illusion. Award preparation and mailing expenses were recorded as $0.00. Rich apparently submitted no reimbursement request for July, and no Adobe license payment was made. Those expenses therefore did not appear in the cash-basis report, even though the underlying costs did not magically disappear.

The report may accurately reflect cash received and paid during July, but it does not support boasting about July net income.

The Reports

The agenda caption, “Reports that are attached (See the table of contents on the first page to find them),” gives Directors the scavenger hunt they always wanted as children. Five reports are listed, but only four are attached. The Eyeball Report is named on the agenda but absent from the table of contents and packet. The Awards Committee Report fares even worse: it is neither listed nor included.

We covered the Bylaws Committee Reports and the NCS Guide in Absurdist 57. The President’s Report—or lack of same—is also old news. Following are notable changes in the report area.

Eyeball Report

The Eyeball Report is listed but not found in the table of contents or anywhere in the package. To be fair, we do not know whether this report was submitted or not. Last month’s report failed to reach the packet because Clay was too occupied with Fourth of July activities to deal with Mac’s email. The cause of this month’s disappearance has not yet been assigned an excuse.

Awards Committee Report

And that brings us to our monthly adventure with the Awards Committee Report. If Rich was too busy to submit his July expenses to the Treasurer, he was apparently also too busy to report what generated $494 in awards revenue. The report is not listed on the agenda, does not appear in the table of contents, and is nowhere in the packet.

The absence of an Awards Committee Report makes the financial picture we mentioned above even murkier. Awards revenue jumped to $494, well above average, but the Board receives no explanation of the volume, timing, source, or related expenses. Without that report, Directors cannot determine whether the increase reflects greater activity, delayed processing, a backlog, or some other cause.

Wasn’t the purpose of improving the Awards Committee Report to provide useful counts, categories, and revenue information to the Board? Apparently that reform had a shelf life of one month.

We hope this serious omission is covered in the Board discussion of reports, assuming the Chair does not find a way to sidestep report discussion again.

Perhaps we need a motion to compel the Awards Committee Chair to submit a timely and complete report each month. We do not want that, but we hope you see the humor in suggesting yet another fishy motion.

And yes, Doug and Clay, committee reports are indeed part of the meeting. Look it up.

Old Business

The Discord and logo projects carry over from June after disappearing entirely from the July agenda and minutes. Apparently both slipped beyond the range of the Board’s fish finder. The July minutes reflect no mention of old business. Our overworked Directors must have either decided to forego the pleasure of discussing a couple of red herrings or they simply forgot about them. We see this as a tacit comment on their importance to the Club and its members.

Sometimes, the best part of a fishing trip is sitting around, drinking beer, telling lies, and swatting mosquitoes.

So the Discord and logo projects will make a dramatic re-entry in August. Will the related discussion live up to its suspenseful promise?

Discord Project

As you may recall, this whopper was designated as the be-all and end-all to both Club internal and public-facing communication channels. Basing it on a popular gamer platform was novel and exciting until its proponents discovered some devil fish in the details. Several members pushed back, urging Directors to leave well enough alone.

Now we hope it is dead in the water, floating belly-up and awaiting disposal.

Logo Project

Hard to tell where this one is going. Is it alive or is it dead?

Schrödinger’s Logo returns.

The convoluted chronology is a wild ride through meandering Board ineptitude. Strap yourself into the fighting chair for this one; you have hooked into a feisty marlin.

Back in April, Dean told Gene to bring a proposal to the Board so the Board could approve it. In May, Gene brought a proposal, but suggested that it need not be voted on. Doug, somehow the voice of authority, declared that the matter was the President’s decision. Then, Dean said, “Go for it. I would like to see your plans…” The Chair added, “So you’ve got it. Run with it.” Apparently, he saw no need for a vote.

On June 13, before the June meeting, Gene announced the Logo Contest to the membership. Then, at the meeting, he told the Board. At that point, the discussion attempted to swim back upstream to its spawning ground. The President asked whether the Board had ever approved proceeding with the logo contest.

Gene was flabbergasted, while Clay, who goes whichever way Dean’s winds blow him, applied some reactionary improvisational damage control. Changing his earlier tune, he suggested that Gene apprise the members of the required vote, sliding the contest back a month. The vote would presumably take place in July.

What Happened?

So what happened in July?

Nothing.

No mention of logos.

No old business on the agenda.

The marlin sounded to deeper waters.

We can only wonder what poorly researched versions of the story will emerge in August. Seems like new details are added while others conveniently disappear. On this Board, facts are a virtual bouillabaisse of remembered fragments, accurate or not.

Will the logo contest survive?

Or will yet another red herring find its way into the pickled herring jar at Stein’s Deli?

New Business: The Five Motions

No need to rehash the motions themselves. Nothing has changed there since we wrote Absurdist 57. However, a significant development has occurred in the form of pushback from ordinary members.

On two active area reflectors, the only two we know to exist, members have decried the motions and asked their area directors to vote against them.

On the Fourth Area reflector, as of Thursday, August 6, its owner, Gary, the Area Director and Treasurer, has failed to engage with members at all despite copious comments about the fishy motions and the treasurer’s report. As author of the slimiest of the motions, Gary’s failure to defend his action upon being challenged by area members is sadly consistent with his desire to take Board business behind closed doors.

We suspect that if more area directors were to poll their members for honest opinions about these rotten fish, they would similarly be repelled by the smell. We have not encountered anyone publicly encouraging support for any of the motions.

The motions should never have been published. Four require prior Bylaws Committee review. The fifth is a preemptive fire drill that appears tailored to accommodate one favored member. More red herrings. A complete and unnecessary waste of Board time.

We can only hope that member feedback will influence the Directors to take their fishing fleet to more productive waters.

The Kumbaya Catch

The infamous July 22 gathering was sold as a private reset intended to re-engage Directors, restore focus, and improve how the Board performs its duties.

The first packet afterward arrived late, omitted any record of that gathering, excluded two listed or expected reports, presented a financially incomplete victory lap, and preserved five defective motions that should never have reached the agenda in their current form.

If this is the visible product of the Board’s renewed engagement, the Kumbaya session did not cure the dysfunction.

It merely taught the flounder to flap harder on the dock.

End note: We have yet to see the August Centurion. Its editor had resigned, but agreed to remain in place until a suitable replacement was brought on stream. Thus, it appears as if we still have a short-timer editor, but the printing presses have seized up.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 58: The Flapping Flounder appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Conspicuous by their absence are an Awards Committee Report, any record of the July 22 secret Board gathering, and anything resembling a substantive President’s Report.

The President technically submitted a report. It reads: “No report this month.”

And whither the notorious secret meeting?

If the purpose of that July 22 clandestine confab was to align the Board with its solemn responsibility to govern the Club and supervise the President, the first documentary evidence afterward points in precisely the opposite direction. The packet contains a flurry of motions asserting, restoring, or codifying presidential authority, while demanding almost nothing in return by way of presidential accountability.

We cannot prove that the perniciously private pow-wow’s purpose was to pacify the Board and prepare it for this package. But alliteration aside, the sequence creates an ugly appearance.

The Board met privately to discuss engagement, priorities, direction, and doing its job. Its next public packet proposes more presidential control and contains no presidential account of what he did during the month.

Whatever happened inside the bunker, the first visible product looks less like Board reform than executive consolidation.

Our Agenda Questions Answered

Before we analyze the motions, let us review the questions we asked before the packet was released. Of course, we set our sights low and we were not disappointed.

Were July minutes corrected?

Partially. “Special meeting” and Gary’s stated purpose are now included, but Clay’s concurrence and the record of the meeting’s subsequent occurrence remain absent.

But “special meeting” is in itself an indictment. Organizing the confab and conducting it in private and without notice to the membership is a violation of the bylaws. Thus, we hope Gary’s actual utterance remains in the minutes for the historical record.

Is There a Record of the July 22 Special Meeting?

No.

None. Mum’s the word. Schrödinger’s cat remains sealed in the box.

The meeting that was not a meeting both happened and did not happen.

What about the Motion for Formal adoption of the 2025 NCS Guide?

No.

This Guide was committed for adoption in the June 2025 Board meeting minutes by Dean, for implementation July 1, 2025, but that never happened. In the informal Zoom open membership meeting on July 15, in response to member complaints, Gary reportedly said he would make a motion for the next meeting for BoD approval of the 2025 NCS Guide. Clearly, what appears on the agenda is not that.

Did he forget, or what?

Dean and Clay instead propose a unilateral-looking amendment to the 2023 Guide while committee review remains underway.

Gary dropped the ball.

Any Mention of the Discord or logo projects?

No mention.

Two projects that consumed significant Board time and volunteer labor have vanished from the packet. Whether they are stalled, dead, or merely resting in the Club’s expanding attic of unfinished initiatives is anyone’s guess.

Is There an Awards Committee Report?

No.

It did not even achieve its customary mediocrity. It is absent. Not attached, not listed in Table of Contents. The 5-month-old fee update on the 100-Point Award application remains abandoned in the brush.

Anything Interesting in the President’s report?

“No report this month.”

That is the entire written account of the President’s July activities.

Page 11 is otherwise occupied by a photograph of Dean and a decorative 1776–2026 graphic. The graphic is arguably the more informative of the two.

No better illustration of the President’s desire for greater authority and diminished accountability could have been designed. In the same packet, the Board is asked to enlarge his authority over Club volunteers while receiving no meaningful account of his own work.

Authority is indispensable. Accountability is apparently seasonal.

Is the Packet used as an editorial platform?

Yes. Motions C and D contain first-person parenthetical commentary about suggestions previously made to Doug and Clay. A motion should state policy, not preserve somebody’s victory lap.

On the other hand, the Bylaws Committee issued an explicit finding restricting Doug to 3 strict functions. We view this as a positive development, which we will cover later in this critique.

Proofreading and document integrity?

Failed. The August agenda asks the Board to approve the May and June minutes, both of which were already approved in July, while the July minutes included in the packet are not actually listed for approval. The reports list skips from “c” to “e,” and the motions contain numerous grammatical, formatting, and typographical defects.

Those twenty hours reportedly spent by the Secretary assembling the package must have been directed at other tasks besides proofreading, such as inserting deficient, unreviewed motions, which we cover in the next section.

The Motion Parade

Whenever someone speaks up loudly or an air of controversy exists, reactionary motions emanate from likely sources. As we predicted, due to the desire to avert conflict at the Eyeball Board meeting, these clustered in August.

Five of them.

We found several of these motions to be defective in some way. Some should not be on the agenda without Bylaws Committee clearance, yet they appear. Others are flawed in concept.

As we mentioned above, one motion conspicuous by its absence is Gary’s publicly promised adoption of the 2025 NCS Guide. Apparently, Dean headed it off at the pass, replaced by Motion 2026-08-E, “The Buddy Rule”.

Our synopsis of this month’s new business follows.

Motion 2026-08-A: More Authority, Eventually Reviewed

Gary Slagle, Fourth Area Director and author of the motion, proposes restoring this language to the President’s duties:

“Shall be responsible for leading and directing the Vice President and all club volunteer positions, except elected Officers, Directors, and their appointees.”

The sentence immediately contradicts itself.

It expressly gives the President authority to direct the Vice President, then exempts “elected Officers.” The Vice President is an elected Officer. Apparently, the President both directs and does not direct the Vice President, depending on which half of the sentence survives observation.

Schrödinger has returned, this time carrying a motion template.

The justification asserts that the language appeared in prior bylaws and “appears to have been removed inadvertently” because the change summary does not mention its removal.

That is not evidence of inadvertence. It is speculation based on missing documentation. Before restoring broad presidential authority, the committee should examine the historical drafts, correspondence, committee reasoning, and Board action that produced the current language.

Then comes the procedurally inverted resolution:

“This language will be added to the by-laws (sic) under the President’s duties after review by the By-Law (sic) Committee.”

No.

The bylaws require applicable motions to be routed through the appropriate committee before they are placed on the agenda. Committee review is not a ceremonial blessing administered after the Board votes. If the committee recommends changes, the Board must know those changes before acting.

The proper sequence is review, recommendation, agenda, deliberation, and vote.

This motion proposes agenda, vote, review, and perhaps some later improvisation.

Absent a formal, preliminary review by the Bylaws Committee, it does not belong on the agenda. Why did the Chair accept it?

Motion 2026-08-B: Committee Chairs Hereby Admonished to Attend

Mandates that Standing Committee Chairs (Awards, IT, Bylaws) must attend all Board meetings. (Because if the President won’t file a report, he wants the chairs there to answer the heat).

Nothing is inherently wrong with asking committee chairs to attend when Directors have questions.

But “must attend all Board meetings” creates a new continuing duty. The motion never explains what constitutes an excused absence, whether another committee member may appear, who tracks compliance, who decides whether an excuse is valid, or what penalty follows nonattendance.

The implementation mechanism is an email from the Secretary informing the chairs that attendance is required.

Under penalty of what?

An email to their parent or guardian noting the absence?

These are unpaid volunteers. The Club cannot compel their physical presence. Its only meaningful enforcement mechanism would be removal or non-reappointment, yet the motion does not say who may impose that sanction or under what standard.

Before directing volunteer committee chairs to attend every meeting, perhaps the Board should require the President to submit something longer than “No report this month.”

The proposed policy was not well thought out. Once again, we will suggest some language that considers the inevitable contingencies.

“When a standing committee report contains a matter requiring Board discussion, or when a committee action item appears on the agenda, the committee chair or a designated committee representative should attend the meeting to answer questions. If neither can attend, the committee Chair should submit written responses promptly after the meeting.“

Finally, does this not belong in the bylaws? Otherwise it is a piecemeal motion destined to be lost in minutes submerged in Club backwaters.

Flawed motion. Might affect bylaws. Should be withdrawn and reconsidered.

Motion 2026-08-C: Agenda Repair

Motion 2026-08-D: YouTube Redux

These motions add formal Q&A and open-forum sections to future agendas and place a link to the meeting video in future minutes.

The YouTube proposal is harmless if the video remains supplemental evidence. It becomes harmful if anyone again pretends that video relieves the Secretary of preparing complete written minutes.

A video is evidence. It is not minutes.

The open-forum proposal requires more care. The current bylaws limit when non-Board members may address the Board. If the Board wants to establish a general member forum, that is a welcome reform, but the bylaw language must be reconciled. A Board policy cannot quietly override the governing document.

Vox Incommoda would gladly participate in the general member forum. We might occasionally have a question or two for the Board.

Both motions also contain first-person parenthetical commentary explaining that the proposals originated with the President and were previously suggested to Doug and Clay.

A motion about policy should establish policy. Save the congratulatory back-pats for motions recognizing volunteer service.

Both motions need work and potentially, Bylaws Committee review.

Motion 2026-08-E: The Buddy Rule Returns

Instead of Gary’s promised proposal to adopt the completed 2025 NCS Guide, Dean and Clay propose amending the September 2023 Guide on one of the most controversial issues now dividing the Club.

The motion would place Masters at the top during prelist unless they request placement in the general check-in section.

The NCS Guide Review Committee reports that it provided an excerpt from its ongoing work concerning Masters check-in order. Perhaps Motion E came from that excerpt. The packet does not say whether the committee approved the precise language, voted on it, or recommended immediate adoption before completing the rest of its review.

That omission matters.

The committee expects to complete its work in approximately four weeks. Yet this isolated rule is scheduled to take effect the day after the Board meeting.

So, what’s the rush?

Why modify the 2023 Guide piecemeal rather than complete the committee’s review and present a coherent document?

And, once again, for crying out loud, why did Gary’s promised consideration of the 2025 Guide disappear?

The motion also asserts that placing Masters at the top “has been our practice.” That is not neutral background. It is advocacy dressed as history, especially when the permissibility and application of that practice produced the controversy now supposedly being resolved.

Its practical effect is to codify the disputed accommodation at the center of the conflict.

And it does so with “Master’s” used repeatedly as a possessive, sentence fragments, spacing defects, and an implementation schedule displaying considerably more urgency than proofreading.

We hope these points emerge in discussion—except for the grammatical issues, for which there is no hope.

A Functional Bylaws Committee

We shift to the only positive sign for the Club. This month’s bright spot is the Bylaws Committee.

Responding to a request, the Bylaws Committee included a letter to the Chair delineating the role of the Club Secretary. After a review and discussion, the committee found that the documents are clear on the subject.

This should end any legitimate debate about whether the Secretary functions as a free-ranging procedural commentator, substitute parliamentarian, or auxiliary Chair.

The remaining question is whether the Chair and Board will enforce the finding. Or will the President’s “Motion A” power grab survive its bylaws challenge, clearing the path for Dean to tell Doug he can do whatever he wants?

The Committee categorically stated that after recognition by the Chair, the secretary may:

1. Clarify wording of prior minutes.
2. Ask for clarification of the wording of a motion.
3. Confirm whether a motion was properly noticed and distributed.

That is it. Nothing more.

The Committee was also careful to note that similar limits apply to the club Treasurer when that officer happens not to be an Area Director.

We regard this as progress. First, we have a real, substantive report from a standing committee. Next, we have some hard decisions set in concrete with cogent language.

We appreciate such positive developments when everything else appears to be heading south.

The Bottom Line

The July 22 gathering was sold as a reset intended to awaken the Board and restore Director engagement.

The first packet afterward does not show an emboldened Board demanding accountability from the President. On the contrary, it shows the President and Chair seeking to codify presidential preferences, compel volunteer attendance, amend operating guidance, and enlarge presidential authority, while the President himself submits no meaningful account of his activities.

Committee chairs must attend. Volunteers must be directed. Net Controllers must follow a newly codified procedure. The Secretary must place the President’s preferred items into agendas and minutes.

And the President?

“No report this month.”

So once again, motions lacking required committee review pollute the agenda. Doug appears to assemble and publish the packet, while Clay may exercise little meaningful review before it reaches the membership. That raises the larger question of who actually controls its contents. The pattern strongly suggests that presidential preferences fill the vacuum created by a passive Chair and an unsupervised Secretary. The formal agenda belongs to the Board. The practical agenda appears to belong elsewhere.

Clay may hold the gatekeeper’s title, but Dean appears to hold the keys.

If this is the new direction, the Board did not take back the rudder. It proposed bolting it permanently to the President’s chair.

Entropy does not leave power vacant. It delivers it to the loudest surviving organ.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 57: No Report, More Power appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

This will be the first of two essays in advance of the August meeting.

Absurdist 56 once again takes a jaundiced-eyed view of the Board’s secret July 22 meeting. It warns Directors that repeat performances betray the trust they established with their area members when they were elected. In connection with the August meeting, we ask what vestige of that clandestine confab will appear in the Club record.

The Arborist will sharpen his pruning saw for the second essay, which we will publish when the August Board packet is available for analysis.

Normalizing the Shadows

When the Board of Directors emerged from its secret July 22 Zoom bunker, we were encouraged to regard the gathering as a rare corrective exercise: a private “reset” intended to improve engagement, restore harmony, align priorities, and remind Directors to do their jobs.

We were told it was not a Board meeting “per se.” It was merely an informal working session in which eleven elected Directors could discuss their performance and share their feelings well beyond the hearing of Assistant Area Directors and the voting members they represent.

That was bad enough.

But now the grapevine is carrying a more troubling report: some Club leaders may be considering making these off-the-record “informal workgroups” a recurring feature of Board governance.

If that report is accurate, this is no longer an isolated procedural fumble.

It is the proposed architecture of a permanent shadow Board.

From Exception to Operating System

Let us be clear about what happens when private “informal workgroups” become routine.

If the Directors hold an unannounced private session before each official meeting to “build consensus,” “align priorities,” “discuss direction,” or “improve engagement,” then the official Board meeting ceases to function as the primary deliberative forum.

The debate has already occurred behind closed doors.

Positions have already been tested. Objections have already been softened. Alliances have already formed. Consensus, or something resembling it, has already been manufactured.

By the time members are permitted to observe the official meeting, the Directors may be doing little more than publicly ratifying private understandings.

The public meeting becomes theater while the private meeting becomes governance.

That is not re-engagement. It is disenfranchisement with a team-building vocabulary.

The Semantic Illusion

Supporters of this arrangement will undoubtedly return to the same linguistic defense:

“We are not holding secret Board meetings. We are merely conducting informal study sessions where Directors can exchange ideas.”

This is terminology management of the foulest order.

The Constitution and Bylaws cannot be bypassed merely by changing the title on the Zoom invitation. When all elected Directors gather privately to discuss Board priorities, organizational direction, executive oversight, future conduct, and how they will perform their offices, the issue is not what someone decided to call the gathering.

The issue is what happens there.

Calling it a “workgroup,” “retreat,” “study session,” or “alignment exercise” does not make meaningful Board deliberation disappear. A rose by any other name still smells as sweet, and Board business conducted in the dark still violates the representative trust on which this Club depends.

The Labrador retriever defense was unconvincing as a one-time excuse. It should not become standing Board policy.

The Shadow Board Problem

A recurring private workgroup would effectively create two Boards.

The first would be the official Board described in the governing documents. It would publish agendas, receive reports, entertain motions, record votes, prepare minutes, and permit member observation.

The second would be the shadow Board. It would deliberate privately, build consensus without scrutiny, establish informal expectations, and arrive at understandings that never appear in the official record.

The official Board would possess the paperwork while the shadow Board would possess the actual conversation.

That is precisely how institutional accountability disappears without anyone formally voting to abolish it.

Producing no minutes means no reliable record. Allowing no observation means no independent witnesses. No published agenda means no advance warning. And no formal votes means no individual accountability.

Directors can later deny what was proposed, promised, conceded, or surrendered because nothing authoritative records that it happened.

Plausible deniability is not an accidental benefit of secret governance. It is one of its principal products.

An Inspection From The Arborist

As Chief Timber Inspector, allow me to diagnose the condition in plain language.

This is systemic root rot.

To the self-described reformers on the Board: You cannot claim to be taking back the rudder from presidential overreach while steering the Board into a dark cave where the membership cannot observe what you are doing.

True reform requires daylight.

To the corporate team-building enthusiasts: private management retreats may be common in commercial organizations because executives manage paid subordinates inside a hierarchical structure.

The 3905 Century Club is not GE Capital.

Members are not line employees. Area Directors are not middle managers awaiting mission-alignment instruction. They are elected representatives accountable to the members of their respective Areas.

Their independence is not a defect to be corrected. It is the reason they were elected.

A Board does not become stronger by teaching its Directors to reach private consensus before appearing in public. It becomes stronger when Directors deliberate openly, disagree honestly, vote individually, and accept responsibility for the results.

A Preemptive Warning

“If nothing appears, the members will be entitled to ask why a gathering considered important enough to exclude them was not important enough to record.”

The August Board packet will appear in a matter of days.

Before looking for any proposals to institutionalize future closed workgroups, members should examine how the Board documents the secret gathering it has already held.

Will the July 22 session appear in the packet at all?

If it does, will the account identify who attended, explain why Assistant Area Directors and members were excluded, describe the subjects discussed, and summarize any expectations, commitments, priorities, or paths forward that emerged?

Or will the members receive a dense thicket of corporate language about engagement, focus, alignment, shared purpose, collaborative dialogue, and renewed commitment, carefully engineered to consume words without conveying information?

Will the document describe the gathering’s original purpose honestly, or will it continue the effort to transform a proposed “special meeting” into an innocent “informal workgroup” through repeated applications of semantic varnish?

Will the members learn what supposedly changed, what the Directors committed to doing differently, and how anyone will measure whether the exercise accomplished anything?

Or will the official record amount to a perfunctory note that some Directors gathered for tea, discussed baseball, exchanged warm feelings about service, and then dispersed without disturbing Club business “per se”?

Perhaps the meeting will vanish entirely.

That, too, would be an answer.

Without a Trace

A private session called to reset Board expectations, improve Director engagement, focus on members, prioritize goals, and redefine how Directors perform their duties should leave some documentary trace. If nothing appears, the members will be entitled to ask why a gathering considered important enough to exclude them was not important enough to record.

If something does appear, they should examine whether it preserves the event or launders it.

The Board cannot credibly claim that the July 22 session was consequential enough to awaken its Directors while simultaneously treating it as too informal to enter the Club’s institutional memory.

Will There Be a Repeat?

If that August 8 Board meeting packet, or the meeting that follows, contains any proposal, recommendation, hint, or procedural contrivance intended to institutionalize recurring closed “workgroups,” this essay should serve as advance notice.

Worse yet, if the Board organizes secret meetings furtively, to escape attention by the members, this represents a final step toward entrenching shadow governance.

Members should not accept a permanent shadow bunker.

A Sacred Trust

Elected Directors accepted a public trust when they took office. That trust requires proper notice, complete packets, meaningful reports, neutral minutes, open deliberation, recorded votes, and visible accountability.

Private conversations among individual Directors are inevitable. Small groups will exchange ideas. No sensible person proposes putting every telephone call, email, or casual discussion into the minutes.

But a recurring gathering of the entire Board to discuss Board performance, priorities, direction, consensus, executive oversight, and future conduct is something else entirely.

The distinction depends on substance, not vocabulary.

If the official meeting merely ratifies understandings developed in private, then the official meeting is no longer where governance occurs.

It is where governance is displayed after the fact.

Open the Shutters

The July 22 gathering was defended as a special corrective measure. Its public consequences remain to be seen.

Making such gatherings routine would be a different matter. It would transform a disputed exception into an alternative governance system, one deliberately placed beyond member observation and institutional memory.

The Club already suffers from missing information, vague minutes, defective reports, silent revisions, informal interpretations, outdated award applications, and decisions whose origins become impossible to reconstruct.

It does not need another mechanism for making its governance disappear.

The Arborist has plenty of ink, abundant sunlight, and no shortage of pruning metaphors.

Open the shutters.

Let the members see the tree.

Thanks for reading this latest Absurdist Paper. Absurdist 57 will be a critique of the Board packet for the August 8 Board meeting soon after it appears.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 56: The Private View from the Bunker appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

NCAA Patch Progress

Oh, yeah, you’ve undoubtedly been reading about deals that have been struck between college teams and corporate sponsors since the NCAA ruled that teams could sport advertising on their jerseys starting August 1. Several agreements are already booked. For example, tOSU will get about $17 million per year from JPMorgan Chase, while Notre Dame signed with SoFi for roughly $18-$20 million.

Meanwhile, Illinois and Moo U chose local institutional relationships. Busey Bank in Champaign is paying the Illiniweks $6 million per year, while MSU Federal Credit Union will pay the Moosters $4 million. This is a little more defensible than selling out to dissociated national financial powerhouses.

In other conferences, Arkansas chose Tyson Foods, a genuinely regional company headquartered in northwest Arkansas. That five-year deal covers all 19 sports and makes Tyson the exclusive sponsor even though NCAA rules would permit a second patch.

And the Big 12 decided that they would engage a sponsor for all the teams in the conference who will all wear Monster Energy Drink logos next year.

But Texas said no, at least for now. AD Chris Del Conte said the “burnt orange and white” would remain unbesmirched by garish logos. We’ll see how long he holds out.

Who Will Grace the PSU Jersey?

Let’s come back home to Dear Old State. Will our revered blue and white uniforms succumb to the greed impulse? All indications are that they will, given Pat Kraft’s comments at Big Ten Media Days. He implied that this was less a debate over whether to sell the space than a study of when, to whom, and for how much.

Kraft said Penn State was conducting a “deep evaluation,” determining the asset’s “real value” and exploring all possibilities. He acknowledged the uniforms’ historic character but also called jersey advertising part of the “new reality” and said Penn State must find additional revenue. He also stressed that the department would move cautiously and respect tradition.

Very krafty, Pat. Moving cautiously allows the market to settle down and establish some decent comparables. Instead of settling on a cheap local deal with Hi-Way Pizza, he can hit up Capital One. What’s in YOUR wallet, Pat?

Penn State should not accept Illinois money. Its brand, football audience and national following command a premium. Conversely, whether we want to admit it or not, Notre Dame’s independent national identity and Ohio State’s sheer commercial scale probably leave Penn State slightly below those two unless a bidder becomes irrational.

I know that we are all anxious to see those pristine, simple, beloved Penn State uniforms turn into a NASCAR pit crew haberdasher’s wet dream, right? Given that and a brief tour around the backwaters of social media, let us speculate on some potential sponsors for the PSU jersey patches.

UPMC

I know what you’re thinking and you’re right. Even as one of the largest employers in Pennsylvania and massive presence throughout the western half of the Commonwealth, they’re affiliated with Pitt, so why the hell would we ever want them on a Penn State uniform? Stranger things have happened where money is involved. Especially big money. But because I’m realistic about Pitt hatred, I share your doubts that this could ever happen.

Sheetz

Horrible colors for a Penn State jersey, but certainly a possibility due to local context. I grew up eating ice cream sandwiches from the freezer at the original Sheetz Kwik Shopper in Altoona, and I have watched “Sheetzes” grow from that store to a regional gas/fast food empire. Never doubt the power of the Sheetz brothers. But a convenience store chain might be shooting a bit low and the garish Sheetz colors would look like bloody bird diarrhea on a Nittany Lion jersey. 12-1.

PSECU

Just because Moo U. went with a credit union doesn’t mean that PSU shouldn’t. In fact, PSECU is already an official corporate partner of Penn State Athletics and previously served as presenting sponsor of the football season. The problem here, of course, is price. A $4-6 million annual deal might be plausible, but bigger bucks would be difficult for a credit union. 20-1.

Highmark

Highmark is already an All-American-level Penn State sponsor. It has statewide reach, substantial marketing resources and an existing athletics relationship. And best of all, its logo is BLUE. They could sell it as a connection to athletic health, community wellness, medical services, and similar bullshit. And they’ve got the deep pockets to make it worthwhile for both ends of the deal. 6-1.

PNC

PNC is not listed among Penn State’s current athletics partners, but it is Pennsylvania-based, has the financial capacity to challenge PSECU and would fit the emerging pattern of banks purchasing entire athletic departments’ uniform inventory. A PNC-PSECU bidding contest would probably delight Kraft and Learfield while causing both institutions to publish remarkably similar statements about education, community and shared values. 8-1

Pepsi

Pepsi is an All-American partner and the official soft drink of the Nittany Lions. It has ample resources and decades of experience bundling pouring rights, venue signage, digital promotion and sponsorship inventory. A Pepsi patch would be nationally recognizable but thoroughly generic. It would also suggest that every time Penn State spoke solemnly about protecting tradition, someone off camera was calculating beverage impressions. 10-1

Those represent a few thoughts I pulled out of my copious cloaca. I didn’t mention West Shore Homes because they already have a deal. Yet, they might be in the running.

What Do You Think?

I ask my six faithful readers to chime in with any rumblings about what logos might adorn the previously simple Penn State jerseys in 2026. What have you heard? Anyone know something I don’t know? (Don’t answer that literally).

Given the huge Beaver Stadium renovation bill and the necessary commitment to competitiveness in the NIL markey, Kraft needs to scrounge up all the capital he can muster.

But he must do so in a such a way that he will not alienate the faithful or, just as important, destroy the tradition of the plain, crap-free uniform. When the ultimate commercial sellout is announced, he will surely present it as a transformational partnership that shares Penn State’s values, supports student-athletes, advances financial literacy, improves community health, promotes innovation, protects the watershed, and perhaps rescues stranded kittens. Most of us will see through that and take it for what it is.

And halfway through the season, we will stop thinking about it.

The post PSU Pecuniary Patchwork appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

During the July Board meeting, First Area Director Michael “Sammy” Samulenas referred to the writer of these essays as “the guy who calls himself The Arborist, I’m sorry, The Absurdist, or whatever…”

We accept the promotion.

Vox Incommoda, formerly known merely as the Absurdist, will now also answer to The Arborist, especially when asked to inspect diseased organizational timber, prune deadwood, identify root rot, and determine whether the Board canopy is receiving adequate sunlight.

This was probably not Sammy’s intention.

But satire, like kudzu, grows where conditions allow.

The Arboreal Issue

The 3905 Century Club is not merely suffering from bad meetings, weak minutes, defective agenda packets, and presidential overgrowth. Those are symptoms.

The deeper problem is arboreal.

The roots are the Constitution and Bylaws. The trunk is the Board. The branches are the officers, committees, Area Directors, Assistant Area Directors, net operations, awards program, and member communications. When the roots are ignored, the trunk weakens. When the trunk weakens, branches grow wherever they please. And when the tree lives in the shade, receiving little sunlight, its growth is stunted. Eventually, the whole tree becomes misshapen, top-heavy, and vulnerable to the next stiff breeze from Alaska.

In fairness, Sammy may have stumbled onto something.

Perhaps the Club does need an arborist.

After all, what is organizational entropy if not unmanaged growth? A committee here. A presidential habit there. A defective motion grafted onto the wrong bylaw branch. A Secretary editorializing in the minutes like ivy climbing the siding. A Chair forgetting that pruning is part of the job. A Board standing below it all, staring upward, hoping gravity remains theoretical.

The Canopy Is Not the Root System

The Club’s leadership keeps admiring the canopy. Nets are running. Awards are being issued. Meetings are being held. Packets are being published, eventually. Minutes exist, sort of. Therefore, the tree must be healthy.

No.

A tree can keep leaves long after rot has entered the trunk.

Likewise, an organization can keep operating while its governance decays. In fact, that is how decline usually happens. Collapse is rarely theatrical at first. It begins with shortcuts, excuses, informal understandings, unchallenged habits, missing reports, vague minutes, late packets, defective motions, and Directors who confuse politeness with duty.

By the time everyone agrees the tree is sick, someone is usually already calling a closed working session to discuss mission alignment among the termites.

Ask the Arborist

The newly christened Arborist continues to receive questions about Club operations from people who should be able to get clear answers through current channels.

That is not because the Arborist holds office.

He does not.

It is not because his answers are binding.

They are not.

It is because the Club’s formal information structure has become so uncertain that experienced volunteers still seek unofficial interpretations from former officers who remember how the machinery was supposed to work before the vines took over the shed.

A recent example involved an Area Awards Manager reviewing a Call Area award application. The question concerned whether Hawaii, when used for the Sixth Call Area award, must appear with five contacts on each band or whether its use on one band alone was sufficient.

The rule says Hawaii and Alaska are not required for the Sixth and Seventh Call Areas, respectively, but if used, the applicant must list five contacts for each such state “as required by paragraphs 8(a) and 8(b).” The likely intent appears to be five contacts per band for each such state used. Another possible reading is that five contacts on a single band would satisfy the requirement for that state.

That ambiguity is the problem.

As in too many Club documents, the wording is imperfect because precision appears to have been treated as an optional accessory. Reasonable people can encounter the same sentence and arrive at different interpretations. When that happens, the answer should not become folklore. It should become an official clarification.

The Arborist Answer

Therefore, the proper answer was not merely interpretive. It was procedural.

The question should go to the Awards Committee, and it should reach the full committee. It should not be resolved unilaterally by the Awards Secretary.

That is the point.

The Club does not need more folklore. It needs official interpretations, recorded clarifications, corrected applications, and an accessible repository of frequently encountered award-rule questions. Otherwise, every ambiguous application becomes another private oral tradition passed from volunteer to volunteer, like governance around a campfire.

The Arborist Calls Keep Coming

Then, almost on cue, a prominent current member of the Awards Committee contacted The Arborist with essentially the same question.

He had searched the archives and found only a reference from around 2010 stating that the Call Area Award instructions had been rewritten for clarity. Whatever clarity resulted has not survived particularly well. He, too, could see reasonable arguments for both interpretations.

Consider the information chain now forming around one ambiguous award rule.

A current Area Awards Manager asks a former Awards Secretary.

The applicant asks the same former Awards Secretary.

A current Awards Committee member independently asks the same former Awards Secretary.

And the former Awards Secretary tells all of them that the matter belongs before the current Awards Committee.

Michael Corleone had Sicily.

The Arborist has the Call Area Award.

Every attempt to leave the organization’s operational machinery merely produces another question that current leadership cannot answer from its records.

The Limbs: a Functional Awards Committee

When this issue is hashed out by the Awards Committee, if it ever reaches that august body, it should be handled formally, with the decision ultimately explained in detail and published promptly in the monthly Awards Committee Report. If deliberation produces a clarification in award-rule language, the award application should be updated promptly.

And speaking of timely updates, here is a case in point.

Despite requests to the Awards Committee Chair, from me, my Area Director, and a member of the Awards Committee, the 100-Point Award application, which should have been updated to accommodate the March 1 fee increase, still has not been updated as we approach August. A simple editing change cannot be accomplished in five months?

The Awards Committee should operate transparently. Simple updates should happen proactively. They should not have to wait until they become a five-alarm fire drill.

But in an entropic organization, simple but important things are neglected, while the wheels of progress spin furiously through useless secret Board alignment sessions, pointless gamer messaging systems evaluations, and unneeded new logos.

Priorities, tree lovers!

Does The Arborist need to come back and show them all how this is done?

Accidental Malapropism, purposeful metaphor

The Arborist joke is funny because the malapropism was accidental.

The underlying condition is not funny at all.

When current volunteers bypass current leadership to ask former officers for interpretations, the organization has a knowledge-transfer problem. And when those former officers must add, “my answer is unofficial and non-binding,” the organization has an authority problem. Finally, when the safest advice is “make sure it gets to the full committee,” the organization has a process problem.

That is not one problem.

That is root rot.

Arboreal Exit, Stage Left

So yes, Sammy, perhaps “The Arborist” will do.

The Absurdist observes the absurdity.

The Arborist inspects the rot.

And right now, the Club’s governance tree needs less fertilizer, fewer slogans, more sunlight, a sharper saw, and Directors willing to remove deadwood before the next storm does it for them.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 55: Ask the Arborist appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Vox Incommoda’s scanner is constantly seeking signals from the void, the latest collection of which tell us the confab happened on Wednesday, July 22. Absurdist 54 analyzes the non-meeting whose details may forever elude the membership, although we might eventually expect to see a nebulously airbrushed summary. In this essay, despite having no knowledge of exactly what happened there, we will direct our attention to what should happen next.

Presumably, although the meeting was camouflaged as a non-meeting about feeling good and working together, its raison d’être was to accomplish something positive for the Club. Maybe no business was conducted there “per se.” But the stated purpose implies that future Club business should be conducted differently because of it.

Very well. Let us look for results.

Results, Not Feelings

If the Board emerges more engaged, more transparent, more assertive, more faithful to the bylaws, and more willing to hold officers accountable, then the meeting may prove useful despite its unfortunate secrecy.

If the Board emerges with nothing but warmer feelings, softer language, and the same old deference to presidential control, then the meeting was not reform. It was a private morale rinse.

The test is not what the Directors felt in the room.

The true test is what the members can see afterward.

Test One: The Chair

Will Clay improve, or will the Board replace him?

Despite one Director’s congratulations on the great job Clay is supposedly doing as Board Chair, dysfunction in that position is not difficult to detect. He demonstrates limited familiarity with the bylaws. His meeting management often seems tuned toward “how fast can we get this over with and adjourn?” He allows defective motions to appear on agendas and fails to route them through appropriate committees. He visibly and audibly expresses annoyance when Directors ask to be heard. He also appears far too deferential to the President, rather than accountable to the Board that elected him.

If the Directors are serious about re-engagement, they need to address the Chair directly. Shape up or step aside. That is not cruelty. That is governance.

Test Two: The Secretary and the Minutes

Will Doug stop treating minutes as narrative control?

His tediously ubiquitous editorial and procedural comments in the minutes have been covered here ad nauseam. He is anything but neutral in his characterizations of discussions, the most recent example being the whitewash of the character and purpose of the private Directors’ gathering in the July minutes. Like Clay, he appears too closely aligned with Dean’s preferences. He also appears either unfamiliar with the bylaws or too willing to reinvent them for convenience.

Will the Board give the Secretary clear direction? Minutes should preserve the Board’s record, not manage controversy, defend officers, or reshape history into smoother terrain.

If he cannot do the job properly, will the Board replace him?

A “but but but we can’t find anyone else” excuse would be telling. Competence does not become optional because recruitment is inconvenient.

Test Three: Packets, Reports, and Agendas

Will the Board insist on proper notice, timely reports, and accurate agendas?

We have said it all before. Between the Chair and the Secretary, handling of committee reports and meeting agendas has been haphazard. Multiple revisions appear before and after bylaw-mandated deadlines. Missing committee reports are hand-waved away with specious explanations or comments such as, “I received it, but I was busy around that time.”

Will the newly re-engaged Board put its collective foot down and insist on timely, accurate, complete agenda packets?

Will Directors discuss committee reports openly?

Recently, the Secretary asserted that committee reports are not “part of the meeting.” That was wrong. Committee reports are Board business and should be available for Board discussion. They are not decorative attachments stapled to an agenda packet so everyone can pretend oversight occurred.

If Directors are finally doing their jobs, committee reports should become regular subjects of discussion, not token paperwork embalmed in PDF form.

Test Four: The President

Will Dean retreat from unilateral control?

In all fairness, the current situation is not all Dean’s fault. The Board failed for years to assert its authority over the President, so naturally, the President attempted to fill the leadership gap. For some Directors, the lazy assumption seems to be that running the Club is Dean’s problem, not theirs. They are just there to vote for whatever appears in the packet. Others go along for the ride.

If this private gathering was truly about Directors taking their jobs seriously, then those who have operated in rubber-stamp mode must break that mold. They must evaluate the President’s proposals on merit, demand compliance with the bylaws, and remember that the President reports to the Board.

The Board should insist on a proper President’s report, presented, discussed, and challenged at each meeting. It should describe the President’s relevant Club accomplishments, pending issues, operational decisions, follow-up obligations, and matters requiring Board direction. It should not be a travelog, a Field Day antenna report, or a lightly disguised newsletter column.

The President’s report is the monthly vehicle for Presidential accountability to the Board.

Use it.

The President does not own the Board. The President answers to it.

Test Five: Members and Assistant Area Directors

Will Assistant Area Directors and members be treated as stakeholders rather than inconveniences?

A meeting exclusively for Directors, conducted privately, is highly unusual and almost certainly inconsistent with the representative spirit of the bylaws. Yet one occurred.

If one purpose of that meeting was to reacquaint Directors with their duties and reorient them toward strict adherence to governing documents, then the Board should make a simple pledge: never again conduct Board business in the dark.

Members are not obstacles. Assistant Area Directors are not nuisances. They are part of the representative structure of the Club.

A Board that claims to be focusing on members should begin by not excluding them from meaningful governance.

The August Test

The first real test will be the August Board meeting:

• Will we see evidence of change in the days leading up to the meeting?
• Will the packet be timely, complete, and accurate?
• Will committee reports contain useful information?
• Will Directors ask questions?
• Will the Chair manage the meeting competently?
• Will the Secretary record discussions neutrally?
• Will the President behave as an officer accountable to the Board?

Or will everyone emerge from the private working session with a warm inner glow, a fresh vocabulary of engagement, and the same old habits?

That is the test.

Not feelings. Results.

The test is not what happens in private communication via email or ccnboard reflector.

It is what happens in full view of the membership.

A Final Word

The Board says it met privately to reset expectations, re-engage Directors, focus on members, prioritize goals, and do its job.

Fine.

Without an official record, the members may never know exactly what transpired. We will therefore judge the meeting not by its private intentions, but by its public consequences.

Conducting the meeting privately gives Directors the shield of plausible deniability. If no official record exists, no one can easily be held to what was said.

So we will watch what they do.

If the Board becomes more engaged, transparent, disciplined, and accountable, we will acknowledge it.

If nothing changes, then the meeting was not a turning point.

It was merely another closed door.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 54: Trust, But Verify appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

In 1935, physicist Erwin Schrödinger proposed a famous thought experiment involving a cat in a sealed box, simultaneously alive and dead until someone opened the lid.

Ninety-one years later, the Board of Directors of the 3905 Century Club has achieved a breakthrough in administrative quantum mechanics: the Board meeting that both exists and does not exist.

Depending on who approaches the box, the top-secret gathering occupies two contradictory states. In Absurdist Paper #53, we examine the quantum entanglement between secrecy, semantics, and self-importance.

The Dual-State Boardroom

If a member cites the bylaws and asks for notice, an agenda, minutes, and member observation, the wave function immediately collapses:

“This is not a Board meeting. It is merely an informal workgroup, a casual exchange of ideas, a friendly digital coffee klatsch where Directors gather to admire each other’s antennas and discuss team spirit.”

But if an Assistant Area Director asks for access, or a member asks what his elected Director is discussing, the lid slams shut:

“This is a confidential governance discussion. Assistant Area Directors are not included. Members are not invited. Directors should not discuss the matter outside the approved circle.”

Quite a trick.

The gathering is informal enough to bypass the ordinary requirements of the bylaws, yet formal enough to require information control. It is casual enough to avoid member observation, yet important enough to discuss the Club’s mission, direction, focus, and future conduct.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

A Board meeting by any other name still smells like Board business.

Corporate Team-Building Culture Comes to Ham Radio

To understand how a volunteer amateur radio club arrived at a classified informal coffee klatsch, one must understand the soothing language of administrative control.

When a governing body becomes unruly, the bureaucratic instinct is not always to confront the underlying issue. The instinct is often to schedule a meeting about communication, cohesion, mission, alignment, collegiality, and moving forward. These are comfortable words. They sound adult. They even sound responsible. Plus, they have the marvelous property of turning accountability into atmosphere.

Cue the 1970s mood lighting and a facilitator asking everyone to share one word that describes their governance journey.

At the July meeting, Gary Slagle, K9GWS, did not propose a casual conversation about the weather, 40 meters, or who forgot to mute on Zoom. He said he would request a “special meeting” to seek “consensus among the board members.” He asserted that there was “no consensus, no common mission, no direction.” The Board needed to agree on “what the mission is,” “where we want to go,” “what’s important,” and “what we want to focus on.”

Chairman Clay Mayrose, WA6LBU, agreed that the Board needed to “come up with a mission and go forward.”

In any normal organization, gathering the Board to decide mission, direction, priorities, and future conduct would be called Board business.

But in the new quantum governance model, the same gathering becomes an “informal workgroup” the moment the bylaws walk into the room.

This is terminology management, not reform.

Be Sure to Clear It with HR

The mentality appears to be pure middle-management alignment culture. Gary seems to look at a group of elected Directors and see a team that needs facilitation, not a sovereign Board that needs to obey its governing documents. In that frame, Mac’s objection is not a constitutional warning. It is a classroom interruption from someone who has not yet absorbed the lesson plan.

But bylaws are not a lesson plan.

They are constraints.

The meeting is informal when the bylaws ask questions, confidential when members ask questions, and important when leadership wants its conclusions treated seriously.

Quantum management cosplay at its finest. Are the bylaws alive or dead? No one knows.

The Bottom Line

You cannot have it both ways.

If the big pow-wow is an informal chat about propagation, antennas, and summer QRN, then no one needs secrecy, exclusion, or information control.

If it is an executive summit to forge “consensus” and define the “mission” of the 3905 Century Club, then holding it behind closed doors without proper notice, member observation, and proper records violates the spirit and structure of the Club’s governing documents.

When a Board hides in a digital bunker to discuss governance while pretending the meeting is not happening, it is not practicing leadership.

It is playing corporate hide-and-seek.

We await the smoke signals from this junior leadership oriented team-building, alignment-seeking, mission-polishing, consensus-manufacturing waste of precious volunteer time. We cannot wait to write about the results we will never see in proper minutes. Still, we will take comfort in knowing that our Directors have been treated to the finest therapeutic vapors of 1990s corporate culture, where every governance failure can be cured by softer lighting, safer language, and a facilitator with a flip chart.

Pass the popcorn and pour the coffee. The quantum box is open, the cat is out, and more members are watching than the leadership seems to realize.

Editor’s Note: The Joke Has a Point

Although Absurdist 53 treats this episode with appropriate ridicule, the subject itself is not funny.

This Club is struggling to find its way back to functional governance. A private gathering of Directors, especially one framed around mission, consensus, direction, and unity, could become one of two things. Neither inspires confidence.

First, given the past performance of several participants, readily available for study in the Club’s growing cinematic universe of YouTube meetings, the gathering may devolve into a prolonged amateur legal debate about corporate law, bylaws, terminology, and whether a meeting stops being a meeting if everyone says “workgroup” loudly enough. Since no one in that room is authorized to render binding legal conclusions for the Club, that would be a waste of precious volunteer time. It might, however, serve one useful purpose: they could spend so much time arguing over the label that they forget why they gathered in the first place.

Second, if the meeting survives that opening fog and proceeds along its stated buzzword-laden course, the danger becomes more serious. The Directors may be urged toward consensus, mission alignment, common direction, and better teamwork. Those words sound harmless. They are not harmless if their practical effect is to suppress independent judgment.

Individuality: Not the Problem

Gary described Directors as “lone wolves.” But independence is not a disease. Area Directors are elected to represent their members, bring local concerns to the Board, question officers, challenge defective process, and exercise judgment. Their individuality is not the problem. Their passivity has been the problem.

The Club does not need a faceless blob of lockstep governance. It does not need Directors sedated by corporate team-building language until dissent feels impolite and obedience feels mature. It needs Directors who understand the bylaws, respect the members, ask hard questions, and remember that consensus is only valuable when it forms around duty.

The joke is Schrödinger’s Meeting.

The serious issue is whether the Board still understands what a Director is.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 53: Schrödinger’s Meeting appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

How a private Board meeting became an “informal workgroup” in the spin cycle.

Just when we thought we had enough evidence of the Board’s desire to conduct business in private under an assumed name, the July draft minutes supplied another self-incriminating tidbit. Once again, the Secretary, who works for the Board, called upon his creative writing skills to seriously misrepresent what two Directors said at the meeting.

This, from the same fellow who regularly insists that minutes should reflect what actually happened.

To refresh your memory, the July meeting ended with Fourth Area Director Gary Slagle, K9GWS, calling for what plainly sounded like a pre-planned request for a special meeting of the Directors. His words were:

“…I’ll be requesting Clay to set up a special meeting sometime in the next two weeks. So we can have a discussion and try to come to a consensus on the thing.”

Clay Mayrose, WA6LBU, the Board Chair, then added:

“…we need to come up with a mission and go forward. And I’ll figure out a time and…”

So there we have it: a special meeting, a discussion, a consensus, a mission, and going forward. In most organizations, that would be recognized as Board business. In this one, apparently, it must first pass through the Secretary’s spin cycle.

Creative Writing 101

Here is how Secretary Doug Wittich, N3VEJ, paraphrased the exchange in the July draft minutes:

“K9GWS announced that he is proposing a work group of all the directors to help determine what the focus and direction of the club and directors should be, since everyone is working without common mission. WA6LBU is being asked to schedule such an informal workgroup.”

Workgroup? No. Gary never mentioned a workgroup. The words he used—twice, in fact—were “special meeting”.

All the directors? That sure sounds like a full Board meeting to us.

Informal? No. Gary never said informal.

“Help determine” the focus and direction of the Club? Help whom? Themselves? The Board? The President? The mysterious governance pixies who apparently manage Club policy between meetings?

And that passive little gem, “WA6LBU is being asked,” does some heavy lifting. Asked by whom? For what exact purpose? Gary said he would request that Clay set up a special meeting. Clay said he would figure out a time. That is not the same thing as an informal workgroup, unless words have now been reassigned by executive privilege.

The most honest phrase in the misrepresented paragraph is, “everyone is working without a common mission.” May we suggest that the common mission should be running the Club and abiding by its bylaws and constitution? If that is the case, the Board need not meet. Mac, W6PNY, already hammered home the operative point in his comments on July 11. We are bemused by Gary’s perceived need to amplify, augment, or refute Mac’s cogent exhortation in an additional, private session, to say the least.

Heard with Our Own Ears

Lest anyone accuse us of putting words in people’s mouths, we transcribed the comments attributable to Gary and Clay from the live meeting and checked them against the YouTube video. We published the full text in Absurdist 50. Gary said considerably more than the short excerpt above, and the substance was consistent: the directors needed to get on the same page, define a mission, agree on a direction, and proceed from there. And he requested a special meeting where the Board could come to a consensus.

That is not casual conversation. That is governance.

Now the Secretary has softened the language to make the planned private session appear harmless, as though the directors intended to gather informally to discuss Spain’s 1-0 victory in the World Cup Final and perhaps extract a few leadership lessons about teamwork. But the actual words were about consensus, mission, direction, and going forward.

The paraphrased whitewash sticks out like a sore thumb. It looks pointed and contrived, and it fails in its mission to recharacterize a Board meeting as a casual gathering. So once again, we must ask: who or what does the Board think it is protecting by requiring this kind of obfuscation?

Perhaps this was merely sloppy interpretation by the Secretary. That is possible, though not especially persuasive. If so, the Board needs to take him to task and get the record fixed.

If Doug insists that minutes must accurately represent the content of meetings, then he should be held to that standard. It is his job to produce an accurate record, not to write creative fiction with a parliamentary accent.

The Spin Cycle

But if the President, the Chair, or the Board individually or collectively directed Doug to recast Gary’s and Clay’s comments to camouflage the meeting’s actual purpose and its apparent deviation from the bylaws, then we are no longer dealing with sloppy minutes. We are dealing with something much more serious: an official record being shaped to justify conduct the governing documents do not permit.

First and foremost, the Board is accountable to the members. The Club’s constitution and bylaws protect the members from a rogue Board or President by imposing rules on their actions. Directors tacitly agree to abide by those witten rules when they volunteer to serve the Club and its members. At the very least, they owe us members an explanation of why they cannot do so.

(And oh, by the way, we members do not expect our Directors to all march to the same drummer, whether that amateur percussionist is Gary, Dean, or Donald Trump. Instead, we expect our Directors to hold open meetings and engage in reasoned discourse, which necessarily includes constructive disagreement more often than not. Before the Club can embark on grand, unified Board narrative control projects conducted at a distance from its own membership, it must get its existing house in order. This means tackling difficult issues, rolling up sleeves, and getting hands dirty. Mac got it right and he is one of the few who are willing to do any real work. As for the rest, sitting in a meeting room singing “Puff the Magic Dragon” together in perfect harmony does not solve the Club’s pressing problems).

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 52: Dirty Laundry and Laundered Minutes appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

No word from on high.

In Absurdist 51, we must express wonder at the groupthink of this governing body, which seems resolute in its determination to exclude members and even Assistant Area Directors from a discussion that, by its own description, concerns Board mission, direction, consensus, and future conduct.

What in the world could this self-important bunch be thinking?

Why the need for privacy?

Are they working on a patent for cold fusion, or what?

Shielding the Members From the Board?

Or is it the other way around?

Let us return to the obvious question no one in the procedural fog machine seems eager to answer.

Why must this proposed gathering be private?

Not technically private. Not rhetorically private. Not “we are just having a working session” private. Actually private. No notice to the general membership. No member observation. No Assistant Area Directors. No clear agenda. No proper minutes. No meaningful explanation.

The stated purpose, as expressed at the July Board meeting, was to seek consensus, develop a common mission, determine direction, decide what is important, and figure out what the Board wants to focus on. That is not idle chatter. That is not fellowship. That is not a few Directors leaning against the virtual water cooler, pondering whether 40 meters is open to Hawaii.

That is Board business.

Something to hide?

So again, why must the members be shielded from it?

• If the topic is Board mission, why should members not hear it?
• If the topic is Board direction, why should members not observe it?
• If the topic is how Directors will work together, why should Assistant Area Directors and members be excluded?
• If the topic is restoring Board authority, why begin by hiding the Board from the people who elected it?

The answers are not flattering.

• Perhaps the purpose is to spare the President embarrassment after a public challenge to his authority.
• Perhaps the purpose is to spare the Chair embarrassment after his handling of the bylaws became difficult to defend.
• Perhaps the purpose is to spare Directors embarrassment for having ignored their own duties for too long.
• Perhaps the purpose is to transform a discussion of presidential overreach into a soothing plea for unity, collegiality, and “moving forward.”
• Perhaps the purpose is to keep members from seeing just how dysfunctional their governing body has become.

None of those reasons justify secrecy.

They explain it.

There is a difference.

Whom Do the Directors Serve?

A Board acting in the best interest of the membership would not be afraid of member observation. It would welcome it. It would understand that transparency is not an inconvenience. It is part of representative duty.

The Directors do not answer to the President. We have said that repeatedly because the point apparently needs to be driven into the institutional skull with a railroad spike. The President is accountable to the Board.

But the next point is even more important.

The Directors answer to the members.

That is the missing hierarchy.

Area Directors are not elected to become a private governing class, huddling behind closed doors to decide how much institutional discomfort the membership may be permitted to see. They are elected to represent the members of their areas and to act in the best interest of the Club as a whole.

Get Your Priorities Straight!

The collective needs of the members come first. The organizational needs of the Club come next. The personal comfort, embarrassment, irritation, and convenience of individual Directors come a distant third, somewhere behind cleaning expired mayonnaise out of the refrigerator on the governance priority list.

• If Directors are making choices to protect their own comfort, they are serving the wrong master.
• If they are keeping members out because the conversation may be ugly, they are serving the wrong master.
• If they are hiding the discussion because the Board’s dysfunction may be visible, they are serving the wrong master.
• If they are trying to preserve the appearance of unity by suppressing public disagreement, they are serving the wrong master.

The members are not the problem. The members are not fragile children waiting outside the principal’s office while the adults decide how much truth they can handle. The members are the Club.

A Board that treats member observation as a threat has already revealed the defect in its thinking. It has stopped seeing itself as representative and started seeing itself as managerial. Worse, it has started treating governance as something done to the members, not for them.

That is how organizational entropy advances. Not always through dramatic collapse. Sometimes it advances quietly, through private meetings, softened language, sanitized summaries, and the creeping belief that the governing class knows best.

A Club with an elitist Board, insulated from member scrutiny and more concerned with internal comfort than representative duty, is not merely poorly governed.

It is a living, breathing definition of entropic collapse.

The Fog of Consensus

The language surrounding this proposed gathering is soothing: communication, consensus, common mission, direction, working together.

All fine words.

But fine words can also function as fog.

After the July meeting, the Board’s problem was not lack of harmony. The Board’s problem was that serious governance defects had finally been named in public: presidential overreach, defective process, passive Directors, weak chairmanship, report manipulation, and disregard for the bylaws.

So we must ask: consensus around what?

Consensus to restore Board authority? Good.

Consensus to follow the bylaws? Excellent.

Consensus to require transparency, minutes, proper notice, member observation, and accountable officers? Wonderful. We may faint from the novelty.

But if “consensus” means lowering the temperature, stopping public criticism, discouraging inconvenient Directors from speaking forcefully, or persuading members to stop describing the Club’s dysfunction, then this is not reform. It is suppression with a pleasant vocabulary.

A healthy Board addresses the conduct criticized.

A nervous Board addresses the critics.

That distinction matters. If the discussion turns from presidential overreach to “divisiveness,” from bylaws compliance to “tone,” from transparency to “airing dirty laundry,” or from member advocacy to “hurting the Club,” then the meeting’s real purpose will have revealed itself.

The subject will no longer be governance.

It will be narrative control.

The members should watch for that shift. We say “should” because they will not have the opportunity to do so if the Board conducts its meeting in the dark.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.

The Problem is Not Vox Incommoda

Obviously, given that the agenda, if one exists, is hidden from public view, we do not know whether any Director or outside critic will become a topic of discussion. Perhaps not.

But if the conversation moves toward how to quiet dissent, manage criticism, or discourage public commentary, that will be telling. The issue is not whether critics are annoying. Critics are supposed to be annoying. The issue is whether their criticism is accurate.

If the criticism is wrong, answer it.

If the criticism is right, fix the problem.

But do not hide the discussion, rename accountability as discord, and then pretend that silence is unity.

Unity is admirable when it forms around duty. It is dangerous when it forms around avoidance.

Vox Incommoda strives to keep the members informed. We present facts, along with opinions drawn from those facts. Our work has clearly reverberated through the Club’s leadership structure, and some within that structure appear uncomfortable with the exposure.

That discomfort is not our problem.

It is the point.

If Club leaders respond to criticism by discussing governance farther from the membership rather than closer to it, then the problem is not Vox Incommoda. The problem is a leadership culture that treats member awareness as a threat.

Members should take note.

The rest is silence.

Please view our catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 51: WHY? appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Every so often, a scientific paper comes along that confirms something I have been preaching long enough to become tiresome. This is one of those happy occasions.

The paper, published in Frontiers in Physiology, is titled “The Power of Creatine Plus Resistance Training for Healthy Aging: Enhancing Physical Vitality and Cognitive Function.” Its authors argue that creatine monohydrate combined with progressive resistance training should be recognized as a safe and effective nonpharmacological strategy for preventing and treating sarcopenia.

In other words, my obsession with lifting heavy objects and consuming creatine is not merely the peculiar hobby of an old fart unwilling to go gently into decrepitude. It is a defensible anti-sarcopenia program supported by a substantial body of research.

Sarcopenia Is Not Just Looking Scrawny

Sarcopenia is the age-related loss of muscle strength, muscle mass, muscle quality, and physical function. It is associated with frailty, falls, disability, loss of independence, and reduced quality of life. The paper also notes an association with cognitive decline.

That deserves more attention than it receives.

Most people regard muscle loss as an aesthetic problem. Grandpa’s arms become thinner, his shoulders slump, and his pants hang loosely where his butt once resided. Everybody shrugs and says, “Well, he’s getting older.”

Yes, he is. That is precisely the problem.

Muscle is not decorative upholstery. It is the machinery that gets us out of chairs, carries groceries, stabilizes joints, protects bones, catches us when we stumble, and keeps us from spending our final years being hoisted from one surface to another by younger people with unfortunate attitudes.

Loss of strength also can become self-reinforcing. Movement becomes harder, so the individual moves less. Moving less accelerates the loss of muscle and function. Eventually, walking from the recliner to the refrigerator becomes the day’s major athletic event.

That is not inevitable aging. It is often aging combined with inactivity, inadequate nutrition, chronic disease, and an almost complete absence of meaningful muscular loading.

Enter the GLP-1 Era

This problem has taken on greater urgency with the explosive popularity of GLP-1 receptor agonists and related incretin drugs.

Let me state my position clearly. I am not opposed to these drugs. I take Mounjaro for Type 2 diabetes. Tirzepatide helped me lose approximately 70 pounds while dramatically improving my glycemic control. It has been one of the most effective drugs I have ever used.

However, enthusiasm for GLP-1 drugs has created a culture in which any reduction in scale weight is automatically classified as success.

Twenty pounds down? Wonderful.

Forty pounds down? Spectacular.

Sixty pounds down? Call the influencer and pose beside an old pair of pants.

Nobody asks what was in those pounds.

Not Just Fat

Weight loss is not chemically selective. The human body does not receive instructions to remove only the unwanted abdominal fat while carefully preserving every ounce of skeletal muscle. During substantial weight loss, some lean tissue is usually lost along with fat unless deliberate measures are taken to protect it.

In the DXA substudy of the SURMOUNT-1 tirzepatide trial, approximately 75 percent of the weight lost was fat mass and 25 percent was lean mass. That was a favorable ratio compared with many weight-loss interventions, but one-quarter of a large weight loss is not trivial. A person losing 60 pounds at that ratio could lose about 15 pounds of lean tissue. Lean mass is not identical to skeletal muscle, because it includes water and other fat-free tissues, but neither should it be dismissed as meaningless statistical debris.

For a 35-year-old with abundant muscle reserve, some loss of lean tissue might be recoverable. For a sedentary 75-year-old who began with declining strength, limited muscle mass, poor protein intake, and no history of resistance training, the same loss could push that person closer to disability.

Rapid weight loss can therefore produce a peculiar outcome: a smaller body that is metabolically improved but physically weaker.

The scale applauds. The quadriceps file a grievance.

The Drug Does Not Lift the Weight

GLP-1 drugs reduce appetite, which is their principal attraction. Unfortunately, reduced appetite can also make it harder to consume adequate protein and total energy.

People who previously ate too much can abruptly find eating to be a chore. Meals shrink. Protein intake becomes incidental. Some patients subsist on coffee, crackers, half a protein shake, and the gratifying knowledge that the bathroom scale has rewarded them again.

Meanwhile, the body is operating under an energy deficit. If it is not given sufficient protein and a compelling reason to retain muscle, it can use some of that tissue to help settle the accounts.

Resistance training provides that compelling reason.

The drug cannot do it.

Protein alone cannot do it.

Creatine alone cannot do it.

Walking alone cannot do it.

Water aerobics alone cannot do it.

A resistance band used for six minutes on alternate Tuesdays while watching television probably will not do it either.

Muscle must be challenged. The challenge must occur repeatedly, and it must progress as the body adapts. That is the meaning of progressive resistance training. It does not require competitive powerlifting, but it does require more than ceremonial movement.

What the Paper Found

The Frontiers paper is an opinion article, not a new randomized clinical trial. Several of its authors also have creatine-related consulting, research, advisory, or industry relationships, so the customary eyebrow should remain raised.

However, the paper did not construct its argument from supplement advertising and locker-room folklore. It assembled evidence from clinical trials, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, epidemiological studies, professional position statements, and regulatory assessments.

Among the findings it summarized:

• Creatine added to resistance training produced greater gains in lean tissue and strength than resistance training alone.
• One meta-analysis reported approximately 1.4 kilograms of additional lean-tissue gain in older adults taking creatine while training.
• An umbrella review of eight systematic reviews concluded that adding creatine to progressive resistance training improved muscle mass and strength in adults 65 and older.
• In one analysis of combined exercise and nutritional interventions, creatine was the only nutrient demonstrating a synergistic effect with resistance training on lean body mass.
• Creatine supplementation has also been associated with improvements in sit-to-stand performance and other measures of physical function.

The paper’s basic conclusion is refreshingly uncomplicated: resistance training works, creatine appears to enhance the response, and the combination should be promoted as a public-health strategy for older adults.

What They Recommend

The authors cite conventional recommendations for older adults:

• Resistance training two or three days per week
• Exercises covering the major muscle groups
• One to three sets per exercise
• Approximately 8 to 12 or 10 to 15 repetitions
• Loads in the general vicinity of 70 to 85 percent of one-repetition maximum
• Progressive increases in workload as strength improves

They also discuss creatine doses ranging from the familiar 3 to 5 grams per day to approximately 0.1 to 0.14 grams per kilogram of body weight per day.

The European Food Safety Authority has recognized a cause-and-effect relationship between creatine combined with resistance training and increased muscle strength in adults over 55. Its qualifying regimen involves 3 grams of creatine daily and resistance training at least three times per week at roughly 65 to 75 percent of one-repetition maximum.

This is not an endorsement of flapping pastel dumbbells around in a senior exercise circle while a relentlessly cheerful instructor plays music from 1967. The recommended loads are real training loads.

My Version of the Paradigm

I am 79 years old and rapidly approaching 80, which is not “80 years young.” Eighty is old. It took me almost 80 years to get here, and I refuse to have that accomplishment linguistically repossessed by smarmy euphemism.

My program is more extensive than the minimum described in the paper. I generally train five or six days per week, often for close to two hours. My wife tells me I train too often. My old body sometimes agrees. But I am a stubborn old fart. My training is divided so that muscle groups recover while others are being abused.

The program includes presses, rows, pulldowns, leg work, accessory movements, and heavy hip hinging. I use free weights, machines, dumbbells, barbells, a cambered Swiss bar, and a trap bar. I train for strength and hypertrophy rather than merely moving for movement’s sake.

My recent trap-bar deadlift work has included four sets of five repetitions at 265 pounds, followed by an easily completed single at 275. My goal is a 315-pound deadlift for five or six reps. My bench-press work has typically been around 135 pounds for multiple sets of five, with a longer-term goal of pressing approximately my body weight for four or five repetitions.

Given that I am an orthopedic surgeon’s midsummer night’s dream, with creaky joints, impingements, herniations, tendinopathy, and enough neuromuscular issues to be considered a cash cow, I believe that I have set reasonably reachable goals.

No Gym-Bro Bragging

These numbers will not disturb the competitive powerlifting community. They are not supposed to. The relevant point is that I am progressively loading my muscles at an age when society expects me to devote myself to shuffleboard and discussions about stool softeners.

I also consume approximately 135 grams of protein per day. At a bodyweight near 180 pounds, or about 82 kilograms, that amounts to roughly 1.6 grams per kilogram. My kidney function requires that protein intake be monitored rather than pursued with meatheaded abandon, so I have settled on a compromise intended to support training without pretending that chronic kidney disease is merely an administrative inconvenience.

I take 10 grams of creatine monohydrate daily. At 80 kilograms, that works out to 0.125 grams per kilogram, which lands squarely inside the weight-based range discussed in the paper. My recommendation is that if you are considering creatine, get pure creatine monohydrate powder with no additives. Claims of superiority for fancier formulations are generally false. And no creatine gummies. Those little sugar bombs have been analyzed by various labs and found to be inconsistent in the amount of creatine they actually contain. But I digress.

Back to the main point of this section, my program is not merely compatible with the authors’ model. It is essentially their model with more training volume, heavier loads, and a somewhat more obsessive operator.

Training Does Not Mean Ignoring Damage

Serious resistance training does not mean behaving stupidly.

Recall that I underwent surgical repair of an inguinal hernia last December. That caused a temporary training setback, as one might expect.

I have a cervical fusion with a historically broken screw, lumbar spinal stenosis, an elderly hip replacement, an arthritic knee, and more recently a combination of rotator-cuff strain and biceps tendinitis. My physical therapist has advised me to continue training but to stop or modify movements when pain exceeds an acceptable threshold.

That is not surrender. It is load management.

Exercises can be changed. Range of motion can be adjusted. Machines can replace free weights temporarily. Volume can be reduced. A painful movement can be removed while the rest of the body continues to train.

The choice is not between reckless lifting and becoming one with the recliner. That false dichotomy is usually offered by people who prefer the recliner.

The Cardio Reflex

Tell an older adult to exercise and his mind usually turns immediately to walking.

Perhaps it turns to swimming, bicycling, pickleball, golf, or a class involving coordinated arm movements and communal optimism. These activities can improve cardiovascular fitness, balance, mobility, recreation, and social engagement. Walking is especially accessible, and I do plenty of it. I hike, use a treadmill, and pay attention to aerobic conditioning.

But cardio does not make resistance training optional.

Walking uses the strength one already has. It does not reliably provide sufficient progressive overload to build or preserve all the muscle needed for continued independence.

A daily walk might help someone remain a better walker. It will not adequately train the upper body for pushing, pulling, lifting, carrying, or catching oneself during a fall. It also does little to prepare a person to rise from the floor, move furniture, hoist luggage, or perform the countless tasks requiring strength beyond repeated low-intensity locomotion.

Even lower-body muscles eventually adapt to ordinary walking. Once adapted, there is little additional stimulus. The body is efficient, which is usually admirable but inconvenient when we need it to retain expensive muscle tissue.

Resistance training gives the body a reason to maintain that tissue.

Cardiorespiratory fitness matters to longevity. So do strength, muscle quality, balance, and functional reserve. Presenting aerobic activity as the required exercise while treating resistance training as an optional hobby for vain people and former high-school athletes is a serious mistake.

Older adults need both.

Not one or the other.

Not cardio plus resistance training “if tolerated” when that phrase really means nobody intends to teach or supervise it.

Both.

The GLP-1 Prescription Is Incomplete Without Muscle Preservation

When physicians prescribe GLP-1 drugs to older adults, the discussion should not end with nausea, constipation, injection technique, and a target weight.

It should include a plan for preserving muscle.

Alas, many physicians, including the legendary Dr. DeLorean lazily neglect this important obligation. Certainly, prescription mills, also known as compounders, tend to either engage the patient with token exercise counseling or skip it completely. But a comprehensive, holistic muscle preservation plan is not optional no matter how badly they want you as a patient or client.

That plan should involve adequate protein, progressive resistance training, monitoring of strength and function, and consideration of creatine when medically appropriate. A bathroom scale cannot distinguish fat from muscle, and BMI is even less helpful. A patient can reach a celebrated target weight while quietly surrendering physical reserve.

Clinicians should care whether patients can rise from a chair without using their arms, climb stairs, carry groceries, maintain walking speed, recover from illness, and avoid falls. Those outcomes matter more than whether an electronic scale displays a satisfyingly smaller integer.

The current GLP-1 culture too often celebrates maximum weight loss as though the objective were to ship the lightest possible patient into old age.

That is not my objective.

My objective is excellent glycemic control, reduced excess fat, preserved strength, retained muscle, and sufficient physical capacity to remain independent and continue doing the things I enjoy.

Mounjaro is one tool in that project. It is not the project manager.

The Bottom Line

Creatine will not prevent sarcopenia while sitting untouched beside the coffee maker.

Protein will not preserve muscle that is never asked to perform meaningful work.

Walking will not substitute for progressively loading the major muscle groups.

And GLP-1-induced weight loss should not be celebrated without asking how much useful tissue accompanied the fat on its way out the door.

The paper validates the paradigm I have adopted: progressive resistance training as the foundation, adequate protein as the construction material, and creatine as a modest but useful performance and adaptation enhancer.

At my age, the goal is not to become young. That ship sailed while Eisenhower was president.

The goal is to remain capable.

That requires heart and lungs that can keep going, but it also requires enough functioning muscle to move the machinery. Any longevity program that treats resistance training as optional has omitted a major system component and should be returned to engineering for redesign.

Peptide Purgatory is a regular feature of this blog. For an annotated catalog of all my Mounjaro, GLP-1, and Peptide Purgatory updates, please visit my Mounjaro Update Catalog page.

The post Peptide Purgatory: Lose the Fat, Keep the Machinery appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

“Any Director who finds member observation inconvenient should reconsider why he ran for office in the first place.”

Vox Incommoda, sometimes referred to as “The Arborist” or “The Absurdist,” does not need to have been a tree surgeon to have heard the leaves rustling. In the wind is yet another inept entropy-masking maneuver, one that confirms the cynicism we expressed in Absurdist 49.

In that prior opus, we opined that a special meeting of Directors to get everyone “on the same page” sounded suspiciously like organizational therapy. We questioned whether such a meeting would produce reform or merely provide a soothing venue for everyone to agree that public disagreement is unpleasant.

We strongly suggested that they hold any such meeting in full view of the general membership.

A Note of Thanks

Our words seem to have resonated with some of you out there. The comments we received were quite flattering. And yes, we can assure you that we will continue writing these dispatches from the shrubbery. But we cannot please all the people all the time.

We do not expect our message to resonate with everyone. Healthy disagreement is essential to collaborative progress.

If the President and the Board find our words inconvenient, that is our intent. We are critical of governance because members deserve an advocate. Our essays aim to shake up the old order and work toward a better future for the Club and its members. Having viewed the creaky decision engine of this organization from the inside for a decade, we understand its serious and persistent issues. By commenting on them, we attempt to align our thoughts with the interests of the general membership, not the governing elite.

Once again, this arborist thanks concerned members for your support and for shaking the trees. You have produced copious low-hanging fruit, some ripe, some rotten. We will chew on some of it here and hope we do not require paregoric to forestall projectile vomiting.

What Is in the Wind

What we can piece together from the July meeting and general scuttlebutt, is that the Board apparently intends to proceed with some sort of potentially private meeting, without serving notice to the general membership, without a specific agenda, and under some suitably grandiloquent label dredged up from a 1985 corporate HR playbook to disguise its purpose.

We are told that the form of this proposed Directors’ meeting may not yet be settled. Good. Then let us be clear before anyone wanders farther into the procedural swamp: if this gathering is a Board meeting, it must comply with the bylaws. If it is not a Board meeting, it must not conduct Board business.

We are bemused by the notion that the Board feels it needs to shield itself from the watchful eyes of the membership that elected it.

Absurdist 50 asks whether the Board understands the concept of a meeting, no matter what they might call it, and whether it is best serving the interest of the membership by contemplating a dark session.

Just a Tea Party?

Recall that near the close of the July 11 regular Board meeting, Fourth Area Director Gary Slagle, K9GWS, proposed a meeting of Directors to discuss how they could better work together. At the time, this seemed to be a hasty and conveniently soothing suggestion from a Director who is typically more reactive than proactive. But it is not much of a stretch for this arborist to suspect that the seed for that blighted sapling may have been sown well before the opening gavel.

Early indications are that the proposed confab will be conducted without member observation. If this is true, we feel that the Board fears the consequences of airing its dirty laundry in public.

How can they get away with that? They apparently are banking on the simplistic evasion tactic of changing the name of the meeting to something that suggests it is not a meeting, Well, a meeting, by any other name, is still a meeting.

We hope some of these rumors are bogus. Our subject organization must conduct Board business in the open, as its own bylaws require. There is still time to do this properly, which would be a refreshing novelty.

What’s It All About, Gary?

Gary’s own statement confirms that the proposal was prepared long before the meeting ended, based on his comment that everybody would “see something in your email tomorrow.” Here’s the transcript of his comments:

“The problem the board has… you’ll see something in your email tomorrow — I was going to request that we have a special meeting try to get consensus among the board members. There’s no consensus, no common mission, no direction. And if you want to work together effectively, you gotta have those things. And everybody’s sort of a lone wolf here doing their own thing, and um I think the Board needs to come together and agree on what the mission is and where we want to go and what’s important to the Board.

“And the rest of the stuff that comes along, so be it. But we gotta decide what’s important and what we want to focus on. And we have not done that ever that I know of. So you’ll see something from me tomorrow and I’ll be requesting Clay to set up a special meeting sometime in the next two weeks. So we can have a discussion and try to come to a consensus on the thing.”

Have a discussion and come to a consensus? Special meeting? That is doing Board business, even if you change its name from “special meeting” to “labrador retriever” later on.

Say What, Clay?

Clay added some of his own comments: “I will state I agree with Gary. The Board has very little communications between all of us and it’s been that way long before I’ve been on the board. I think we just go with the flow and I agree, we need to come up with a mission and go forward. And I’ll figure out a time and—“

Come up with a mission? That sure sounds like doing Board business.

Gary and Clay’s own words defeat the word-game defense. They did not propose this as a social conversation, a training session, or harmless Director fellowship. Gary called it a special meeting and stated its purpose: consensus, common mission, direction, priorities, and what the Board wants to focus on. Clay agreed that the Board needed to come up with a mission and go forward. That is Board business. Calling it something else does not change its substance.

A private conversation becomes governance when Directors gather to decide mission, direction, priorities, and future conduct. If the Board wants to talk privately, fine. If the Board wants consensus, direction, and a path forward, then it has wandered into Board business. It must follow the bylaws like everyone else with a Third Grade reading level.

So what is this thing?

A special Board meeting? Then notice it properly. Do not exclude members from observing.

An informal Directors’ caucus? Then do not conduct Board business.

A damage-control gathering to lower the temperature and encourage everyone to stop embarrassing the President in public?

Now we may be getting somewhere.

The meeting’s purpose is not difficult to infer. We do not even need a power pole saw to prune away the irrelevant branches. It is all there for everyone to see. So, what’s the big secret?

“…agree on what the mission is and where we want to go,” uttered at the July 11 meeting, sounds like a euphemism for: let us stop airing ugly governance problems in front of the members, lower the temperature, get everyone back on the same page, and resume the comfortable undead shuffle of deferring to Dean.

Line up those rubber stamps. We are going to need them again, alas.

Calling It a Labrador Retriever

We are told that some Directors now understand the distinction between informal discussion and Board action. We are happy to learn of that sign of life. That is progress, assuming it survives contact with the next round of secret discussions.

We are also told that others appear ready to proceed with the theory that if a Board gathering is called something other than a meeting, the bylaws politely vanish. Call it a working session, executive session, caucus, salon, quilting bee, or labrador retriever. The name is not the issue.

That evasion fails.

The issue is what happens there.

If Directors merely talk among themselves, exchange views, and leave without decisions, directives, procedures, commitments, or conclusions later treated as Board action, then the gathering may be informal sausage-making.

If they discuss Board authority, presidential overreach, Board procedure, future conduct, internal discipline, committee control, meeting practice, agenda handling, or how Directors should behave going forward, and then produce a summary for the next Board packet, the Club is much closer to Board business than casual conversation.

The bylaws do not exist only when the Board finds them convenient. A Board cannot restore governance by playing word games with the documents that define governance.

So, Is This a Board Meeting, Already?

No one seems to understand, or perhaps no one wishes to understand, that the bylaws govern a Board meeting regardless of what label is pasted on it. The bylaws require Board meetings to allow observation by interested members. Special meetings require notice and an agenda to the Board, Assistant Area Directors, and the general membership. Special meeting agendas must be provided through the current Club method to members, Area Directors, Assistant Area Directors, and Officers.

There is no apparent loophole allowing Directors to conduct Board business in private because public discussion became uncomfortable.

If this is a Board meeting, it must comply with the bylaws.

If it is not a Board meeting, then it should not conduct Board business, establish Board procedure, resolve Board controversies, rehabilitate presidential authority, discipline dissent, or generate conclusions later laundered into the next agenda package as though something official occurred.

When they finally figure out what form this gathering will take, we hope it fits one of those two descriptions. A private gathering cannot be both informal enough to avoid the bylaws and formal enough to shape Board conduct. With apologies to Gertrude Stein, a meeting is a meeting is a meeting.

Or Is It Damage Control?

So let us call this what it appears to be, if it proceeds as rumored: a closed-door effort to sweep visible disagreement under the rug for the supposed good of the Club. The July meeting exposed presidential overreach, weak chairmanship, passive Directors, defective process, and internal distress. A healthy Board would address those issues openly, in a properly noticed meeting, with members allowed to observe.

A captured Board moves the discussion behind closed doors and calls it healing.

Call it what it is: damage control.

Hope Springs Eternal

We have reason to believe that some Directors are now trying, sincerely, to change the direction of the Club and restore the Board as an effective governing body. We welcome that. Indeed, we have been screaming for exactly that, though apparently some people needed the message delivered by bulldog at the July meeting.

But reform is not just attitude. It is process. If the Board wants members to believe that it is reclaiming authority, it should begin by following the bylaws in full view of the members it represents.

And if the President and the Board cannot live by the Club’s own bylaws and Florida statutory corporation law, why not just dissolve the corporation, scrap the bylaws, and do whatever they want whenever they want? Why bother with the charade of selective compliance only when it is convenient?

Whom Do the Directors Serve?

Throughout these essays, we have hammered home a simple point: the Directors do not answer to the President. The reverse is true. The President is accountable to the Board.

But that raises the next and more important question: to whom are the Directors accountable?

The answer should be obvious. They answer to the members.

Area Directors are not elected to become a private governing class, huddling behind closed doors to decide how much institutional discomfort the membership may be permitted to see. They are elected to represent the members of their areas and to act in the best interest of the Club as a whole. Conducting Board business in private, or even appearing to do so, does not restore confidence. It widens the distance between the Board and the members it is supposed to serve.

All this talk about mission, consensus, direction, and working together misses the point if the Directors forget whose interests are primary. The mission is not protecting the President from embarrassment. It is not preserving Board collegiality at the expense of transparency. It is not sweeping visible disagreement under the rug so everyone can resume the appearance of calm. The master to be served is the membership.

A Board that hides from the members while claiming to clarify its mission has already lost sight of the mission. The members are not spectators to be managed. They are the Club. Any Director who finds member observation inconvenient should reconsider why he ran for office in the first place.

A Club with an elitist Board, insulated from its members and more concerned with internal comfort than representative duty, is not merely poorly governed. It is a living, breathing definition of entropic collapse.

A Long Half-Life

A Director spoke up publicly about Board dysfunction and Presidential overreach. The fallout appears to be feigned introspection, engineered accountability, and hand-wringing over “the mission”, all taking the form of a “come to Jesus” session carefully shielded from the members.

Whether staged in advance or assembled opportunistically afterward, the structure is obvious. A public challenge to presidential overreach is answered by contrition, a volunteer-loss narrative, and a private meeting about unity. The issue then shifts from “Did the President exceed his authority?” to “Why are critics damaging the Club?” That is not reform. It is narrative repair.

We do not know whether Vox Incommoda will be discussed at this private gathering. Perhaps not. But if these essays do become part of the conversation, that will not be evidence of their excess. It will be evidence of their impact. A healthy Board would address the governance problems. A nervous Board discusses the person describing them.

But let us hope that our elected directors focus on who put them there, not on the annoying arborist they view as an inconvenient reminder of their shortcomings.

The Ultimate Test

Before any official decision, each Director needs to ensure that the answer to the following question is an unequivocal “yes”:

Is this in the best interests of the Club’s members?

Can anyone honestly say that a closed meeting meets that criterion?

A closed meeting would not cure the July fallout.

It would become part of it.

Please view my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda, occasionally incorrectly referred to as “the guy who calls himself Absurdist”.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 50: Behind Closed Doors? appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

We briefly recapped the July Board meeting in Absurdist 48. During that meeting, the Tenth Area Director issued a call to arms for Directors to start acting like Directors, especially in connection with a President who had increasingly stretched, blurred, or exceeded the limits of his authority.

The President sat silently through much of the meeting. The Board Chair, whose uncertain grasp of the bylaws became difficult to ignore, was defensive throughout. A member complaint against the President and another member was removed from the agenda after the Chair concluded that it did not belong there in the first place, a curious outcome for an agenda the Chair himself had issued. Directors were admonished to read and understand the governing documents. The Fourth Area Director suggested a special meeting of Directors.

The organic organizational upheaval had begun. Apparently, governance sometimes arrives late, confused, and without a clean agenda item, but it arrives.

Absurdist 49 focuses on three sequels to the July meeting.

First, the President issued a remarkable declaration that he had exceeded his authority in connection with the disputed NCS check-in directive.

Second, the President informed the Board that the Centurion editor, who was also the member named in the complaint removed from the agenda, had asked to be replaced.

Third, we will consider the proposed Directors’ meeting suggested by the Fourth Area Director, and whether it will become a genuine effort to restore Board authority or merely another well-intentioned fog bank.

Uncharacteristic Contrition

On Sunday, the day after the July meeting, President Dean Davis posted the following on the NCS reflector.

-- 
Dean Davis, KL7OR
President,
The 3905 Century Club, Inc.
(3905 Master No 80)
Hams Over IP Extension: 104069

The abject tone of this notice represents such a remarkable departure from Dean’s past behavior that we are impelled to peer beneath the surface. Indeed, one long-time member who has known Dean throughout his Club history privately commented, “I’m baffled because this isn’t the Dean I’ve known for 21 years.”

Preserving the Oblique References

Dean’s “well-intentioned effort to help members,” however, is the giveaway that the old Dean has not yet left the building. The effort in question was not a broad effort to help “members.” It was an accommodation made in response to the preference of one member, Buddy Spiegel, W3BS, after an NCS attempted to follow the posted NCS Guide.

While Dean has limited authority over net procedures, abusing that authority to accommodate a favored member who circumvented normal channels is not good administration. It is an abuse of discretion. Worse, it undermined the authority of an NCS who was doing his job and created yet another special exception for NCS operators to remember while running already complicated nets.

Rescinding the hastily implemented fiat rule was appropriate. Dean could have stopped there.

However, the final paragraph takes it a step further. Dean suggests that he is now reviewing his responsibilities and authority as defined in the Club’s Constitution and Bylaws. This is baffling, because those limits were already known to him. He voted to approve the most recent bylaws rewrite, which clearly stated the President’s responsibilities. The Constitution, reviewed twice under his watch, clearly places executive authority in the Board of Directors. The President is not the Board’s supervisor. He is an officer accountable to the Board.

Time will tell whether this notice represents genuine institutional self-correction, tactical retreat, or simply a pause while the next maneuver is assembled in the garage.

For now, Dean appears to be taking a step back from his power grab. In this organization, even temporary contact with the brakes deserves notice.

A Newsletter Transition, or Another Continuity Test?

Dean posted the following in the Board reflector.

--
Dean Davis, KL7OR
President,
The 3905 Century Club, Inc.
(3905 Master No 80)
Hams Over IP Extension: 104069

Buddy has asked to be replaced as Centurion editor. We thank him for his service and hope the transition is handled promptly, professionally, and with proper preservation of files, templates, mailing lists, publication records, and historical materials.

We will not speculate about the reasons for the Centurion editor’s requested replacement. Volunteers step away for many reasons, including family obligations, health, fatigue, and simple loss of interest. The proper response is not gossip. It is orderly transition.

A Leadership Move, or a CYA?

Focusing for a moment on Dean’s comment, note that he has presented the Board with “the opportunity” to help find a replacement. This could be read in more than one way.

Read charitably, it is a useful invitation for Area Directors to become more involved in volunteer recruitment. That would be a good thing. Area Directors should know their members, identify capable volunteers, and encourage broader participation in Club functions. If Dean is asking Directors to help identify and vet candidates, that is collaborative leadership.

Read less charitably, it is more like the old Dean. The request diffuses responsibility across the Board and creates a ready-made explanation if the position remains vacant: the Directors were given “the opportunity” and failed to produce a replacement. In that reading, the message amounts to, “If you are going to tell me I work for you, then you can find me a new editor.”

Continuity is the Key

Either way, the Board should treat the Centurion transition as an institutional continuity issue, not merely a personnel vacancy.

The outgoing editor should transfer whatever exists: source files, mailing procedures, publication records, contributor contacts, templates, artwork, mailing lists, and historical materials. If little exists, that is itself useful information. It means the next editor is not merely inheriting a newsletter, but rebuilding one.

The question is not only whether files are preserved. The question is whether the Centurion still has an editorial system worth preserving. If the answer is no, the Board should see the editor transition as an opportunity to restore the newsletter as a real Club publication rather than a thin wrapper around presidential messaging and recycled filler.

Volunteer transitions are not private arrangements. They are continuity events. The Club should stop relying on personality, memory, and accidental file custody as its records-management strategy, a system known technically as “waiting for the next avoidable disaster.”

Board Therapy, or Board Reform?

Shortly before the close of the July Board meeting, in the wake of the Board wake-up call delivered by Mac McCracken, W6PNY, Tenth Area Director, the Fourth Area Director, Gary Slagle, K9GWS, proposed a special meeting for Directors to discuss how they can better work together.

Let us say that we look upon such corporate folderol with a jaundiced eye.

Having spent time in management and as a consultant for organizations ranging from academe to nonprofits to Fortune 500 corporations, we have developed a healthy disdain for meetings held because no one wants to say directly what the actual problem is. Such meetings typically have a stated purpose and a real purpose. The stated purpose is usually communication, teamwork, collegiality, alignment, or some other soothing abstraction suitable for embroidered throw pillows. The real purpose is often damage control.

That may be the case here.

Solving for X

The ostensible purpose of this meeting is to explore better communication and collegial decision-making among the eleven elected Directors. These are adults, middle-aged and older. Why they need an after-school conference with the teacher to learn how to play nicely together remains unclear. Yet, after Mac’s pointed exhortation that Directors begin acting like Directors, no one apparently wished to say aloud that a meeting about “working together” might be beside the point.

The issue is not whether Directors are sufficiently cordial. The issue is whether they understand and exercise their authority.

Do we really need a special meeting to introduce Directors to the Constitution and Bylaws? To read them aloud as a group exercise? To discover, with communal astonishment, that the Board governs the Club and the President reports to the Board? Come on, now.

If Directors truly cannot fathom why they are on the Board or how they should conduct business, one meeting will not fix them. Some may show their true colors by skipping it. Others may attend, nod solemnly, enjoy the illusion of progress, and return home to business as usual. A few loyalists may try to redirect the discussion toward better relations with the President, as though the central problem were tone rather than control.

That would reveal one possible purpose of the meeting: to convert a discussion of presidential overreach into a plea for institutional niceness.

No.

The Board does not need therapy. It needs governance.

Same Cast of Characters?

If this meeting is chaired by the current Board Chair, who is himself part of the Board’s dysfunction, expectations should be restrained. The July meeting exposed serious problems with his understanding and administration of the bylaws. If Directors are serious about becoming an effective governing body, replacing him should be on the table. That is not personal cruelty. It is corporate hygiene. The Chair serves the Board. If the Chair cannot protect the Board’s authority, manage the agenda properly, and understand the governing documents, the Board should elect someone who can.

That is how a functional Board operates.

“Grow a Pair”

At the July meeting, Eighth Area Director Gene Marsh, W8NET, reportedly urged the Board to “get some balls.” Crude? Perhaps. Memorable? Certainly. Accurate? Increasingly difficult to dispute.

Still, we remain skeptical that this pusillanimous group can collectively grow a pair by scheduling a special meeting and calling it progress. A meeting is not reform. It is a room. What matters is what Directors do in that room.

If the meeting produces concrete action, it may be useful. In such a meeting, Directors would move the Club’s governance forward. They would:

• Define the limits of presidential authority.
• Reaffirm that the Board controls its minutes, reports, agendas, and committee processes.
• Establish that committee reports are subject to Board discussion.
• Require orderly volunteer transitions.
• Decide how Board packets are finalized and revised.
• Determine whether the Chair is capable of continuing in that role.
• Decide whether the President and other officers attend as participants, observers, or not at all.

In short, they should govern.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

It is also unclear whether the President and Vice President will be invited to sit at the table. That question matters. The Articles and Constitution identify the Board as the eleven elected Directors. Officers are not Directors merely because they are given courtesy votes. If this is a Directors’ meeting about restoring Board authority and organization, then it should be clear whether officers are present by right, by invitation, or not at all. A meeting about Board independence should not begin by muddling who belongs in the room. That would be too on brand, and we are tired.

Nor should the meeting be conducted in secret if its purpose is to reshape Board practice. The membership has a legitimate interest in whether its elected Directors understand their duties. At minimum, the meeting should be noticed, open to members, and followed by a written summary of conclusions and actions. If anything important happens, it should happen transparently. If nothing important happens, the members deserve to know that too.

The Bottom Line

The danger is obvious. The special meeting could become a performative session in which Directors sing “Kumbaya, My Lord,” congratulate themselves for attending, and return to the same habits that created the problem. The President would then have survived the July challenge with little more than a temporary apology and a fresh fog bank.

But the opportunity is also obvious.

If Directors use the meeting to reclaim their authority, correct their procedures, demand accountability, and make hard decisions about leadership, the July meeting may prove to have been more than a flare-up. It may have been the beginning of institutional recovery.

We are not predicting that outcome.

We are merely leaving room for the possibility, because even cynicism should occasionally stretch its legs.

Please view my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda, occasionally incorrectly referred to as “the guy who calls himself Absurdist”.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 49: Radioactive Fallout appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Before we comment on the meeting, we acknowledge the First Area Director’s unsolicited promotion of our essays. Although he referred to Vox Incommoda as “the guy who calls himself Absurdist,” we think everyone knew what he meant. For future reference, we are available to provide accurate promotional copy. We would hate for our free advertising to suffer from branding defects.

Absurdist 48 is a loose collection of comments on the July Board meeting. We applaud what may prove to be a seminal moment in the Board’s awakening, while recognizing that awakening is not the same thing as getting out of bed, finding pants, and governing.

Still, progress is progress. We take what we can get.

Minutes Discussion

The Board discussed May and June minutes, touching on editorial comments and extraneous items before voting to approve both. The key points here were that no one impeded the discussion, and the approval by acclamation process was abolished in favor of a roll call vote. Let us hope that this persists.

Financial Discussion

The Second Area Director brought up the point that award production and revenue appeared to be anemic, and wondered aloud whether the fee increase had anything to do with that, and how did it affect the budget. The Treasurer responded that we do not do budgets monthly and that a large percentage of the awards were PDFs so the Awards Secretary’s variable expenses are low as a result. He agreed to look at a comparison against last year to date offline, which will likely go nowhere. Meanwhile, the DX Area Director spoke up to say that the Club is running a surplus year-to-date, so we are doing OK.

Old Business

There was none. Really?

What happened with the logo contest? We thought the Chair had deferred that issue to July for a Board vote. Yet nothing at all suggested that the logo project even existed.

And what of the Discord project? No mention whatsoever.

New Business

At this point, referring to the complaint by Virgil, the Chair advised the Board that there was no new business because the complaint did not belong on the agenda in the first place.

Excuse me, but is the Chair not responsible for the agenda? If the complaint was placed on the agenda, the Chair needed to approve it. Now he is saying it did not belong there at all.

He is probably correct in his interpretation that the complaint should have been routed to the affected Area Directors before it was routed to the full Board. But that begs the question: How did it get on the agenda in the first place? Does anyone read the bylaws?

Since the complaint is against the both the President, a Seventh Area member, and W3BS, a Fourth Area member, this could get complicated. Virgil himself is a Ninth Area member, so as we see it, the Area Directors of the Fourth, Seventh, and Ninth areas need to discuss this among themselves and with the three members to attempt to achieve resolution.

Q&A

The Tenth Area Director requested the floor to deliver a prepared statement to the Board, describing presidential overreach and the Board’s complicity in allowing it to occur. Shortly after initiating his remarks, the First Area Director asked whether those words were actually from “the guy who calls himself Absurdist.” The Tenth Area Director, although annoyed by the impertinent question, responded evenly with an assurance that the words were his own.

He was challenged again by the Third Area Director, who asked for specific examples of presidential overreach. The Tenth Area Director responded with half a dozen clear-cut instances, including directing the Board to return to rubber-stamp approvals of minutes and financial, manipulating motions on agendas, and scrapping the 2025 NCS Guide.

Mac then exhorted the Board to get its act together, read the documents, and understand the duties they were elected to perform, including holding the President accountable for his actions. He then yielded the floor back to the Chair.

Path Forward

The Fourth Area Director suggested that the Board hold a special meeting to discuss Board responsibilities and how Directors, officers, and volunteers should work together going forward.

We find it odd that a special meeting is needed to discuss what should be obvious. The Board governs the Club. The President implements Board policy. The Chair serves the Board. The Secretary preserves the Board’s record. Area Directors represent the members. This should not require a retreat, a workshop, a flowchart, or interpretive dance.

But if a special meeting is what it takes, then have the meeting. Do not make it a diversion from the task of real governance. Do not let it get mired in trivially inconsequential missions. The one true mission here is taking back the Club from an imperial President.

We believe that meeting should not be conducted in secret. The members have a direct interest in whether the Board understands its own authority. Furthermore, Directors should prepare by reading the Constitution and Bylaws. For some, it may be a novel experience. We wish them well on their literary journey.

Cause for Optimism?

The important thing is that the discussion happens. The July meeting showed flickers of institutional self-awareness. Minutes were discussed. Acclamation voting was replaced by roll call voting. Presidential overreach was named. Examples were demanded and provided. A Director called on the Board to understand its duties and hold the President accountable.

That is not reform yet. But it well could be the beginning of reform.

The Board has been passive for too long. If this meeting was merely a momentary spasm of responsibility, nothing will change. If it was the beginning of Directors remembering that they are Directors, then the July meeting may eventually be remembered as more than another episode in the Club’s ongoing procedural slapstick.

It may be remembered as the night someone finally opened a window.

Please view my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 48: Delayed Fourth of July Fireworks appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

As usual, I will provide a brief personal health update after our feature article. Not much new there, other than a blood test result and some ideas about my recent weight gain.

Lifestyle Drugs, Subscription Medicine, and the Great Clinical Disappearing Act

Those of us old enough to remember the birth of Viagra also remember what came next: the online pill mills. Almost immediately, the internet discovered that male embarrassment could be monetized. No waiting room, no awkward conversation, no doctor poking around in your cardiovascular history. Just a questionnaire, a credit card, and the promise of pharmaceutical confidence.

A quarter-century later, the drug class has changed, but the business model has not. Today’s online GLP-1 sellers have updated the wardrobe. Instead of “performance,” the pitch is “wellness.” Instead of the little blue pill, it is compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide arriving in a refrigerated box. But the governing principle remains unchanged: remove as much clinical friction as possible, because friction interferes with conversion.

In the JAMA secret-shopper study, 45 of 49 online GLP-1 vendors prescribed the drug. Thirty-four mailed medication. Only a minority required a video visit. Some prescribed compounded products in five minutes or less. Many failed to ask basic questions that any competent clinician would regard as relevant to chronic metabolic therapy. Apparently, “tell me about your diet, exercise, eating disorder risk, kidney status, and current medications” has become an unacceptable burden in the sacred temple of online checkout.

The Vending-Machine Model

This is not an attack on GLP-1 therapy. I use Mounjaro, and it has been an important part of my own diabetes control. The problem is not the molecule. The problem is the vending-machine model of medicine that grows around profitable molecules.

The current GLP-1 telehealth boom reminds me of the late-1990s Viagra circus, when sildenafil escaped the confines of erectile dysfunction treatment and became a recreational lifestyle commodity almost overnight. The internet, sensing embarrassment and disposable income, did what the internet always does: it converted human vulnerability into a checkout process. Today’s GLP-1 sellers are running the same play with better graphics and colder packaging. Instead of promising bedroom confidence, they promise effortless weight loss. Instead of the little blue pill, they ship compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide. But the machinery is familiar: questionnaire medicine, minimal clinician involvement, inadequate screening, and a business model that treats actual medical judgment as a speed bump on the road to recurring revenue.

First came the little blue pill, then came the little blue business model. That model apparently still works a quarter century later. We will show you how.

One Important Difference

The ED drugs were often used episodically. A guy might get Viagra online because he wanted to avoid an awkward conversation with his doctor, feared being judged, or wanted recreational performance enhancement. That was not risk-free, especially in men with cardiovascular disease or nitrate use. But the drug event was generally discrete.

GLP-1 RAs are different. These are chronic metabolic therapies. They affect appetite, gastric emptying, glucose dynamics, body weight, nutrition, body composition, and often medication regimens. They require monitoring and clinical context. Turning that into “answer twelve questions, upload half a torso, and await your compounded appetite juice” is not merely casual prescribing. It is chronic disease management cosplay.

Viagra taught us that a powerful, culturally desirable prescription drug will immediately attract opportunists who view clinical evaluation as an obstacle. GLP-1 drugs have merely enlarged the canvas. The pitch is no longer recreational virility. It is recreational thinness, dressed up as metabolic care and shipped on auto-renewal.

My Mounjaro Update

Recall that last week, I was scratching beneath the surface itch for alternate explanations to Dr. Macallan’s reflexive diagnosis of age related xerosis. Although that is a plausible explanation, I found it a bit odd that its onset was acute. Several other areas were suspect.

For example, I was taking allopurinol for gout. This is a drug that has known skin-related side-effects, some very serious. Because my June uric acid result was much lower than that specified in standard gout treatment protocols, I made the unilateral decision to discontinue allopurinol. However, after two weeks of discontinuation, I still itched.

My focus then turned to chronic kidney disease. I am at Stage 3A, which Dr. Macallan did not believe was severe enough to be associated with itching. However, information I have found from the National Kidney Foundation discloses that a significant percentage of CKD patients at earlier stages do indeed suffer from varying intensities of chronic pruritis.

Looking for the Smoking Gun

I wanted to focus in on that and find a smoking gun. Knowing that the protein shakes I was drinking had fairly high phosphorus content led me to have my serum phosphorus levels checked. They turned out to be normal. So, no smoking gun there.

However, I still am thinking that xerosis and CKD itching are related. My scientific curiosity will continue to be unsatisfied until I can pinpoint the mechanism. Some mysteries are never solved. I hope this one doesn’t fit that description.

And Then, the Weight Gain

Back to the weight gain, I did some research, which strongly implicates three changes I made recently: deprescribing levothyroxine and metformin, plus increasing creatine to 10 mg daily. I put this all together with my medical history in Notebook LM and it spit out the following.

Peptide Purgatory is a regular feature of this blog. For an annotated catalog of all my Mounjaro, GLP-1, and Peptide Purgatory updates, please visit my Mounjaro Update Catalog page.

The post Peptide Purgatory: Of Bones and Bellies appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Our current President, Dean Davis, KL7OR, is a glaring example. His abrupt and public departure from the same position in 2015 blamed others without acknowledging any personal failure, while simultaneously creating avoidable disruption for the Club. Absurdist 43 set the stage for that earlier resignation with our analysis of the October 2015 Board meeting that many consider its trigger. In Absurdist Paper #47, we unearth Dean’s original resignation and his later attempt to recast it. Then we examine the aftermath through preserved reflector posts from members who understood, at the time, exactly what had happened.

Given that background, we will then turn to the present situation and explore the parallels. We will attempt to answer the unasked question: How did an organization with public records, living witnesses, and contemporaneous warnings manage to treat Dean’s first failed presidency as if it had no predictive value? How was he elected again in 2018? How has he remained President since then? Most importantly, can the Club survive the rest of his current term without suffering irreparable organizational damage?

Institutional amnesia is not the absence of records. It is the refusal to let records affect future behavior.

The 2015 Presidential Situation

Dean, then N7XG, was elected Vice President by a narrow margin in 2013. At that time, the Vice President’s only real responsibility was to be ready to take over if the President left office. In August 2015, then-President Russ Sawyer, W2UJ, resigned due to health issues. The bylaws made it optional for the Vice President to accept the presidency in such cases. Dean took a week to decide, but eventually accepted the succession on August 8, 2015.

Once at the helm, Dean moved quickly to consolidate power and control the narrative. His biggest move was to remove Jim Higgins, KB3PU, from all his appointed positions, including webmaster, Club Recorder, Club Information Officer, and, most importantly, Chair of the Awards Committee. At the same time, he disbanded the entire Awards Committee. He defended his actions by stating that he was the President and the bylaws gave him the right to do it.

The Board Pushed Back

However, as we mentioned in Absurdist 43, the situation was different back then. The Board was more engaged and was not willing to sit back while a President attempted to take control of the Club. Then as now, and since the Club’s founding, the President worked for the Board. Dean’s dismissal of that fundamental organizational tenet was the crux of his misconduct then, just as it remains the crux of the problem now.

The October 2015 meeting discussed in Absurdist 43 appears to have cast the die for Dean’s exit. Although Dean was able to remove Jim Higgins from appointed positions, Jim still served as Fourth Area Director. That placed him in direct conflict with Dean at a meeting where Dean tried to pull executive rank, failed in the face of a resistant Board, and later decided that if the boys were not going to play nice, he would take his ball and go home.

The Resignation

On October 20, 2015, in the immediate aftermath of that fated Board meeting, Dean posted the following resignation on the membership email reflector as message #17315. It is reproduced here verbatim.

We reproduced that historical gem verbatim to avoid any possible claim of misrepresentation. However, it deserves some interpretive comment.

First, this resignation was not offered quietly to the Board of Directors. It was broadcast to the membership. That unusual procedure suggests Dean was doing more than informing the Club that he was leaving office. He was attempting to define the story of his departure before anyone else could.

What was his intended message?

That he was the victim.

He blamed his Vice President and, especially, Fourth Area Director Jim Higgins, KB3PU, for his departure, stating that he faced “constant adversity.” He said nothing about that adversity being a reaction to his attempt at an imperial presidency.

About Jim, Dean wrote: “He constantly questions my actions, corrects me and others, and makes general and constant diatribes and other denunciation and criticism of my efforts.”

It Is Lonely at the Top

Well, Dean, that is sometimes how governance works. Directors question actions. Experienced members correct mistakes. People criticize efforts when those efforts appear to violate structure, bypass authority, or consolidate power. If a President cannot tolerate criticism and correction, he should not seek office more onerous than refreshments coordinator.

Then came the revealing sentence: “I don’t work this way.”

What way does he work? My way or the highway?

He also did not miss the opportunity to appeal to Fourth Area Members to reconsider their choice of Area Director.

The final blow was not merely the resignation. It was the immediate withdrawal of Club-adjacent infrastructure. The N7XG QSL Service was closed, effective immediately. Support for the N7XG Logger was discontinued, effective immediately. The software was “up for sale.”

Too late, everybody. Send your QSL cards to Skip. Members with money deposited in the bureau will get refunds if and when I feel like it. I’m done.

That was not an orderly transition. It was not stewardship. It was exit by detonation. Contempt duly noted.

But his story would change later on. Before we get to that, let us gauge the Club’s sentiment at the time as expressed by its membership.

The Member Reaction

To be fair, upon reading Dean’s very public resignation, many members expressed anger, chagrin, and maudlin existential concern for the future of the Club. Some were Dean’s friends. Others appeared to be looking for an opportunity to tee off on the Club and found a convenient excuse. In the middle were open-minded members who voiced thoughts about what might have influenced Dean’s decision, although much of that speculation was based on conjecture.

A large group piled on to KB3PU, at whom Dean had conveniently pointed the finger. Jim had a history of speaking his mind, enforcing rules, and rubbing people the wrong way in the process. Dean, of course, was not a member of the Jim Higgins Fan Club. He also knew that implicating Jim in his resignation would pass the plausibility test with members who had prior conflicts with him.

Skip, the Vice President, had only a brief history with the Club. During that time, he had made friends and transformed the 40-meter Late Net from a largely abandoned venture into a thriving net. So although Dean implicated his Vice President as one of the two individuals who caused his resignation, Skip’s public image remained intact. Indeed, Skip succeeded Dean as Club President.

A few less visceral and more thoughtful responses on the reflectors at the time reveal a repeating pattern with Dean and the folly of his controlling approach to the presidency. These members were not casual bystanders. They were deeply involved in the Club’s volunteer infrastructure and had seen the organization from multiple angles.

Some Member Comments

The following excerpts came from Clay Statmore, WA2JIM, Second Area Awards Manager (then and now); this writer, then serving as Fourth Area Awards Manager; Bob Young, W5UOT; and Johnny Allen, KI4WCQ.

Dean Had Quit PrevioUsly

“…I would remind everyone that this is not the first time that Dean quit when he didn’t get his way. For those of you who have been around for less than 10 years, it happened before, just not on as large a scale. I believe he was the club historian, webmaster and 7th area Director when he abruptly resigned.”
—WA2JIM

“I have been around a long time too. Jim has had a go at me a time or two. I still respect him. Yes, I was here when Dean quit before. Yes, the actions were way too aggressive for a beginning president. I wish no one ill.”
—W5UOT

Firing Jim was destructive and imprudent

“Summarily firing Jim, KB3PU from all of his various appointed positions is a good example of Dean acting like imperiously. I would point out that no one would ever suggest that Jim and I are the best of friends. I can’t begin to tell you how many e-mail screaming matches I have had with him. There is no one in the club who has frustrated me more over the years than Jim but I will be first to tell you that Jim does more for the club than almost any two or three other people I could name. Jim has been part of the glue that keeps the club running (yeah, I mixed the metaphor). He does stuff that no one even knows he does. Every time something else needed doing, he volunteered for the additional work or additional position. And, he got the job done. Please notice that since Dean fired Jim, much of what Jim used to do is not getting done.”
—WA2JIM

Dean wanted to invert the constitutional structure

“Our constitution calls for a strong board and a weak president. Dean wanted to flip those roles around.”
—AE4NT

The resignation was designed to sow discord and cause inconvenience

“Having seen several resignations in my experience, normally one contains a reason, but not an attempt to blame others and state, ‘I’m closing the buro and not supporting the logger immediately’ (pain be upon you)…while closing his missive with something to the effect of ‘you CCN members are great folks and I offer you best wishes’. How do you square those two positions?. Also, I think it should have been submitted first to the BoD as a courtesy rather than a shout out to the world. I see no good reason for a broadcast resignation unless it was to sow discord.”
—KI4WCQ

The Pattern Identified

The significance of these comments is not merely that they criticized Dean. The significance is that they identified, in real time, the same pattern now visible again: resistance to Board authority, hostility toward correction, public blame-shifting, and a tendency to treat Club functions as personal leverage.

These were not casual members complaining because the hobby had briefly stopped being fun. These were volunteers with years of service, practical responsibility, and institutional memory. They understood that volunteer work is not always fun. Sometimes it is governance, maintenance, recordkeeping, conflict resolution, and keeping the machinery from eating itself.

Their warnings were clear.

Later on, we would see that the Club simply failed to retain them.

But then Dean decided to change his story.

Read on.

Dean’s December Mitigation

On December 7, 2015, seven weeks after his original resignation, Dean posted the following update on the Hamtown reflector, and asked that it be forwarded to the “other” reflector, which he had not accessed since October. It is reproduced here verbatim.

By any interpretation, this sheds new light on Dean’s resignation, but it still raises some questions. Before addressing those questions, we should be clear: we are not treating Dean’s reported diagnosis lightly. He is still alive and kicking more than ten years later, so his medical team apparently did well, and no decent person disparages a successful medical outcome. Having lost friends and a parent to cancer, I do not treat that diagnosis lightly. It is always worthy of relief and gratitude when someone survives it.

Shifting Sands

With that December message, however, the explanation for Dean’s abrupt resignation shifted. In October, the public explanation was constant adversity from Jim and Skip. In December, the explanation became the stress of a serious medical diagnosis. That may well explain some of the abruptness. It does not explain everything else.

Dean also stated that he had suggested donating the N7XG logger software to the club members, but not to the Club. This was an interesting distinction. Isn’t the Club defined by its membership? Just asking.

More importantly, nowhere in the revised explanation did Dean walk back the externalized blame he placed on others in his original public resignation. He did not retract the accusation that Jim Higgins and Skip Guenter had made it impossible for him to accomplish anything meaningful. Nor did he apologize for broadcasting his resignation to the membership rather than first submitting it to the Board. He did not acknowledge that immediately closing the QSL bureau and discontinuing logger support created avoidable disruption. And he did not concede that Club-adjacent tools should not become personal leverage during a leadership crisis.

A personal crisis may explain an abrupt resignation. It does not explain blaming critics, bypassing the Board, closing services without transition, or treating organizational tools as levers.

And that brings us up to today’s governance dilemma, once again, the Dean Davis Complete Control Paradigm. The Club appears to have remembered the sympathetic explanation and forgotten the governance lesson.

Time Heals All Wounds, Alas

What followed was a 28-month interregnum. Skip succeeded Dean as President in November 2015, but health problems cut his presidency short. His Vice President, Dwight Greenberg, WF4H, assumed the position in June 2016 and retired from it at the end of his term in February 2018.

In contrast with Dean, both Skip and Dwight positively engaged the Board during their tenure. They did not treat the Board as adversaries; neither attempted to usurp Board authority or circumvent mandated process. Both used gentle suasion to influence the Board and elicit agreement with their initiatives. And both accepted any rare defeats with dignity and the willingness to try harder.

Taking Another Shot at the Throne

Upon learning of Dwight’s impending retirement, Dean ran for President again in 2018, defeating his runner-up, the Notorious Captain Bill, who was the subject of Absurdist 22. In all, there were seven candidates. A runoff was required because no one received a majority vote. Dean received 83 and Bill got 62. This turned out to be the last legitimate presidential election for the Club, in which nearly every candidate amassed a non-trivial vote total. The runoff between the two top candidates, Dean and Captain Bill, was decisive in Dean’s favor, 128-88.

Having run a QSL bureau, Dean had at his fingertips a ready-made member contact network that could be used to drum up votes. Although Captain Bill was wildly popular at the time, he could not compete with that kind of campaign mechanism.

But after all the turmoil of late 2015, why did the members choose Dean as President over six other candidates?

Hard to say.

Decent people have the capacity to forgive and forget. Many rank-and-file members were probably unaware of the full extent of Dean’s manipulative behavior during his brief prior tenure. Others may have remembered the general drama but not the structural issue: Dean had tried to invert the Club’s governing model by making the President dominant over the Board. Our conjecture is that poor awareness, member forgiveness, and strong behind-the-scenes campaign promotion put him over the top.

Consolidating Control

Once in office, Dean began erecting shields while increasing his control over the Club. Meanwhile, the Club had entered a period of decline. Interest in elections waned. Area Director races became single-candidate affairs. Members showed scant interest in running for leadership positions. With fewer willing candidates, it became easier to cajole friendly volunteers into Board positions.

Thus, resistance from the Board dwindled.

The President who had resigned in 2015, blaming opposition from the Board and his Vice President, who had declared “I don’t work this way,” could now finally work that way.

With the Board all but neutralized and member apathy running high, the Club was ripe for the taking. In each presidential election since 2018, Dean faced opponents who functioned more as placeholders than challengers, satisfying the bylaws’ requirement for a contested election without creating a true contest.

Protest Votes

Even then, the vote totals in those manufactured head-to-head contests were revealing. In 2020, a friend of Clay Mayrose, WA6LBU, the 2018 Eyeball host, who had just put together enough contacts on the nets to earn a single 100-Point Award, received 15% of the votes. Then, in 2022, Clay Mayrose himself, the current friendly Chair of the Board, received 29%. In 2024, Joe Bevier, KF7HNC, a new Seventh Area Awards Manager, pulled in 23%. Most recently, in 2026, Bob Young, W5UOT, Century Club Cares Chair, captured 39%, despite making clear that he did not intend to serve and was supporting Dean.

That tells us something important.

Not everyone forgot.

Dean continued to polarize members, and a growing number expressed dissatisfaction through their votes. Yet through apathy, weak candidate pools, placeholder opposition, and a docile Board of Directors, Dean survived each election. Each time, he gathered a little more power.

The Club did not merely forget the warning.

It learned to live around it.

Will the Board Continue to Roll Over?

That brings us to the present. In contrast with the Board’s current disengaged posture, the October 2015 meeting is a quaint relic of authoritative behavior by a much more engaged Board.

As recent essays have shown, Dean’s efforts to consolidate control of the Club have become more brazen. He now appears willing to presume authority over the Board’s own recordkeeping process, including how minutes are written, supplemented, or preserved. No prior Board approval, no discussion, no vote. Just another command from above.

Apparently, he wants to reduce Board meetings to a formality, minimally satisfying bylaws requirements while avoiding substantive process and healthy discourse.

Yet the Board tolerates it.

An Unwitting Symbiosis?

That is the central pathology. Dean’s conduct is one part of the problem. The Board’s passivity is the other. A President can only accumulate unauthorized power when Directors allow it, excuse it, ignore it, or decide that resisting it would be too much trouble before bedtime.

The Club’s institutional memory did not disappear because the records were unavailable. The warnings were public. The pattern was visible. Dean’s first failed presidency showed what happens when he treats opposition as persecution and Board authority as an obstacle. The problem is that the organization failed to let that history guide future conduct.

Now the Board has another chance to remember.

It must stop functioning as a courtesy panel assembled to receive packets, approve minutes, and admire whatever pet project is currently jingling in front of it. The Board governs the Club. The President implements Board policy. The Chair serves the Board. The Secretary preserves the Board’s record. Committees serve the Board’s work, not the President’s convenience.

That structure is not decorative.

It is the Club’s remaining defense against executive capture.

Again: Directors Must Act Like Directors

The first step toward recovery is not complicated. Directors must act like Directors. They must discuss reports, challenge defective minutes, demand accurate records, protect committee work, insist on proper channels, and refuse to treat presidential preference as policy. The second step is electoral: non-functional Directors must be challenged and replaced by volunteers who understand that governance requires active participation, not polite attendance.

Under a functioning Board, the Club can rebuild. A competent President who respects the structure can work with that Board to repair a decade of decline. Strategic planning can replace pet projects. Institutional memory can replace improvisation. Member service can replace cronyism. Volunteer respect can replace quiet attrition.

The Club is not doomed because Dean returned.

The Club is endangered because it forgot why his return should have mattered.

Leadership is the key.

That starts with the Board.

That is the way it was meant to be.

Please view my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 47: On the Loss of Institutional Memory Cells appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

“If Directors do not reassert that structure now, they may soon discover that while they were debating logos, platforms, and procedural fog, presidential control quietly hardened into operating reality.”

Absurdist Papers continues its critiques of executive misbehavior in our subject organization. So, what else is new?

We hear that our subject organization’s President is at it again. Yes, dear readers, Absurdist Paper #46 addresses yet another example of presidential overreach.

This time, the President appears to be attempting to assert control over the minutes of the corporation, which are governed by the bylaws as records of the Board of Directors and are clearly beyond the President’s unilateral authority.

Yet this imperial President has made it sound like a fait accompli:

“Just curious where does it say that out minutes must be written.
Starting with the June minutes the youtube video will be attached to the minutes.”

Never mind the typos and the Philadelphia lawyering. We have bigger fish to fry.

The President is obviously missing several points. We will try to fill them in for him:

• First, the Board of Directors, not the President, is responsible for the minutes.
• Second, the Board of Directors, not the President, is responsible for the Club.
• Third, the President works for the Board of Directors, not the other way around.
• Finally, the President has no authority to issue an edict about the composition, content, or structure of the minutes.

Any material change in recordkeeping practice must be discussed, debated, and voted on by the Board before implementation. The President merely has one vote, as if he were a member of the Board.

Please remember that for future reference.

This keeps cropping up.

It needs to stop, and the Board needs to take charge.

The Practical Issues of Non-Written Minutes

A video recording may supplement the minutes. It may help the Secretary prepare the minutes. It may serve as backup evidence when minutes are challenged. But it is not a substitute for written, searchable, Board-approved minutes that properly summarize material discussions, motions, votes, and actions.

Whether intended or not, treating video as an adequate substitute would relieve the Secretary of pressure to produce useful written minutes while shifting the burden of reconstruction onto future Directors, members, committee members, and historians.

That is not transparency. That is future homework.

A major problem with the lazy concept of simply referencing a YouTube video is that video recordings are not easily searchable by future Boards and Committees. A future researcher should not have to scrub through an hour-long recording to determine what motion was discussed, who objected, what correction was requested, or whether the Secretary’s summary captured the actual exchange. Coupled with cursory, incomplete, or defective written summaries, video links would exacerbate the historical preservation problem rather than solve it.

Written minutes remain the official, searchable, Board-approved record.

That must always be the case.

Videos are useful adjuncts, but they should be viewed as backup. If the video contradicts what is recorded in the written minutes, then the written minutes must be corrected.

A video is evidence. It is not minutes.

And YouTube is not a records-retention policy.

Who Gets to Decide

Only the Board can act on changes in recordkeeping practice, subject to the bylaws. If a change in bylaws is required, then a properly formatted motion must pass through the appropriate process before appearing on the agenda for a Board vote.

There is no provision in the bylaws for the President to make unilateral decisions about how the Board’s official record will be maintained.

That should be obvious. Apparently, it is not.

The Board should not allow the President or Secretary to convert an administrative convenience into a change in governance practice. Board records belong to the Board. The President does not own them. The Secretary prepares them. The Board reviews, corrects, and approves them.

That is the structure, the authority, and the line. Period.

An Intelligent Compromise

While videos are cumbersome, non-searchable, and useful mainly as corroboration or, occasionally, amusement, we have a constructive suggestion. If the Board is seeking greater accuracy rather than convenience, it should consider attaching a transcript generated by Zoom AI Companion, reviewed for accuracy, to the monthly minutes as supplemental material.

We originally proposed this in Absurdist 34, but no one was listening. So, we will propose it again here. Like our subject organization’s President, we can be persistent.

Remember the old chat transcripts that served as minutes back in the day? Absurdist 43 gave an example of their usefulness as documentation. They presented verbatim discussion that could settle future disputes and put the quietus on retrospective interpretation. A reviewed Zoom AI Companion transcript could restore some of that value without relieving the Secretary of the responsibility to prepare proper written minutes.

Such a transcript could also help the Secretary produce the real minutes. Instead of poring over an hour-long video repeatedly to capture and transcribe mumbled speech fragments, the Secretary would have ready-made editable text from which to prepare a proper summary. Because AI Companion is integrated with Zoom, individual comments are identified by Zoom user name. Of course, any such transcript would still need review. Artificial intelligence is helpful, not sacred. We already have enough false gods around here.

The Board should continue to require written minutes that summarize the meeting, record material discussion, preserve motions and votes, and provide a searchable written record consistent with the bylaws and record-retention responsibilities.

If the President and Secretary believe additional detail would help preserve the record, then the Board should discuss whether to attach a reviewed Zoom AI Companion transcript, or another reviewed transcript derived from the recording, as supplemental material to the minutes. That would provide amplification and clarification while preserving a written, searchable historical record.

Just a thought. A constructive one, even.

Please do not faint.

Once Again, the Board Must Take the Lead

We need to say this one more time, in case you missed it. This must be a Board decision. The President cannot unilaterally decide how Board records are maintained, and the Secretary must not be relieved of the responsibility to prepare useful written minutes simply because a recording exists.

A recording may support the minutes. A transcript may supplement the minutes.

But the Board-approved written minutes remain the official record.

It always reduces to the same question: will the Board act like the Board? Not like a committee of spectators. Not like a courtesy panel assembled to receive packets, approve minutes, and admire the latest cosmetic distraction. The Board governs the Club. The President implements Board policy. The Chair serves the Board. The Secretary preserves the Board’s record.

If Directors do not reassert that structure now, they may soon discover that while they were debating logos, platforms, and procedural fog, presidential control quietly hardened into operating reality.

This may not be the Board’s last chance to correct course, but it may be the last easy chance. Once a Board normalizes rubber-stamp approvals, officer-managed discussion, interpretive minutes, and unilateral presidential declarations about the record, it becomes much harder to reclaim authority later.

The entropy trend-line is advancing rapidly. A strong Board is the Club’s only hope.

The time to act like Directors is before the Board becomes purely decorative.

Further Reading

Please view my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 46: On the YouTube Doctrine appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Past updates have covered various aspects of my training, diet, and progress measurement. I am a big believer in bio-feedback, so I’m wired, monitored, and scanned at intervals. I am an even bigger believer in resistance training, a non-negotiable adjunct to GLP-1 therapy, particularly in old farts like me. I’m pushing 80, and I’m probably in better shape than I was at 35.

But of course, being old means one must endure a veritable plethora of chronic conditions. I won’t bore you with details here, but if you are interested, you can find all that drivel buried in the body of work contained in the Peptide Purgatory catalog.

All that was necessary as a re-introduction because I have not written one of these updates for a while. My writing has been distracted by a certain ailing organization I am analyzing, diagnosing, and for which I am prescribing therapy via a collection of essays. Let’s get on with Peptide Purgatory.

Today, after my feature article about how people use and misuse social media for medical information, I’ll discuss a few things that have cropped up on my own medical front. These include some shoulder issues, some itchiness, and lots of deprescribing.

When the cuff says 142/98 and the internet says “try beets”

Every so often, social media reminds me why civilization invented medical schools, blood pressure guidelines, and professional licensure. Not that the system works flawlessly, mind you. We have all encountered physicians who communicate like encrypted firmware and healthcare systems that appear to have been designed by raccoons trapped in a copier room. Still, there is a substantial difference between “the medical system is flawed” and “let us crowdsource cardiovascular risk from Facebook comments.”

The latest specimen comes from a Facebook group devoted to “reversing high BP without drugs.” That title alone should cause a mild rise in systolic pressure, but onward we go. A 38-year-old man posted a photo of his Omron blood pressure monitor showing 142/98 and asked a simple question: “Is this really bad?”

This was, in its own innocent way, a reasonable question. Blood pressure numbers are not self-explanatory to most people. A home monitor will give you the reading, but it will not lean forward and say, “Friend, perhaps this should not be interpreted by a retired forklift operator with strong opinions about garlic.”

Fortunately, Facebook was there.

The comment section enters medical practice

The answers arrived with the usual mixture of casual reassurance, folk medicine, half-remembered advice, and confident nonsense.

One commenter said that if he were 40, it would be okay. This is fascinating, because apparently human arteries observe age-based zoning exemptions. At 38, you are in trouble. At 40, the same pressure gets grandfathered in under the municipal vascular code.

Several people said “No,” meaning no, it is not bad. Others said it was “not great but not terrible,” which is the Chernobyl approach to primary care. One person said it was “fine” and warned that stress would only raise it further. That is true in the same sense that worrying about termites will not repair your joists. Emotional management is nice. Structural decay remains inconsiderate.

Some advice was not wrong, merely incomplete. Exercise. Reduce salt. Sleep better. Avoid stress. Drink water. See a doctor. These are reasonable components of the usual lifestyle discussion, although they were delivered with the diagnostic precision of refrigerator magnets.

Then came the herbal supplement wing of the proceedings: magnesium, garlic, vitamin D, beets, hibiscus, and amla. I have nothing against plants. Plants have been kind enough to provide us with fiber, micronutrients, shade, and, in some cases, drugs that actually became drugs after science stopped by and ruined the vibes. But a Facebook comment recommending beets for stage 2 hypertension is not a treatment plan. It is produce marketing.

And then, because no social media health discussion is complete without ideological graffiti, someone declared that the medical industry is a business that profits from sickness. This is not exactly false as a critique of American healthcare, but it is not especially useful when a 38-year-old man is asking whether his diastolic pressure should be auditioning for a horror film. A structural indictment of capitalism does not lower afterload.

What a clinician would probably say

A blood pressure reading of 142/98, if taken properly at rest, is not normal. Under current American blood pressure categories, a systolic pressure of 140 or higher or a diastolic pressure of 90 or higher falls into stage 2 hypertension.

That does not mean the man should sprint to the emergency room clutching his Omron like a sacred relic. One reading does not diagnose hypertension. Blood pressure is fussy. It changes with activity, stress, bladder fullness, caffeine, nicotine, cuff size, arm position, talking, posture, pain, and the universal human tendency to do measurements badly and then argue with the machine.

A sensible medical response would be boring, which is how you know it has a chance of being correct. Sit quietly for five minutes. Feet on the floor. Back supported. Arm at heart level. Correct cuff size. No talking. Take two readings one minute apart. Repeat this over several days. Average the readings. Then bring the log to a clinician.

If the average remains around 142/98, a clinician would not say, “Relax, king, drink water.” He would likely call it confirmed hypertension and discuss lifestyle measures, medication, and risk factors. At age 38, persistent hypertension would also invite questions about secondary causes: kidney disease, sleep apnea, endocrine issues, medications, stimulants, family history, alcohol, sodium intake, and other unglamorous contributors. Medicine is not always dramatic. Sometimes it is an inventory of boring suspects, which is exactly why Facebook hates it.

JAMA ruins the fun by measuring the problem

Just when I was enjoying this little carnival of cardiovascular commentary, along came a JAMA research letter that put numbers to the madness.

The authors analyzed data from the 2024 Health Information National Trends Survey, a nationally representative survey of 7,278 US adults, representing about 262 million adults. Social media use was reported by 87.8% of adults, or roughly 228 million people. Among social media users, 84.8% reported sharing personal or general health information, and 70.2% participated in online communities. More importantly, 21.6% reported making health-related decisions based on social media content. Meanwhile, 77.7% believed health information encountered on social media was false or misleading.

Pause there, because that is the finding that should make your eyebrows crawl up your forehead.

Nearly four out of five social media users think the health information they see is false or misleading, yet more than one in five still make health decisions based on it. That is the modern health-information environment in one sentence: “I know this swamp is contaminated, but I am thirsty.”

This is not merely a problem of gullibility. It is a problem of exposure. Humans are pattern-seeking animals. We absorb repeated messages even when we distrust them. If enough people tell you hibiscus tea cures hypertension, statins are poison, GLP-1 drugs melt your pancreas, or blood sugar spikes are caused by moon phase and seed oils, some of it lodges in the mind like shrapnel. Later, when the doctor suggests medication, the patient is not starting from zero. He is starting from a sedimentary layer of memes, anecdotes, tribal suspicion, and YouTube thumbnails.

The distrust paradox

The JAMA authors point out that social media platforms are “engagement-driven” environments. That is the polite academic way of saying that the machinery does not care whether a post is true. It cares whether the post makes you click, argue, share, rage, fear, hope, or purchase a tub of powdered miracle roots from a man wearing a headset microphone.

Accuracy is optional. Engagement is the product.

That explains the Facebook blood pressure thread perfectly. The calmest and most medically useful answer would be something like this:

“Your reading is high. Retake it correctly over several days, record the results, and discuss them with a clinician. If your readings remain elevated, you may need treatment.”

That is accurate. It is also dull. It will never outperform “The medical industry profits from sickness,” “God will heal you,” “try beets,” or “this is close to stroke-level.” The algorithm does not reward calibration. It rewards combustion.

The most dangerous advice is not always the wildest advice. Sometimes it is the soothing nonsense. “It’s fine.” “Don’t worry.” “No.” “At 40 it’s okay.” These responses lower anxiety at the exact moment when the person needs a small but useful dose of concern. Not panic. Concern. The kind that leads to measurement, follow-up, and action.

Chronic disease does not immunize anyone

The JAMA study also examined adults with chronic conditions. Among 4,590 adults with chronic conditions, representing 69.1% of respondents, social media use was still high at 85.5%. Adults with chronic conditions were less likely than those without chronic conditions to share health information or participate in online communities, but making health decisions based on social media did not differ by chronic disease status.

That matters. It means social media health decision-making is not confined to newly diagnosed patients, hypochondriacs, or people with obscure supplement cabinets. It is part of the general health-information atmosphere. We are all breathing it, even those of us who think we have decent filters.

This is especially relevant in the GLP-1 era. People taking Mounjaro, Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound, or any of the other peptide celebrities are living in a hailstorm of online medical claims. One group says the drugs are miracles. Another says they are poison. One influencer says muscle loss does not matter because weight loss is the point. Another says you can prevent all lean mass loss by waving a resistance band near your refrigerator. Somewhere in the middle, actual medicine is trying to have a conversation, but it keeps getting drowned out by affiliate links.

For those of us managing chronic metabolic conditions, social media can be useful. Patient experience matters. Practical tips matter. Seeing how other people handle side effects, appetite changes, protein intake, exercise, constipation, hypoglycemia fears, or insurance absurdities can be valuable. But experience is not evidence. Anecdote is not physiology. And “this worked for me” is not the same as “this is appropriate for you.”

The comment section is not a care team

The old model of medical authority had its own problems. Doctors often behaved as if patients were appliances brought in for repair. Information flowed one way. Questions were tolerated up to the point where the physician’s hand reached the doorknob. Many patients went looking elsewhere because the formal system failed to explain things clearly, respectfully, and in human language.

Social media filled that gap.

Unfortunately, it filled the gap the way kudzu fills a roadside ditch: energetically, aggressively, and with limited concern for infrastructure.

The solution is not to sneer at patients who seek health information online. People do this because they are confused, worried, curious, underserved, overbilled, rushed, ignored, or simply trying to understand their own bodies. That impulse is good. The problem is where the impulse lands.

A Facebook group can provide camaraderie. It can provide examples. It can alert you to questions you might not have known to ask. But it cannot examine you, review your medications, check your kidney function, assess your cardiovascular risk, evaluate your home measurement technique, or distinguish between “this is annoying” and “this is dangerous.” The comment section is not a care team. It is a crowd in a parking lot, some of whom may be helpful, some of whom may be deranged, and one of whom is definitely selling something.

A practical bullshit filter

When using social media for medical information, I suggest a simple filter. Rejection is particularly valid when comments are prefaced with “Honestly,…” or the social media acronym “TBH”. Same advice goes with “I’m sure…” or “I’m pretty sure…” Here are some other things to watch for.

First, beware of anyone who gives absolute advice based on one number, one symptom, or one screenshot. “You’re fine” and “you’re dying” can both be garbage.

Second, beware of miracle specificity. If one herb, supplement, food, detox, breathing trick, or YouTube protocol claims to solve a complex chronic disease, assume the usual ratio: one teaspoon plausibility, one gallon marketing.

Third, beware of ideological substitution. “Big Pharma is corrupt” may sometimes be a legitimate discussion. It is not a blood pressure management plan. “Doctors don’t know nutrition” may occasionally contain truth. It still does not validate a stranger’s beet protocol.

Fourth, distinguish between support and decision-making. It is one thing to ask, “Has anyone else had this side effect?” It is another to ask, “Should I stop my medication?” One is community. The other is a low-budget malpractice simulator.

Finally, look for boring answers. Boring answers are underrated. Repeat the measurement. Confirm the trend. Check the lab. Ask the clinician. Review the guideline. Change one variable at a time. Boring answers do not sparkle, but neither do uncontrolled blood pressure, diabetic retinopathy, kidney failure, or a stroke. Biology is rude about drama.

The Peptide Purgatory verdict

The JAMA findings do not tell us that social media is useless for health information. That would be too easy, and reality rarely has the decency to be simple. Social media can connect patients, spread useful information, and expose failures in the formal medical system. It can also distribute misinformation at industrial scale while making people feel informed, empowered, and vaguely superior to their doctors.

The Facebook blood pressure thread is a perfect little case study. A 38-year-old man posted a reading that deserved attention but not panic. In return, he got reassurance, alarm, produce, prayer, salt lectures, anti-medical cynicism, and a few reasonable suggestions buried under the rubble.

That is the whole problem in miniature.

We now live in a world where millions of people distrust social media health advice and still act on it. The machine does not need our trust. It only needs our attention. And in the sacred economy of clicks, your blood pressure is just another engagement opportunity.

So keep your cuff calibrated, your doctor involved, your salt reasonable, your resistance training intact, and your bullshit detector set to “continuous monitoring.” The internet may yet prove useful, but only if we remember that a comment thread is not a clinic, hibiscus is not a cardiologist, and Facebook should not be allowed within ten feet of your medication list.

My Mounjaro Update

As I mentioned way up there in the introduction, I remain at the 7.5 mg weekly dose of Mounjaro, which I have been injecting weekly since June 2024. Coupled with diet and a rigorous strength training program, I have experienced a body renaissance, losing 70 lbs and reducing blood sugar to normie level. Although I have experienced an upward weight bump of five pounds in the past couple of months, I have been stable otherwise for over a year. I might have an explanation for the weight gain. Jenny has one, too. More on that later.

A February DEXAscan confirmed great progress with body composition. Body fat is now under 20% for the first time since infancy, probably. Bone density is excellent, always an area of concern for very senior citizens. And muscle mass is increasing, akin to body magic for a near 80-year-old. The marketing arm of DEXAfit of Orlando calculates my effective biological age at 64. So, I’ll celebrate my 65th birthday instead of my 80th in November, if I make it that far.

At this rate, I’ll be a teenager before long. Who knew?

My June labs were terrific. Looks like we have the iron problem solved for now. Blood lipids are perfect. Gout seems to be under control, with uric acid actually below the normal range. The kidneys are so-so, with eGFR at 53, but hey, that’s still not too bad for an 80 year-old. I’ll talk more about kidneys and an additional test that might benefit me later in this post.

Shouldering the Burden

I’m an orthopedic disaster area. Doing heavy weight training at 80 is certainly beneficial overall, but it comes with side-effects. Something is always hurting. For a few months, the main pain focus has been on my left shoulder and biceps.

Two possibilities came to mind. One of them was my cervical spine pathology. For those unfamiliar with every gruesome detail of my orthopedic nightmare, I have had C3-6 fusion, complicated by a broken stainless steel screw embedded in my vertebra at the bottom of the internal brace. I also have thoracic spine scoliosis. Great stuff!

On Facebook, they’d recommend ashwagandha therapy.

Cervical spine radiculopathy would have been a sucky diagnosis. I am not interested in additional surgery. The original fusion was done in 2007, when I was lots younger. The performing neurosurgeon is now pushing daisies in that great operating theater in the sky.

I saw Dr. Macallan (not his real name). After a physical exam, he concluded that the problem was likely a combination of rotator cuff issues and biceps tendinitis. He recommended physical therapy.

As regular readers know, I have engaged Advent Health’ physical therapy division for my rehab needs over the past twenty years or so. However, at this juncture, I felt it was time for a change. Advent had been disappointing me by overbooking their therapists and giving me watered-down generic exercises in an unsupervised setting. I’d either be sent off on my own to do the exercises or have occasional visits by the therapist or an overworked assistant. Their detailed insurance billing bordered on creative fiction. So, I was happy that Dr. Macallan recommended Orlando Sports Medicine, an outfit I had previously vetted when I sought a potential alternative to Advent.

I was not disappointed. From top to bottom, Orlando Sports Medicine is a class operation. My therapist, Nate, gave me a detailed examination and concluded the same thing as Dr. Macallan: rotator cuff and biceps tendon pathology. He developed a program which includes home exercises, and he gave me advice about weightlifting, which he fortunately recommends continuing with caution.

My concern going into this rehab venture was that my training would suffer a serious setback. Nate says I should keep up the good work. His key marker is pain above level 4 on a scale of one-to-ten means stop whatever the hell I’m doing and either lighten the load, reduce the reps, or modify the exercise. Great all-around advice.

After five days of simple exercises for ten minutes per day, I can tell you that my shoulder feels much better. The nagging pain while lying in bed trying to get to sleep is gone. And my range of motion has greatly improved. I’m optimistic that Nate has found the key.

Meanwhile, upon polling social media, Facebook’s consensus recommendation was a prefrontal lobotomy.

That Itchy, Bitchy Feeling

I have been dealing with itchiness for the past couple of months. Random body areas suddenly start itching, and it is hard to resist the urge to scratch, which only intensifies the itching cycle. It was driving me nuts, so I mentioned it to Dr. Macallan.

After reviewing some normal blood results for SED rate and CREP, he seems to think it is a generic geriatric dry skin problem. He says he works with a pre-eminent dermatologist who is an expert in the treatment of geriatric xerosis. Their brilliant solution? Use emollients.

Now, I don’t have an issue slathering my skin with CeraVe or LaRoche-Posay, but it doesn’t seem to do anything for the itching. Furthermore, since the itching is random, not localized, what am I supposed to do, bathe in the stuff?

My intuition tells me something else is going on. Although I am usually happy with the Occam’s Razor approach to problem solving, I felt this one deserved further study to perhaps unearth a more complex etiology. It should come as no surprise that I eschewed social media as a source for that front-line research. Instead, I turned to another much maligned cyberspace phenomenon: AI.

A combination of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Notebook LM narrowed the potential causes down to three areas including the one proposed by Dr. Macallan and his mystery dermatological guru. The other two were the allopurinol I was taking for gout, and my chronic kidney disease.

Dr. Macallan had posited that itchiness—technically called pruritis—affects people with later stages of chronic kidney disease, but typically not at Stage 3A, where I have been for the past seven years. He also said my urea nitrogen was not high enough to be implicated as a cause. So, I should use emollients.

LaRoche-Posay, take me away!

Nah, I wasn’t about to give up on my quest.

Rogue patient that I am, I quietly stopped the allopurinol, already at a very low dose, to see if that would fix it. After a couple of weeks, I still itched.

Then, I came across an informative article from the National Kidney Foundation that confirmed that pruritis affects a fairly large percentage of people with Stage 2 and 3 chronic kidney disease—the earliest stages consisting of people with impaired kidney function but not yet on hemodialysis. It outlined treatment possibilities, starting with topicals like corticosteroid creams and yes, emollients. Resistant itching is then treated with antihistamines, and if they are not helpful, gabapentin or pregabalin are used. UV-B phototherapy is a possibility, but comes with a cancer warning.

I have been trying antihistamines and topical corticosteroids with mildly positive results. Before taking on another prescription drug like gabapentin, I want to explore one more area. I have been drinking pre-packaged protein shakes to keep my dietary protein levels up. I recently read the label on one of those protein bombs. It revealed 550 milligrams of phosphorus. For CKD Stage 3 patients, the recommended daily dietary phosphorus intake is generally 800-1000 mg. So, that might be something to look into.

Guidelines state that blood phosphorus levels should be between 3.0 to 5.5 mg/dL. I have no idea whether mine falls into that range because it has not been tested. Not recently, and perhaps, not ever. Phosphorus is not a standard component of the “complete metabolic panel” (CMP) blood test suite. So, my homework project will be to get that done. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, Facebook tells me I should take oatmeal baths, avoid chlorinated swimming pools, and use a DEET-based insect repellent with built-in emollients. Those were the helpful posts. I didn’t summarize those that said, “Your a idiot”.

Deprescribing for Fun and Big Pharma Profit (not)

Aside from working on my musculature, I am on a mission to ditch some prescription drugs. As I mentioned, I made the executive decision to dump allopurinol in connection with the itchiness. I am also working with Dr. Macallan to officially deprescribe some others.

First on the list was levothyroxine, which I have been taking for a long, long time at the minimum dose of 25 mcg. I had read a recent medical paper that reported favorable results deprescribing synthetic thyroid hormones for older adults with TSH and T4 in range, especially those on minimum dosage. That would be me. Macallan agreed, and we dropped the synthroid/levothyroxine a month ago.

Next, was Metformin. My blood sugar was doing well on Mounjaro and Farxiga, an SGLT-2 drug for my kidneys whose side-effect is peeing out your donuts. So, no need for a third diabetes drug.

On the horizon will be Lipitor (atorvastatin). My cholesterol and triglyceride numbers were so wonderful that we’ll potentially dump the statin. My decision there in collaboration with Dr. Macallan was to wait for September so the multiple discontinuations don’t combine to produce some confounding variables. By displacing that additional deprescribing, we can better isolate cause and effect if any untoward issues arise.

One potential causal factor for my five pound baseline weight gain over the past couple of months could be the withdrawal from levothyroxine and Metformin. Both are known to be mild weight loss producers. However, Jenny believes I’m gaining muscle mass. I’m skeptical at my advanced age, but I’m willing to admit the possibility, given the intensity of my workouts and my well developed six-pack still buried under a subcutaneous fat layer.

Meanwhile, social media recommended discontinuing all drugs and replacing them with medical marijuana.

Going forward (as opposed to going backward), I scheduled labs for phosphorus and uric acid. I will share results and what I glean from them.

Peptide Purgatory is a regular feature of this blog. For an annotated catalog of all my Mounjaro, GLP-1, and Peptide Purgatory updates, please visit my Mounjaro Update Catalog page.

The post Peptide Purgatory: Shouldering, DePrescribing, and Itching appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Alas, the best laid plans of mice, men, and Vox Incommoda oft times run amok.

The July Board meeting is nigh, and with it came the July Board packet, along with revised June draft minutes. The good news is that the revised minutes show signs that objections are being noticed. The less good news is that the packet and minutes still contain errors, confused document handling, defensive Secretary notes, stale roster information, and the lingering belief that minutes are a suitable venue for clerical self-defense.

So here we are. Absurdist Paper #45 performs a quick analysis of the documents leading into the July meeting.

The Pressure Is Working, But the Machinery Is Still Broken

The revised June minutes show that scrutiny can force corrections. That is encouraging. But the packet also shows why continuing scrutiny remains necessary: stale rosters, confused page references, wrong UTC dates, defensive Secretary notes, incomplete report restoration, and no clear agenda space for Directors to discuss the Board’s own authority.

Let us begin with the positive.

The revised June minutes improve several things. They name W6PNY as the Director raising the May-minutes objection, explain that he objected to the Secretary’s “out of order” comment because the Secretary lacked standing, and state that the May minutes would be adjusted and presented at the July meeting. They also correct Craig’s call to VE3CMB and add the important substance that both Craig and Gary did not think a discussion with Rich alone was necessary, that Gary said Rich should work with the Awards Committee, and that Craig wanted to return to the previous Awards Committee Report content.

That is progress. Small, belated, pressure-induced progress, but progress nonetheless.

Unfortunately, the revised minutes remain contaminated by the same fog that required correction in the first place.

The June Record Still Has Problems

Date confusion still taints the June record. The document identifies the meeting as “Local Saturday, June 14, 2026,” while also giving the UTC time as June 15, 2026, 0100 UTC. June 14, 2026 was not Saturday. The meeting was held at the normal Saturday evening local time corresponding to 0100 UTC, so the local date was Saturday, June 13, and the UTC date was June 14.

Given all the attention Doug devoted to revised document dating, he left the most glaring date problem intact.

The revised document also opens with a footer that looks as if two file names collided in a fog bank: revised timestamps jammed together, document names mashed into one another, and enough formatting debris to suggest that document control remains aspirational.

A Ghost in the Roster

Virgil Warren is still listed as Ninth Area Assistant Director despite his resignation. If Directors know of that resignation, how can they be expected to approve minutes or packets that continue listing him as though nothing changed? If official records cannot keep current with prominent resignations, perhaps “rubber-stamp” approval is not the cure. Perhaps careful review is.

Extraneous Pronouncements

The gratuitous interpretation of the five-day rule also remains embedded in the minutes discussion as if it were a pronouncement from on high. The minutes report the Chair’s explanation that there is no problem inserting reports after the final agenda is produced, and that the five-day lead-time restriction applies only to agenda discussion items. That may be Clay’s view. It may even be correct. But the minutes do not show that the Board adopted that interpretation as a ruling or resolution.

Minutes should not launder an officer’s interpretation into institutional fact unless the Board actually made it institutional fact.

And the NCS Guide language remains damning. The minutes say the workgroup was given “the most recently adopted NCS Guide from the club website” to review. That language keeps alive the fiction that the completed 2025 Guide is some inconvenient ghost document rather than completed volunteer work that should have been the starting point.

Also, yes, committee reports are part of the minutes packet. They are part of the historical record. Attempts to narrow “minutes” into only the skeletal meeting narrative are a clerical convenience, not good institutional memory.

The July Packet

Date confusion is becoming a tradition among The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. We have come to expect meeting date approximations as entertaining, continuing calendar creativity.

The July agenda says the meeting is 11-July-2026, then gives the UTC date as June 12, 2026, 0100 UTC. That is not a typo one wants in a Board packet one month after people complained about date confusion.

Time remains hard. Calendars remain undefeated.

Numerical Approximation

Then we have the equally traditional page-numbering confusion. The agenda says the June meeting minutes are attached on pages 5-9, but pages 4-8 of the packet contain the revised May minutes, while the revised June minutes begin on page 9 and continue through page 12. The table of contents lists both May minutes and June minutes, but the agenda item refers only to June.

So what exactly is being approved: May, June, both, or whatever Doug’s document blender produced before breakfast?

This is the product of twenty hours of clerical labor by the Secretary? We suppose the adjusted time budget precluded a cursory proofreading.

Acclamation Apathy?

The agenda also still preloads the approval ritual: “Accepted by Acclamation. Yes No ?” for minutes and financials. That little template is not conclusive by itself, but it fits the culture of procedural convenience too well to ignore.

More interestingly, the Financials section asks, “Are there any corrections or questions?” before the acclamation line. The Minutes section asks only, “Are there any corrections?”

No questions?

Why the inconsistency between two similar sections?

How tidy.

How revealing.

Minutes approval should not be treated as a narrow proofreading chore, which remains the primary responsibility of the author. Directors are not merely checking commas and call signs. If all those typos and date errors are inserted as deliberate diversions from substantive discussion, very clever! But typos notwithstanding, Directors are approving the official record of what happened, what was discussed, what was decided, and what future readers will understand about the Board’s work. If substantive issues remain, Directors should ask questions. They should discuss. They should correct. But they should not be nudged toward quiet acclamation by a preformatted ritual line.

May Minutes Revision

The revised May minutes included in the July packet now contain a SECRETARY NOTE, set off in red boldface, saying that at the June meeting N3VEJ’s statement was declared out of order because “it was thought” the Secretary had no standing for VOICE, that “the board agreed with this premise,” and that N3VEJ agreed to provide an update showing the Director’s objection while keeping the history of the discussion.

That is rich.

Doug is still writing interpretive notes about Doug’s own conduct. The revised language is better than the prior unqualified scolding of Mac, but it remains self-referential and defensive. Minutes should record the Board’s action and the Director’s objection. They should not become Doug’s personal appellate brief with minutes formatting.

Doug can express his clerical grievances to his Area Director for presentation to the Board. Waging his unilateral battle through the Club’s formal meeting record is indeed “out of order”.

This is the central problem. The Secretary should record what happened. He should not frame the dispute, defend his own role, explain his intent, or insert interpretive gloss designed to preserve his preferred version of events.

The Board does not need minutes that argue. It needs minutes that record.

Awards Committee Report Improvements

Now for an honest atta boy.

The July packet’s Awards Report now includes Payments by Type, showing checks, free awards, PayPal receipts, total payment sum, and counts. That is a partial restoration of financial-management value after the prior effort to strip Awards Reports down to activity statistics.

That matters.

It means pressure from Craig, Gary, Mac, Johnny, and whoever else has been asking questions is having an effect. They did not fully restore the old report format, but they put money back into the report. The Board should notice that this is exactly the kind of management data it was told did not belong there.

Funny how reality keeps barging in without an invitation.

The report also adds information about what the Awards Committee is working on. No narrative, just the exclamation that the Committee is working on two awards, followed by the names of those awards. Baby steps, I suppose. It certainly would be appropriate to flesh out that section for the historical record. Aside from creating a more useful committee report, it would set an example for the minutes.

While the Awards Committee Report has not been restored to its former glory, we see improvement, and we applaud it.

Keep going. Restore the useful management content. Explain what the Committee is doing. Show the Board what it needs to know.

Give future readers a record that tells them something more than “awards happened.”

Partial Correction Is Not Completion

The revised minutes and July packet demonstrate two things at once.

First, scrutiny works. Corrections were made. Missing substance was added. Craig’s call sign was fixed. Mac’s objection was named. The Awards Report began to recover some of its lost management value.

Good. That deserves recognition.

Second, the machinery remains unreliable. The documents still contain stale roster information, wrong dates, confused page references, defensive Secretary notes, loose procedural interpretation, and approval templates that seem designed to move the Board toward acclamation rather than active review.

That deserves continued scrutiny.

Integrity of the Historical Record

This is not just nitpicking. These documents are the Club’s memory. They tell future Boards what happened, what was questioned, what was corrected, and whether Directors acted like Directors or merely approved whatever appeared in the packet. If the record is sloppy, the institutional memory becomes sloppy. If the minutes are argumentative, the record becomes argumentative. And if Directors approve by acclamation without careful review, the Board becomes an accessory to its own fog.

So let us say the positive part plainly: To those who objected, pushed, questioned, corrected, and improved the record: atta boy!

The pressure worked. The Awards Report improved. The revised minutes moved in the right direction.

Now comes the admonition: Do not stop.

Partial correction is not completion. A slightly better packet is not a functioning governance culture. A few restored data points do not repair the Awards Committee report. A revised note does not cure the Secretary’s habit of inserting interpretive prose. A corrected call sign does not fix document control. Acknowledging Mac’s objection does not settle the Board’s responsibility to govern itself.

Continued Progress

The July meeting is the next test.

Directors should read the packet. Read the minutes. Compare them to memory. Ask questions. Reject acclamation when accuracy remains in doubt. Insist that the Chair serve the Board, that the Secretary preserve the record, and that the President remember his proper role.

The machinery moved because someone pushed.

Keep pushing. We are just getting started.

Happy 250th Birthday, USA!

Further Reading

Please view my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 45: Partial Correction, Persistent Fog appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

An encouraging sign is that our readership is expanding due to strong promotion by established readers and by the Club itself. We welcome new readers, with the hope that we can strike some resonant notes.

Our subject organization’s leadership attempted to warn members away from outside criticism. Instead, that warning may have reminded thoughtful members of something more important: they are entitled to ask questions, request records, challenge defective minutes, and expect Area Directors to represent them.

That is one purpose of these essays.

What We Are About

We do not write merely to complain, although the material supplied by current leadership often makes complaint feel less like a choice than a civic obligation. We write because members should speak up when they see imbalance, procedural shortcuts, information control, squandered volunteer labor, or leadership priorities drifting away from the general membership. The Club exists for members and is operated by members. When leadership abandons duly adopted bylaws, wastes resources, shortcuts due process, pursues cosmetic distractions, or places its own convenience ahead of the Club’s long-term health, we intend to say so plainly.

If these words resonate, members should contact their Area Directors and ask specific questions. Not angry questions merely for sport, although sport has its place. Useful questions. Documented questions. Questions about minutes, reports, committee work, website accuracy, award procedures, Board authority, and whether the Club is being governed as its organizing documents require.

Our Intent: Provide Discussion Points

A major goal of the Absurdist Papers is to inspire Club members, officers, and Directors to think: inside the box, outside the box, and occasionally about why the box is wet, smoking, and labeled “governance.” Just think.

Think about what is written here and whether it makes sense. Think about the future of the Club. Think about whether the current pattern is sustainable. Think about how the organization can correct its course before entropy becomes not merely a theme of these essays, but the Club’s operating condition.

We understand that many members have no interest in Club politics. They want to participate in nets, earn awards, see friends at the Eyeball, and enjoy the hobby without becoming amateur parliamentarians in a procedural swamp. That is entirely reasonable. Most members of most volunteer organizations are not activists. They are participants. A smaller group volunteers in service roles, keeps the machinery running, and absorbs the aggravation that comes with responsibility.

That division is normal.

But governance still affects everyone.

The member who only wants to check into nets is affected by NCS rules, NCS training, and document control. The member who only wants awards is affected by award fees, application accuracy, committee reporting, and revenue oversight. The member who only wants to attend the Eyeball is affected by Board decisions, budgets, communications, and volunteer energy. Even the member who wants nothing more than a peaceful radio hobby depends on a functioning organization behind the curtain.

Directors Reclaiming Their Role

Recapping what we have published in other Absurdist Papers, we present this list of seven major principles we have been commenting on and pursuing. While collateral issues exist, this list captures the essence of our wishes for the Club.

1. Directors have the right and duty to discuss minutes, reports, and agenda items at meetings.
2. Minutes must preserve the record accurately, not manage controversy.
3. Committee work must be credited, preserved, and reviewed by the Board.
4. The President implements Board policy; he does not manage the Board.
5. Board officers serve the Board, not the President.
6. Area Directors represent members and should not be bypassed by presidential favoritism.
7. Major volunteer departures deserve recognition and inquiry, not silence.

These non-negotiable principles are established in the governing documents. It is our hope that the Club can return to good foundational management by complying with them.

The Bottom Line: Hope and Progress

Vox Incommoda may be one small voice from the membership, but it is a knowledgeable voice, backed by a decade of committed service and a substantial store of institutional memory. We know how the Club has worked. We know how it can work. We also know what happens when leadership substitutes control for governance, silence for accountability, and procedural fog for honest discussion.

And most of all, we care about the future of the Club and its continued service to its members.

To those members who remain firmly loyal to the current President, we make a modest request: read before rejecting. You need not agree with these essays. You need not like the tone, the author, the conclusions, or the fact that Vox Incommoda keeps showing up with a flashlight in rooms some would prefer left dark. But do not dismiss documented criticism merely because someone in authority labels it disruptive, disloyal, or subversive. The Club does not belong to any President, faction, committee chair, or favored inner circle. It belongs to its members. Loyalty to the Club should require enough intellectual independence to examine criticism on its merits, separate fact from opinion, and decide for yourself whether the questions being raised deserve answers.

Thanks to Our Readers

We have received favorable feedback from members with current and former service roles, as well as from members who had grown quiet, weary, or detached. We are encouraged by that response. More importantly, we are encouraged by signs that members are beginning to ask their own questions in their own voices.

That matters.

The goal is not to create a Vox Incommoda fan club. Heaven spare us all from merchandise. The goal is to encourage members to re-engage, Directors to remember their duties, and volunteers to understand that the Club’s future does not belong exclusively to the small circle currently managing the narrative.

If the Absurdist Papers help even a few members ask better questions, insist on better records, demand better governance, or consider renewed service, then they are gaining traction.

And traction is exactly what a sliding organization needs.

Further Reading

Please view my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 44: Gaining Traction appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

“Back then, we produced minutes that faithfully recorded discussions in vivid Technicolor instead of an artist’s impression in diluted watercolors.”

Following our comedic review of the July Centurion, a nominal attempt at a Club newsletter, the Absurdist Papers return to the serious business of the dysfunctional Board of Directors. Our subject organization’s governing documents specify that eleven Directors run the Club, with the President charged to implement Board policy. Current practice suggests something different: a Board that too often waits for the President to define the problem, frame the discussion, shape the process, and tell everyone where the rubber stamp should land.

But it was not always this way.

In Absurdist Paper #43, we time travel to 2015, when the Board still knew how to say no. The President attempted to control Board action beyond his authority, and Directors pushed back in real time. They challenged him, corrected procedure, and they forced votes. They acted like a Board.

Not coincidentally, the President in that 2015 skirmish, who resigned shortly thereafter, is our current President, having risen from the ashes to be elected again in 2018.

What changed was not the personality at the center of the dispute. What changed was the Board around him. In 2015, Directors resisted presidential overreach. In 2026, too many Directors accommodate it, excuse it, or sit silently while it is converted into agenda fog, meeting fog, and minutes fog.

That is the organizational decline this essay examines.

The Way We Were

Our focus on the October 2015 Board meeting would not be possible without an excellent discussion summary in the minutes, recorded in detail by then Secretary Jim Foster, WA9DIY. This was facilitated by holding Board meetings in internet chat rooms at the time, which automatically created a verbatim transcript.

Back then, we produced minutes that faithfully recorded discussions in vivid Technicolor instead of an artist’s impression in diluted watercolors. Those October 2015 minutes reveal an interesting exchange between President Dean Davis, N7XG (now KL7OR), and Fourth Area Director Jim Higgins, KB3PU.

Indeed, the October 2015 Board meeting offers a vivid snapshot of a Board that still understood itself to be the governing authority of the Club. The major dispute arose during consideration of a proposed expenditure for the 2016 Orlando Hamcation. After the motion was introduced and seconded, President Dean Davis attempted to stop the matter by declaring, in substance, that he was going to table it until a plan was developed and presented to the Board. That immediately drew objections. Director Higgins stated the obvious point that apparently needed stating: the President had no unilateral authority to table a motion already before the Board.

The Triumph of the Bylaws

What followed was a procedural tangle, faithfully preserved in the chat transcript minutes in all its awkward glory. The Chair tried to convert Dean’s declaration into a proper motion to table. Dean first tried to make such a motion, then questioned whether he could do so under the bylaws. Directors discussed whether Robert’s Rules applied, with KB3PU noting that the Club had explicitly voted years earlier not to operate under them. The essential point, however, was not parliamentary trivia. It was authority. Dean wanted to delay Board action. Directors pushed back because the Board already had the matter before it.

KB3PU then cut through the fog. Dean’s argument was that the matter should wait until the Board could approve participation in Hamcation, but the motion already on the table was the Board’s opportunity to do exactly that. In other words, the President was attempting to block the very process he claimed was necessary. KB3PU’s blunt response, “LET’S VOTE ON IT!!!” captured the moment perfectly. The Board did vote. The effort to table or delay failed, and the original Hamcation motion ultimately passed over Dean’s opposition.

More of the Same

The same basic pattern repeated immediately afterward with the 2016 Eyeball proposal. Dean sought to withdraw or delay the proposal, saying information was missing. Directors asked the natural question: what information? No clear answer appears in the minutes. Rather than allow the matter to disappear into presidential fog, Higgins moved to accept the Eyeball proposal, the motion was seconded, and the Board approved it with one abstention.

Contemporary recollection within the Club has associated that meeting with the unraveling of Dean’s first presidency, but the minutes alone are enough for our purposes. They show the behavior. They show the attempted control. They show the resistance. And they show a Board that still understood it had authority independent of the President.

Thus, the significance of the October 2015 meeting is not merely that two motions passed. The significance is that the Board acted like a Board. The President attempted to control, delay, or derail Board action. Directors challenged him in real time. They did not dissolve into polite paralysis. Neither did they wait for someone else to define their authority. They exercised it.

Back to the Present

“This is yet another attempt to move discussion away from meetings and into the cybervoid, where objections can be atomized, softened, or ignored before the Board is asked to approve whatever version of reality survives the filtering process.“

We will not speculate on how the current Board would have acted if transported back to that October 2015 meeting. Hypotheticals are cheap, and the Club already has enough low-value inventory. What we can say is that the present Board too often remains silent while bylaw breaches, procedural distortions, and presidential overreach become routine.

Examples abound. The most recent pattern takes the form of ongoing attempts to move discussion of reports, minutes, agenda items, and substantive corrections away from Board meetings and into side channels. Yes, you read that correctly. With the assistance of his loyal Secretary and compliant Board Chair, the President has attempted to narrow or preempt discussion by duly elected Area Directors. Once again, current practice distorts the reality established by the organization’s governing documents.

The Constitution states in plain language that executive authority for the Club is vested in a Board of Directors composed of eleven Directors. The Board may delegate portions of its authority, but the authority remains the Board’s. The buck starts and stops with the Board of Directors.

As If…

The President and Vice President are given the privilege of voting as if they were Directors. That phrase matters. “As if” gives them voting parity. It does not give them governing supremacy. They are elected by the membership, but administratively they operate within a structure in which the eleven-member Board governs and officers carry out assigned duties.

Given that structure, a recent directive by the President, published on the Board reflector, is revealing:

The phrase “rubber stamp” does most of the work for us. One should appreciate such candor. Critics labor for weeks to describe a governance pathology, and then the President strolls in and names it himself.

Advance review of draft minutes is not inherently improper. Directors should indeed read the minutes before the meeting. They should identify errors and request corrections. They should be prepared. But advance review does not replace Board deliberation. It certainly does not convert approval of minutes into a ceremonial rubber stamp.

Throttle the Discussion, Control the Board

The problem is not pre-meeting review. The problem is pre-meeting containment.

Dean’s message attempts to relocate substantive discussion away from the Board meeting, where it would be visible, recorded, and subject to participation by the full Board under the transparent view of attending members-at-large. Instead, he wishes to move it into the low-energy, sparsely read environment of the private Board reflector. That reflector is not a meeting. It is not a substitute for deliberation. It is a fragmented side channel where participation is uneven, objections can be diluted, and silence can later be misrepresented as consensus.

The June draft minutes, as discussed in Absurdist 36, contained serious defects. They omitted material exchanges, softened controversy, misstated details, and preserved a sanitized version of a meeting that deserved a more accurate historical record. If Directors raise concerns on the reflector and those concerns are not resolved to their satisfaction, what then? Are they expected to appear at the July meeting and rubber-stamp minutes they still believe are defective?

That is not governance. That is laundering the record before approval.

Contact the Person Submitting Them

The third paragraph of Dean’s post is also revealing, although cryptic and grammatically unfortunate: “Also when the agenda gets posted please feel free to contact the person submitting them with comments and corrections.”

Who exactly is “the person submitting them”? The Secretary who prepares the packet? The Chair who is responsible for the agenda? The Webmaster who posts it? The President, who too often behaves as though all channels eventually route through him? The ambiguity is useful only if the goal is to keep process fuzzy.

Let us settle on the Chair, because the bylaws make the Chair responsible for the agenda. So Directors should “feel free” to contact their own Chair? Their peer who they elected to manage the agenda and run meetings? How generous and empowering! How good of the President to grant Directors permission to communicate with the officer who serves the Board, not the President.

A Meeting without Discussion Is Like a Day without Sunshine

The deeper issue remains the same. This is yet another attempt to move discussion away from meetings and into the cybervoid, where objections can be atomized, softened, or ignored before the Board is asked to approve whatever version of reality survives the filtering process.

All of this appears aimed at neutralizing inconvenient Board discussion, especially from the rare Director willing to speak up in public. Lord help us if Directors discuss the minutes before approving them, if Directors insist that reports may be questioned, and if Directors remember that the Board, not the President, runs the Club.

Do they think they govern this organization, or what?

Do not answer too quickly.

No need. The governing documents already did.

The Difference Eleven Years Makes

“In 2015, the Board used process to protect its authority.
In 2026, process is too often used to protect the President from the Board.“

The October 2015 minutes are not important because they preserve a quaint procedural squabble from a bygone era. They are important because they show what Board authority looked like when Directors still remembered they possessed it.

A President attempted to control the flow of Board business. Directors objected. The Chair was forced back toward process. Questions were asked. Motions were made. Votes were taken. The Board did not treat presidential preference as command. It did not confuse reluctance with veto power. It did not allow a matter already before it to vanish into procedural mist merely because the President wanted it delayed.

That was 2015.

2015 vs. 2026

In 2026, the same organization now watches the President attempt to route discussion away from meetings, soften reports, manage minutes, shape committee work, and openly yearn for the return of rubber-stamp approval. The problem is not that the governing documents changed. They still place executive authority in the Board. The problem is that too many Directors behave as though authority is something the President lends them once a month, provided they return it promptly and do not dent the finish.

The contrast is brutal.

In 2015, the Board used process to protect its authority.

In 2026, process is too often used to protect the President from the Board.

That is organizational entropy in its purest form. The structure remains on paper while the habits that once made it functional decay. The titles remain, meetings continue, minutes are drafted, and votes are recorded. The shell survives while the muscle atrophies.

The lesson from October 2015 is simple: presidential overreach can be stopped when Directors act like Directors. Not rebels, troublemakers, or malcontents. Directors.

They need only read the governing documents, understand their office, speak when procedure is distorted, insist that discussion occur where it belongs, and refuse to approve records that do not accurately preserve what happened.

The Board used to say no.

It still can.

But first, it must remember that it is allowed to.

Further Reading

We welcome our newest subscribers referred to us by the 3905 Century Club Centurion newsletter.

Please view my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 43: The Board Used to Say No appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Vox Incommoda, on behalf of the vast and imaginary Absurdist Papers media empire, wishes to express deep gratitude to the 3905 Century Club Centurion newsletter for its kind reference in the July issue. The broad circulation of that house organ will surely produce a welcome surge in site traffic, if only from members curious to discover what a “non-active” member is and whether the condition is contagious.

Along with our thanks, Absurdist Paper #42 takes a humorous look at the latest approximation of a Club newsletter, where unnamed critics are warned about, inactive members are selectively appreciated, and valid criticism is acknowledged just long enough to be waved vaguely toward an Area Director.

Aside from its entertaining levity, perhaps this offering will serve the collateral purpose of averting eye strain by obviating the need to read that visual nightmare. We’ll see.

Not Much Going On?

As usual, the monthly extravaganza kicks off with an inspiring note from the President, who reports that there is not much going on with the Club this month. This is useful information, especially to those of us who foolishly thought Board dysfunction, committee confusion, newsletter warnings, logo fog, NCS Guide resurrection efforts, and minutes controversy might qualify as “something.”

But apparently not.

He then tells us that he has been working with several committees, including Bylaws and the NCS Guide, to help them get started.

We can only imagine.

Other than that, we are treated to a chatty narrative about Alaska estate matters, Field Day preparations, and the enviable SWR performance of a new end-fed half-wave antenna. This is certainly important news. Some members might wonder about governance, committee authority, minutes accuracy, website accuracy, awards reporting, or why completed work products keep falling into administrative sinkholes, but those people clearly do not appreciate the soothing majesty of a sub-1.2 SWR.

There’s no business like show business.

Blank Stares

Then we have messages from the Vice President and the Awards Secretary.

Or not.

The Vice President, who when last I checked was still among the living, appears in a heavy black frame suggestive of an obituary. However, that picture seems to be the extent of his message. Perhaps this is symbolic. Or maybe it is avant-garde newsletter design. Possibly it is editorial voodoo. I decline to speculate further without protective eyewear and a gas mask.

Meanwhile, the Awards Secretary’s message consists of a borderless picture of himself looking like the neighborhood kids were playing on his lawn again. For some reason, the picture is underlined, perhaps to emphasize the friendly smile on his mug shot. The only textual assistance comes from the editor, who directs readers to the stats section near the end of the issue.

In an active organization, albeit one with “not much going on,” why can’t the Vice President and Awards Secretary find time to write a few lines for the members? Important committee work getting in the way?

Perhaps a committee should be formed to investigate.

The June Meeting

Although the draft minutes of the June meeting have not yet settled comfortably on the meeting’s exact date, the newsletter editor made the executive decision to call it the June 14, 2026 meeting. Bold. Decisive. We appreciate chronological confidence wherever it may be found.

We have already beaten that notoriously eventful meeting to death up, down, sideways, diagonally, and possibly in Morse code across several Absurdist Papers. It is therefore interesting that our intrepid editor led with an earth-shattering fact we neglected.

The Third Call Area was not represented by either its Area Director or Assistant Area Director.

He named names. Or rather, call signs.

Naughty boys. This goes on their permanent records.

The next paragraph tells us there was no new business but there was yet another discussion about the famous logo. It also emphasizes that the Board has approved no action whatsoever regarding the logo. This sounds suspiciously like damage control after the design-cart wandered down the hill without a horse, driver, or Board-approved destination.

And Then, Out of the Blue…

Then, floating serenely inside the Board meeting summary like a dead fish in a punch bowl, we encounter a paragraph about the Absurdist Papers.

Or at least, apparently about the Absurdist Papers.

I’m flattered. I think.

The editor warns readers that a “non-active” member has been posting criticisms on a non-Club website, some of them valid and some apparently not. The unnamed critic is accused of criticizing the Club, the Board, the President, the Chairman, the Secretary, the membership, officers, and specific members.

That “non-active” member would apparently be me, unless another former Club volunteer has also been writing lengthy essays about governance collapse, which would be suitably prescient but unlikely.

The placement is odd. This was supposed to be a Board meeting summary. Instead, the newsletter suddenly swerves into a vague public-service advisory about an unnamed critic on an unnamed website. Perhaps the editor wrote this while he was ostensibly observing the June meeting, which would explain why his summary of the meeting itself was so brief.

For Further Information

I could only wish that the Absurdist Papers would become a regular topic at our well-attended Board meetings. It would make my star shine even brighter. But I digress.

Members seeking “further information” are instructed to contact their Area representative on the Board. The editor could have merely printed my URL to avoid overworking our Area Directors. A live link would have been even better. But no one thought of that.

However, this raises logistical questions.

Do I need to provide my URL and biographical materials to all Area Directors so they can factually represent my interests? Should I prepare an official media kit? Does a “non-active” member submit promotional materials through his former Area Director, his current Area Director, or the Area Director most emotionally prepared to receive them?

Maybe we should designate an Area Director for the Non-Active Member Area.

I am certainly interested in promoting the brand, but please allow a little preparation time. Our Area Directors will need some time to allow the newsletter editor to get them up to speed on their newfound Absurdist Papers promotional duties, and furthermore, I am not yet ready for the anticipated rush of adulation.

Valid Criticisms, Eh?

I appreciate the Centurion’s acknowledgment that at least some of my criticisms are valid.

That was kind. Unexpected, but kind.

I would have preferred a point-by-point rebuttal, but one must not expect miracles from a newsletter that has discovered the avant-garde practice of publishing unnamed opposition notices.

No, seriously, I do appreciate it. I could not buy this sort of publicity and validation but here it is in official print, for free, yet. Somewhere in the machinery of the Club’s house organ, a sentence now exists conceding that some of these criticisms have merit.

That sound you hear is the narrative coughing into a napkin.

Oh, No!

But wait. That implies that some of my criticisms are apparently not valid. That is truly unfortunate. I will try to recover emotionally. Perhaps someday, after a period of reflection, meditation, and possibly re-reading my own footnotes, I will come to terms with the editor’s disappointment.

Until then, available evidence remains available evidence.

Pesky stuff.

New Membership Classes

Our editor also conducted a highly scientific poll asking 40-meter SSB net participants to describe their equipment configurations. He received 43 responses, which became a disorganized, uncorrelated listing presented in no apparent analytical order. He then tells us that analysis may follow next month. Waiting a month for the data to be organized into a rearranged melange with no statistical significance has us all starry-eyed with bated anticipation.

Wow, this great idea has staying power! Two months of it. Appropriately vacuous filler because it appears that external inputs have dried up.

Thus, the poll has already achieved a rare distinction: one month of filler now, one month of filler later.

Efficient.

Did You Respond? I Did.

Your favorite essayist actually responded to the editor’s poll request. Out of curiosity when looking at the results, I scanned the listing but failed to see the items I had submitted for mobile and fixed station equipment. Hmmmm. Curious. Then, I suppressed my gag reflex long enough to read the fine print.

Apparently, my entry was deactivated. Defused by the bomb squad.

Yes, the text associated with poll reveals something more interesting than antenna choices. It introduces a fascinating membership concept: the “inactive” member. Three such members responded to the survey, submitting a total of four configurations. Their participation was noted and appreciated, but their equipment configurations were excluded from the published list.

Interesting. I wonder who the other two are?

One must also wonder what criteria the newsletter editor employs to determine inactive status. A Geiger counter, perhaps? It could check for radio activity. Get it? Huh?

Oh, well.

Deactivated from Elections?

Are inactive members are excluded from an equipment poll also excluded from voting in presidential elections?

If not, why not?

If so, where exactly is that rule written?

And if “inactive” is not a formal voting category, why is the newsletter using it to decide whose participation counts?

Does this mean that all those votes the President routinely solicits from long dormant members won’t count in the future? Prohibited by Centurion editorial fiat? Oy.

Furthermore, how does an inactive member differ from a “non-active” member such as I? Is “inactive” a clinical condition, an administrative status, a voting classification, a newsletter adjective, or simply a convenient way to reduce the visibility of people who do not fit the desired story? I am accorded the double-whammy: both inactive and non-active. Who knew?

The Club now appears to have three membership states: active, inactive, and inconvenient.

Active members may be celebrated. Inactive members may be noted and appreciated, unless their data is inconvenient. Inconvenient members may be dismissed as non-active, even when their criticisms are partly admitted to be valid.

This is not membership policy. It is adjective management.

Three Special Members

The Club Statistics section then refers to tables displayed at the request of “three special members.”

Who dey?

Three blind mice?

Three little pigs?

Three tenors?

The Three Musketeers, except with spreadsheets?

Another new category of membership? Special members? Anointed by whom?

No one knows. But whoever these three special members may be, they apparently persuaded the newsletter to publish award payment data that the Awards Committee had otherwise stopped presenting in useful form.

Can a non-active member or an inactive member also be a special member? If so, I’d like to be the first to wear the triple crown.

Those barely readable tables, referred to in the text as “charts”, are ugly enough to frighten a printer, but they do indeed contain numbers. Paper awards. PDF awards. Counts. Payment sums. The sort of basic management information that should never have disappeared from the monthly Awards Committee report in the first place, although column totals would have been nice. Baby steps.

So perhaps this is progress. Maybe someday, a report of committee activity will reappear. The Centurion has the power to make it happen. The three special members should insist on it.

Perhaps the three special active, inactive, or non-active members deserve thanks from the rest of us. They’re very special, indeed.

Observing standard Club protocol, we should form a committee to identify them, recognize them, and then quietly ignore their work product next month.

Normal Stats

After the special-member statistics, the editor announces that the normal stats continue below.

This naturally raises another question: what differentiates special stats from normal stats?

Are normal stats the statistics that existed before three special members disturbed the peace?

Are special stats the ones that reveal inconvenient management information?

Oh wait. Hang on. Are normal stats the ones that go on and on until the reader forgets why he opened the newsletter and now regrets having done so?

The normal stats include check-ins by call area, net activity, no-net counts, award counts, awards by call sign, and member counts by area. Some of this information is useful, and some of it may be interesting. Some of it appears to have been formatted by a spreadsheet trying to escape captivity.

We also learn that one unidentified call area, apparently represented by a blank entry, had one check-in.

Congratulations to the blank call area. Always nice to see participation from the void.

A Closing Word of Thanks

This issue left me breathless.

I had been wondering what I would write about next, and then the Club handed me this masterpiece on a silver platter at the stroke of midnight, replete with oblique references, partial validation, membership-status fog, special-member statistics, empty officer messages, and enough formatting choices to qualify as a cry for help.

I cannot begin to thank them enough.

Brilliance

The most important point, however, is this: the newsletter did not rebut the Absurdist Papers. It warned about them. It did not disprove the criticisms. It admitted some were valid. It did not engage the issues. It directed readers to Area representatives, which may be the first time in months that anyone remembered Area Directors are supposed to exist.

So here we are.

A non-active member has been noticed.

Some criticism has been deemed valid.

The Club’s house organ has unintentionally promoted the opposition, albeit awkwardly. A clickable link would have been more efficient. Perhaps, in future issues, it could be a prominent feature, perhaps accompanying an underlined photo of old Vox Incommoda himself. I might reward the editor with a bouquet of daisies for that.

I welcome new readers vectored here by the generous publicity blurb in the Centurion. I promise to redouble my efforts to provide you with a humorously cogent alternative to the Party line. Especially now that the Centurion has ginned up additional interest, I promise to create content with even greater frequency than I have been.

And so it goes. The Absurdist Papers media empire continues its unpaid public service mission with gratitude, humility, and only modest concern that “non-active” may soon require treatment.

Now, I return this frequency to normal amateur use.

Further Reading

See my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 42: Valid Criticism, Now in Newsletter Form appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Volunteer-run organizations survive on volunteer labor. That labor is not merely free work. It is institutional capital: experience, continuity, judgment, memory, skill, trust, and the willingness of people to keep doing thankless tasks long after the novelty has worn off. That capital rarely appears in the Treasurer’s report, but it is often worth far more than the cash balance. If the volunteer pool dries up, the Club dries up with it.

Recognizing volunteer contributions costs almost nothing. A few sincere words at a meeting. A paragraph in the minutes. A note in the newsletter. A public thank-you that acknowledges completed service instead of pretending the departing volunteer simply evaporated into the ether. For an organization so dependent on unpaid labor, gratitude should be one of its cheapest and most reliable maintenance tools.

Why is That So Hard to Understand?

So why does our subject organization find it so difficult to praise significant contributions? Why, when crucial volunteers complete years of service, does the Club so often choose silence, minimization, or quiet erasure? Why are departures swept under the rug instead of recognized as moments to thank people who gave the Club time, effort, and competence it did not have to buy?

Absurdist Paper #41 examines this late-stage organizational behavior through the lens of entropy. An organization that fails to recognize volunteer service is not merely being rude. It is consuming its own operating capital while wondering why fewer people are willing to help.

Thus, we ask the question: How does the Club expect to attract new volunteers when significant past contributors are ignored, minimized, or castigated by its leadership?

The Economics of Free Labor

Volunteer time is free in the narrowest accounting sense, which is why badly managed organizations treat it as worthless. But volunteer labor is actually the Club’s operating capital. Money buys postage, award certificate paper, envelopes, plaques, software, and the occasional mystery expense nobody can quite identify without a committee. Volunteers supply memory, competence, continuity, judgment, and the willingness to answer the same question 400 times without committing a felony.

Members who volunteer give time they could spend on personal projects, family, radio, travel, sleep, or staring peacefully at a wall without being asked to fix anything. They offer that time without compensation. But “without compensation” does not mean “without value,” and it certainly does not mean “without the ordinary expectation of respect.”

In most volunteer organizations, much of the work is carried by a small group whose combined experience and output, if priced honestly, would dwarf the balance in the Club treasury. These are the people who know where the records are, how the forms work, which old decisions matter, what broke last time, and why the simple solution is usually not quite as simple as it looks to someone wandering in with a bright idea and no context.

They contribute from the heart and sometimes from the wallet. They are worth their weight in rhodium.

Their cost to the Club? Zero.

Their replacement cost? Much higher than the Club seems willing to understand.

Kindness: The Cheapest Management Tool Ever Invented

A thank-you costs nothing. A paragraph in the minutes costs nothing. A public acknowledgment costs nothing. Even our subject organization, with its lightweight treasury, can afford “nothing”, although it might need a committee to study procurement. And then a three-month debate over whether Board approval is required. But I digress.

The Club need not throw testimonial banquets honoring every volunteer who serves with distinction. In fact, short-term service is often as valuable as long-term service when a specific task needs to be completed. A volunteer brought aboard for a defined project may spend weeks or months doing focused, difficult work that saves the Club time, money, and embarrassment. Completion of that work is worthy of recognition, both informal and formal. Whether the service lasted ten years or ten months, the maxim still holds: it costs nothing to be nice.

A brief phone call from the President costs nothing. A resolution drafted by the volunteer’s Area Director and presented to the Board costs nothing. A note in the minutes costs nothing. A sincere public thank-you costs nothing. None of these gestures requires anyone to deviate dangerously from the Club’s usual activities, unimportant as many of them may be, in order to spend five minutes acknowledging useful work.

What Changed?

The organization used to understand this. It honored past presidents and long-serving Board members, but it also recognized individuals whose contributions were smaller, quieter, or tied to specific projects. Little drops of water and little grains of sand still matter when the beach is maintained by volunteers.

The Club still acknowledges some contemporaneous work by active volunteers, especially when doing so is convenient at the annual Eyeball meeting. That is fine as far as it goes. The problem is what happens when a volunteer’s usefulness ends, or worse, when a volunteer leaves under circumstances inconvenient to the prevailing narrative. At that point, recognition too often becomes optional, silence becomes easier, and completed service is treated as something best allowed to fade from view.

That is not volunteer management. That is political accounting.

Recognition should not depend on whether the President still expects future usefulness from the volunteer. Gratitude should not be reserved for those who remain safely inside the tent, smiling for the group photo and producing more unpaid labor on demand. A healthy organization thanks people for what they contributed, not merely for what leadership still hopes to extract from them.

When appreciation becomes conditional on continuing compliance, the message to future volunteers is unmistakable: serve long enough to be useful, leave quietly when you are done, and do not expect the organization to remember your work once you are no longer politically convenient.

That is a foolish way to manage free labor.

It is also a remarkably efficient way to make sure there is less of it.

The Goodwill Battery

Every volunteer carries a goodwill battery. Each unnecessary slight, erasure, private scolding, public silence, or failure to acknowledge completed service drains it. A sincere thank-you charges it. Late-stage organizations keep wondering why the battery is dead after leaving the headlights on for ten years.

But why charge batteries when they are finished with their service, right? Why spend a few minutes thanking departing volunteers when those precious Board cycles could be used debating unnecessary new logos, gamer chat servers, or the latest procedural diversion wearing a committee name tag?

That is sarcasm, but what follows is not.

Volunteers have eyes. They have ears. Most of all, they have brains. If a prospective volunteer sees how contributors are discarded after significant service, why should that person expect different treatment? Why should anyone step forward, invest serious time, accept responsibility, and produce useful work if the visible reward for completed service is silence, minimization, or quiet erasure?

An uncharged goodwill battery with buckled plates, left on public display, is a strong disincentive to future volunteers. The load test reveals irreparable damage. The meter reads “Stay Away.”

That is the part leadership misses. Neglecting gratitude does not merely affect the departed volunteer. It sends a signal to everyone still watching. Every ignored contribution becomes a warning label. Every unacknowledged departure becomes a recruitment message written in reverse.

A volunteer organization cannot keep draining the goodwill battery and then act surprised when the engine will not turn over.

The Departing Volunteer Test

How an organization treats departing volunteers tells future volunteers what to expect. If years of service end with silence, minimization, or embarrassment avoidance, everyone watching learns the lesson: give your time, do the work, absorb the aggravation, and then vanish politely when leadership no longer finds your existence convenient.

Within the past year, this pattern has repeated often enough to suggest that it has become unofficial policy to sweep distinguished service under the rug. Four key individuals departed largely because of grievances involving the President. Their combined contributions across multiple volunteer roles were considerable: committee chairs; Area Director; long-serving Awards Secretary; technical contributors; newsletter editor; committee members whose work was accepted, praised, and then ignored; registered agent; prolific Net Control Station; Assistant Director; and Election Monitor.

That is not a minor leakage of talent. It is a major volunteer systems failure.

Business As Usual?

Those departures should have sent a signal to the Board that something was seriously wrong. Instead, Directors appeared content to treat the matter as the President’s problem. They let him take the lead. Having done so, they should not be surprised when the President chose silence, minimization, or narrative control over gratitude. A straightforward thank-you would have required acknowledging the scale of the loss. Better, apparently, to pretend these people simply faded into the QRM.

When major contributors depart, the Board should ask, “Why?” That question may be uncomfortable, especially in an organization where “why” questions are increasingly met with deflection by the President and his confidantes. Ask anyway. Directors are not ornamental. Their job is not to sit quietly while institutional capital walks out the door carrying its own box of records.

And if the President is incapable of expressing gratitude to departed volunteers, the Board should pick up his slack.

After all, it costs nothing to be nice.

World Peace, Marijuana, and Other Dangerous Ideas

Did that section header grab your attention? Has Vox Incommoda finally flipped his wig? Drifted to the Dark Side? Started wearing beads and preaching universal love from the back of a Volkswagen bus?

No. Settle down.

We are talking about something much more dangerous to a late-stage volunteer organization: being nice.

Too often in these Absurdist Papers, we write scathing excoriations, because scathing excoriations are what the material demands. Here, because the subject is kindness, we are attempting to remain lighthearted. This is a dangerous experiment. Keep children and sensitive directors away from the keyboard.

We are not suggesting that the Club must achieve universal harmony, legalize marijuana at Board meetings, although it often appears as if some of them have been smoking something funny, or join hands and sing folk songs until the bylaws heal themselves. We are suggesting something far more radical.

Say thank you when people do useful work.

A Practical Project for the Board

Here is a practice exercise for the Board: recognize Virgil Warren.

Virgil’s departure is still fresh enough that Board recognition would remain meaningful. Why not be nice? Recognize an NCS who repeatedly covered the Club’s backside, served as an unfailing relay station, worked by the NCS Guide, and did the job without making himself the center of the universe. He believed in good net operation. He did not merely practice it; he modeled it.

That kind of service deserves acknowledgment.

Shucking the editorial “we” to avoid ambiguity, I hereby present my offer to any Director brave enough to be nice: I will write the thank-you motion for you. Having written several such motions during my volunteer service, I am uniquely qualified as a ghostwriter.

But do not wait too long.

At my age, you might soon be dealing with an actual ghost.

The Bottom LinE: A Simple Courtesy Protocol

Recognizing service, whether large or small, should be standard practice for the Board regardless of who serves as President or what tone that officer chooses to set. It is unfortunate that the current President appears to find this practice beyond his emotional pay grade, but if that is the case, the Board must pick up the slack.

We are not suggesting anything exotic. No grand ceremony, testimonial banquet, or carved monument in the parking lot. Just ordinary organizational decency: common sense, a working moral compass, and some recognition that volunteer labor has value.

Five Minutes Invested for Outsized Gains

Every resignation of a Director, officer, committee chair, or major volunteer should be formally acknowledged at the first Board meeting following the conclusion of service. The President or Chair should publicly recognize the volunteer’s work, and a brief thank-you for completed service should appear in the formal minutes of that meeting. The departing volunteer should be invited to attend and receive that recognition personally, if he or she chooses.

Completed committee work should be credited. When that work is later used, revised, incorporated, or superseded, the prior contributors should be credited again. If a future committee builds on an earlier document, the members of the prior committee whose efforts formed the foundation should not be erased merely because leadership finds the lineage inconvenient.

Departures should not be hidden, minimized, or airbrushed merely because they embarrass leadership. Mature leaders want to know why people resign. They ask questions and look for patterns. They consider whether correctable causes exist. And they do not treat resignations as public relations irritants to be smoothed over until everyone forgets.

Gratitude should not depend on whether the volunteer remained politically convenient. Volunteer contributions do not disappear because someone in leadership feels threatened by what those contributions, or the circumstances of departure, might reveal.

These are simple suggestions. They cost nothing. They require no bylaw amendment, no workgroup, no budget line, no software subscription, and no month-long exercise in parliamentary fog. The Board can simply decide that useful service will be acknowledged as a matter of routine practice.

Volunteer labor is like any other scarce resource. Ignore it long enough and it will go away. In an organization already struggling to attract capable volunteers, that is a reckless risk.

And that could get expensive.

But it costs nothing to be nice.

Further Reading

See my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda. Some are nice. Some are not so nice.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 41: It Costs Nothing to Be Kind appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Deferred Maintenance

While the Board fiddles with zero-value projects like an unnecessary new logo or a gamer chat utility likely to confound members and annoy committees, day-to-day management continues to decay. When committees responsible for maintaining crucial documents and systems are distracted by internal wheel-spinning or nullified by presidential circumvention, necessary work goes undone. When the Club Secretary spends his energy trying to influence the Board with his personal interpretation of the bylaws and maneuvering toward the functional equivalent of a Board seat, required duties such as keeping accurate minutes fall by the wayside. And when an NCS Guide Workgroup is handed an outdated document to revise while a completed, restructured, and more current guide is treated as inconvenient history, the Club wastes irreplaceable volunteer labor that could be used more effectively elsewhere.

This is exactly how a late-stage organization in the throes of entropy creation coupled with compensatory entropy masking pretends to function while coming apart at the seams.

The President, charged with implementing the policies of the Board, is responsible for ensuring that day-to-day operational things happen. Mundane things, yes, but important ones: keeping the website current, maintaining accurate documents, ensuring internal compliance with the bylaws, and preserving external compliance with governmental reporting requirements. These are not glamorous jobs. Nobody gets a plaque for updating an award application or filing a corporate report correctly. But these details create the Club’s forward-facing image. If they are shabby, the Club looks shabby. If they are neglected, the Club looks neglected.

In this essay, we will focus on several areas where responsible functionaries have dropped the ball, then apparently wandered off to admire the new wallpaper.

The Website

To an outsider, the website reflects the Club. I could argue that the format evokes memories of local government websites of the mid-2000s, but I am not here to decry the aesthetics and usability of the site. What I address here is content and implementation lag.

The information presented by the website should be kept up-to-date. I suppose the assumption is that we all know what is going on, so the information will be updated when we can get around to it. No biggie. The webmaster is on an extended RV trip, and everything can wait.

The webmaster is certainly entitled to a vacation, but is there no backup plan? Can no one perform simple updates in his absence? Are we not then creating yet another single point of failure as we described in Absurdist 1, the seminal paper of this series?

Close is good enough. Set your sights low, so you won’t be disappointed.

Club Leadership

On the website’s Leadership page, Virgil Warren, W9WWG, who resigned in May, is still listed as an Election Monitor. Yet his role as Ninth Area Assistant director was deleted elsewhere on the page. I suppose whoever last updated the page must have read the announcement of Virgil’s resignation but missed the part about the Election Monitor.

Oh wait, there was no formal announcement of Virgil’s resignation. Too embarrassing, one would guess. Thus, I suppose the webmaster needed to wing it based on hearsay. He tried. You cannot expect him to be a mindreader.

Then, we come to Committees. Specifically, the Bylaws Committee. The webmaster must not have received that message, either, as Johnny Allen, KI4WCQ, is still listed as the only member. He is the only remaining member of the former Bylaws Committee, which suffered severe depletion due to two resignations and an untimely death in December. The new committee was announced by the Board via its April minutes, under New Business. Yet it is now the end of June and they are nowhere to be found on the website.

Award Information

In a well-known, high-profile move, the Club adopted a new fee schedule for awards on March 1, 2026. The motion describing this fee increase passed in November 2025. Thus, most of us have been aware of the new fees for seven months now.

Yet the Awards Program information on the website was only cursorily updated. Endorsement fees are still shown as effective September 1, 2016, although the fees themselves are correct. The same inattention to detail resulted in the PayPal awards fee payment page leading off with the sentences, “The Awards Applications and On-Line Award Entry System have been updated as of 2016-Sep-09 to accommodate the fee reduction approved by the BoD. Please submit your award applications on the latest Award application documents.”

Wow. Now, we change the effective date of the ten-year-old, obsoleted fee decrease eight days forward, which is bad enough, but then it reflexively references the Awards Program information page to determine the correct fees, so as to thoroughly confuse the new member with its conflicting disinformation.

But the worst is yet to come.

Award Applications

Then, the confused website visitor might wish to actually look at an award application. The first award one can earn is the 100-Point Award, or its equivalent for SWLs, the Shortwave Listener Award. The prospective member downloads one or the other from the website. Both contain a comprehensive set of instructions for submitting awards, as well as the fee schedule.

Oops.

Both applications list the 2016 fees as if they were current. Both applications were last updated under my watch on March 1, 2025, a year before this year’s fee increase.

Being fair-minded and helpful, I sent the Awards Secretary/Awards Committee Chair a heads-up email on May 25, 2026 apprising him of the errors. I never heard back from him. A month later, the outdated applications remain untouched.

One must wonder how this confusing fee situation plays out. In my mind, the front-line soldiers, the Area Awards Managers, wind up doing mop-up duty for the wayward officers.

As usual.

The NCS Guide, Again

No post about fanciful departures from sound management principles would be complete without mention of the illustrious NCS Guide, a botched ongoing project akin to hiring a consultant to write a document and then throwing it out the window along with the $10,000 consulting fee.

Recall that the President assigned a new task group to update the 2023 version of the NCS Guide although a 2025 update had been completed at considerable expense.

You don’t just get free volunteer cycles. Those hours come at a price. The cost of serving the whims of a capricious President is exacted in the form of deferred maintenance elsewhere in the Club. Damn the website, full speed ahead on the latest NCS Guide update, which might or might not ever be adopted.

The update’s volunteer authors have every right to be concerned about the possibility that their work will be in vain, given the fate of the 2025 Guide. Shelving it squandered hundreds of man-hours of volunteer capital. However, I am pleased to learn that at least some members of the current NCS Guide Workgroup have access to the completed 2025 Guide and may be using it as a foundation. That is exactly what should have happened in the first place.

The Bylaws Committee

Henceforth, until they prove worthy of another nickname, I will refer to the Bylaws Committee as the “Ours Is Not to Reason Why Committee” (OINTRW). As you might recall, that characterization emanates from an utterance by its chair as a deflection to a “Why?” question by a Board member at the famous June meeting. We discussed that nonsense in Absurdist 28.

The OINTRWC seems to have devolved into an informal sounding board serving at the whim of the President. Formerly, with a high-functioning Bylaws Committee, the President merely chose to applaud the committee’s work but subsequently ignore or manipulate its output. In the current paradigm, it appears that the President wishes to interact directly with the Committee to influence the Board. This is obviously contrary to the stated formal procedure in the bylaws.

A committee tied up with busywork, which still needs to proceed through appropriate channels, is again wasting valuable volunteer capital.

Meanwhile, they task themselves as guinea pigs in the low value Discord project, imposed on them without Board approval. Thus, they waste cycles playing with gamer chat protocols while they could be doing useful work.

While the OINTRWC is serving as informal presidential legal counsel and Discord tester, it cannot be focusing on real maintenance work: clarifying defects, cleaning up outdated provisions, improving document control, and protecting the formal processes it was created to support.

Deferred Maintenance Is Still Maintenance

None of these issues is individually catastrophic. A stale committee listing will not sink the Club. An outdated fee reference will not, by itself, bring the organization crashing down. A neglected award application will not cause the bands to go silent. A website stuck in a prior decade will not prevent a member from checking into a net. And a Bylaws Committee relegated to busywork and presidential counsel will go unnoticed by most members.

That is exactly why these problems persist.

Each one is small enough to excuse. Each one can be waved away as a minor oversight, a volunteer limitation, a timing issue, or something that can be fixed later. But when small neglected items accumulate across the website, award materials, committee listings, operating documents, and official records, they stop being isolated mistakes. They become evidence of a maintenance culture in decline.

This is the unglamorous side of organizational entropy. It does not always arrive as a dramatic failure. Sometimes it arrives as old fees on current forms, missing committee members, outdated guides, abandoned work product, confused document ownership, and the recurring assumption that somebody else will eventually clean up the mess.

Studying Color Charts for Months Does Not Paint the House

Meanwhile, the Board entertains cosmetic projects and procedural distractions while the ordinary machinery of the Club grows shabby. The Club does not need a new logo before it needs accurate award applications. It does not need a gamer chat utility before it needs current information for members. It does not need another workgroup before it needs to stop losing, ignoring, or duplicating completed volunteer work.

Maintenance is governance.

Keeping the website current is governance. Keeping forms accurate is governance. Preserving completed work is governance. Making sure committees are listed correctly is governance. Maintaining clear, consistent, reliable information for members is governance.

These things may not be glamorous, but they are the visible evidence that someone is paying attention.

Right now, the house has fresh wallpaper proposals, a discussion about rearranging the furniture, and several people admiring the curtains. And for months, a committee has been working on color selection before painting the house has even been approved.

Meanwhile, the foundation still needs work, the pipes are still leaking, and the electrical panel is making a noise no homeowner should ignore.

See my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 40: Shabby Housekeeping appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

My Offer

I retain archived source files and historical materials from my decade of Club service, including time as Area Director, Awards Secretary, Awards Committee Chair, Bylaws Committee member, and general unpaid Club consigliere. My archive includes Awards Committee reporting materials, historical logo files, and governance-related documents such as the completed 2025 NCS Guide. Any Director or Committee Chair seeking these materials for legitimate Club work may request them. I will provide them in due course.

Note: I am limiting this offer to Directors and Committee Chairs simply to keep the file transfers manageable and tied to legitimate Club work. Members who are curious about any of these materials should contact their Area Director and ask that the information be requested through the proper representative channel. That is how the system is supposed to work.

Lots of Files

When I resigned from my leadership roles, I provided my files to the Awards Secretary and the President on thumb drives. The collection was large enough that I had to buy a couple of 64 GB drives. Those drives included the awards files I maintained, including every award I generated as Awards Secretary, along with many documents of historical significance.

So, to be clear, this material was not left behind in a shoebox under a folding table at an Eyeball. Copies were provided.

I am not proposing to repeat that entire bulk transfer, although I would consider doing so if justified. Instead, I am offering specific files upon request to engaged Directors and Committee Chairs who are willing to dive deeply enough into issues to require the relevant historical material. If the Board wants to solve problems rather than admire them, some of the source material already exists.

Awards Committee Reports

The Awards Committee Report has been the subject of recent Board discussion. At the last meeting, one Director suggested that returning to the former report format would be the simplest solution. The President responded with the noncommittal observation, “We’ll see if we can figure that out, then.”

There is not much to figure out.

I have Awards Committee Reports going back as far as 2016. They were published as part of minutes or Board packets, but I also retain them together in source format. Any Director who wants the collection for legitimate Club work may request it.

That should make it easier to “figure out.”

The former Awards Committee Report format was not a mystery. It worked for many years, provided useful management information, and supported oversight. If the Board wants to restore meaningful Awards Committee reporting, the materials are available.

Logos

I also have Club logo files in multiple formats, including EPS, Adobe Illustrator, PNG, and JPEG. The vector files are especially useful because they allow the image to be scaled cleanly to arbitrary dimensions. These were the kinds of files used to create logo images for coffee cups, Eyeball banners, and other Club-related materials.

Included in the collection are logos redrawn by the graphic designer daughter of former Third Area Director N3WD for the 2017 Eyeball in Upperco, Maryland. She recreated them in vector formats, which should address many of the resolution and scalability concerns that tend to arise when organizations keep recycling low-resolution images until the logo looks like it was transmitted by spark gap.

I also have the 40th Anniversary logo designed by Beth Greenberg, wife of our late and beloved colleague Dwight, WF4H.

If the Club wants to discuss logo history, logo quality, source files, or future logo use, those files exist. There is no need to pretend the Club must begin with guesswork, screenshots, or whatever image happens to be floating around the website.

Other Documents

Incidental to my tenure on the Bylaws Committee, I also have the completed 2025 NCS Guide. That Guide was intended for implementation on July 1, 2025, but somehow missed the boat, fell off the dock, and was later replaced by a new effort to update the older 2023 version still sitting on the website.

No one has satisfactorily explained why the completed 2025 Guide was shelved.

Any Director or Committee Chair curious about this is welcome to request a copy of the remarkably well organized and useful document produced after roughly ten months of volunteer work by the Bylaws Committee. If the Board wants to understand what was already completed before assigning new work, the file exists.

Other documents may also be available. If I have not mentioned something here, Directors and Committee Chairs may ask.

My Object

History is valuable to an organization approaching its fiftieth year. The Club needs to preserve its past, understand its decisions, and learn from its mistakes. That requires transparency, continuity, cooperation, and access to records. It also requires resisting the organizational habit of forgetting useful work and then assigning someone else to rediscover it.

Historical Preservation

I recognize that I am sitting on a substantial archive of Club history. I also recognize, being human and approaching eighty, that I will not be around forever. Like everyone else, I will eventually become unavailable for consultation, complaint, provocation, or memory retrieval. My hope is that the information I preserved will continue to serve the Club after I am no longer available to explain where the bodies, files, and old report formats are buried.

Clarity on Current Issues

I also wish to help with current issues, because some of these files hold the keys to problems the Board is still treating as mysteries. There is no sense reinventing the wheel when it has already been invented, preserved, transferred, and in some cases apparently misplaced in plain sight.

Reiterating My Offer

So here is the offer to any Director or Committee chair:

• If you want the former Awards Committee Report materials, ask.
• If you want historical logo files, ask.
• If you want the completed 2025 NCS Guide, ask.
• If you want to compare what existed before the current fog rolled in, ask.

I will happily oblige.

Enough Said

I am not seeking appointment, reinstatement, committee membership, or operational control. I am offering records. The Club does not need another workgroup to discover whether source files exist.

The files exist.

The only remaining question is whether anyone wants to use them.

See my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 39: The Files Exist, Free for the Asking appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

In Absurdist Paper #38, we examine how this happened: how representative governance gave way to a shadow operating system built on access, loyalty, appointment control, committee labels, sanitized minutes, and the Board’s enduring talent for mistaking acquiescence for leadership.

Preferred Pathways

Back in Absurdist 21, we described the problem created when a member favored by the President triggered presidential intervention in a net operations dispute. That member had violated the members’ rules of conduct not only by disrupting a net, but also by calling on the President to intervene on his behalf. The bylaws specify that members agree to lodge complaints only with their Area Director.

That safeguard exists for a reason.

Area Directors are supposed to be the members’ first point of governance contact. They are supposed to administer their areas, handle member concerns, and serve as the representative path into Board-level attention. The purpose is to prevent members from shopping complaints directly to whatever officer they believe will give them the most favorable answer.

In that dispute, two Area Directors eventually became involved, but only after the matter had already become a Club-wide issue. Even then, their token attempt at resolution was met by a token effort from the favored member, who had every reason to believe he enjoyed presidential protection.

Direct pathways to the President compromise the policy that empowers Area Directors to administer their areas. They also teach members the wrong lesson. The real path is not representative government. The real path is not process. The real path is access.

It is not what you know. It is who you know.

That is how shadow governance begins.

Committee Capture

Our subject organization has turned increasingly inward to a tight circle of familiar names to implement shadow management by committee. Three consequential bodies, the Bylaws Review Committee, the Awards Committee, and the NCS Guide Workgroup, include thirteen positions staffed by ten people. The Vice President appears in all three and chairs two of them, namely Bylaws and the NCS Guide Workgroup.

Overlap is not automatically sinister. In a shrinking volunteer organization, some overlap is inevitable. The problem is not merely that the same people keep appearing. The problem is that committee structure increasingly appears to be shaped around presidential trust, presidential convenience, and presidential control.

Awards Committee

The Chair of the Awards Committee was chosen for that role by the President, who presumably understood that this compliant appointment would help keep the committee within the desired lane. In Absurdist 29, we chronicled the evolution of the Clint Wise motion, which was presented “on behalf of the Awards Committee” even though the motion appears to have been concocted by the President and the Awards Committee Chair rather than reviewed and approved by the Committee itself. Meanwhile, the President and the Awards Committee Chair worked together to remove useful management information from the monthly Awards Committee report.

If the Board allows that behavior to continue, it has essentially nullified the Awards Committee. The Committee becomes a label. The Chair becomes the channel. The President becomes the source. The Board gets the result.

Very efficient, if one’s goal is to eliminate independent review while preserving the appearance of committee process.

Bylaws Committee

The Bylaws Committee now seems to be considering casually introduced subjects at the behest of the President. One example is the “suggestion” to change Board meeting timing from the second Saturday of the month to the third. When the Board asked why, the Committee Chair could only offer the deflection, “Ours is not to reason why…”

Excuse me, but the Board is entitled to ask questions of its standing committees. Committees answer to the Board, not the President. A committee should not function as a suggestion box for presidential convenience, nor should its Chair behave as though the Board has no right to understand the purpose of work being requested.

NCS Guide Workgroup

The NCS Guide Workgroup presents another problem. The President is charged with overseeing the nets, which is one of his few defined areas of limited authority. But his assignment of the 2023 NCS Guide to a new workgroup for updating begs for serious Board examination.

The NCS Guide project had already been assigned to the Bylaws Committee in 2024. The Committee completed the project in May 2025 after a significant expenditure of volunteer labor. In the June 2025 minutes, the President stated that the new Guide would take effect on July 1. That never happened. The completed 2025 Guide was never implemented. Now the President has directed a new workgroup to update the website version, apparently starting again from the old 2023 document.

That is not process. That is organizational amnesia with a workgroup.

Why did the President drop the expensively produced 2025 Guide? Does the Board care?

In a volunteer organization, squandering completed volunteer work is the functional equivalent of depleting the treasury on a personal whim. Time is capital. Trust is capital. Competence is capital. When leadership burns those assets because it finds an earlier result inconvenient, it damages the willingness of future volunteers to do serious work.

Managing Committees

The Board must recognize that committee work is its responsibility. Directors must demand accurate reporting. They must read committee reports critically. They must ensure that committees are functioning as working bodies, not window dressing or facilitators of presidential decisions.

A committee that merely validates what the President already wants is not a committee. It is window dressing.

Board Machinery Captured

The Board also permits the President to dominate the machinery through which Board business is managed.

The Board lets the President choose its Chair and Secretary. Those positions should protect Board process and preserve the record. Instead, they have become instruments of agenda control, report suppression, minutes interpretation, and meeting-flow management.

I imagine the Board breathing a sigh of relief whenever the President’s favored Chair candidate regularly offers his services at the annual chair selection meeting. If he had not volunteered, one of them might have needed to step forward. Whew! Nothing says Board apathy like a collection of statues sitting around a table with “Hell, yes — I approve” signs hanging around their necks!

These appointments matter because the Chair and Secretary are not decorative functionaries. The Chair runs the meetings. The Secretary prepares the packet and creates the official record. When those positions become aligned with presidential preference rather than Board independence, the entire governance system tilts.

Impeding Review of Committee Work

In the previous section, we asserted the importance of Board review of committee work. That review becomes especially necessary when hand-picked committee chairs appear to be doing the President’s bidding. Yet the Board’s own meeting machinery has drifted into the same pattern. The Chair, who runs Board meetings, and the Secretary, who documents them and sometimes oversteps into managing them, appear to operate within the President’s preferred frame.

Recently, either the President directly wanted committee reports minimized, or others divined his wishes and acted accordingly. In either case, the Board allowed officers to narrow discussion of committee activities. Reports were labeled as being included for “information purposes only.” Questions were pushed toward the reflector. Minutes became a place for procedural editorializing. Discussion became something to contain.

After the meeting, the Secretary sanitizes the record of pesky controversy that might negatively affect the President’s image or weaken control of the narrative. He also uses the minutes to admonish the Board, offering helpful hints on how Directors should govern.

Geez.

I should not need to mention this, but I will.

These positions answer to the Board. The Chair serves the Board. The Secretary serves the Board. Both can be replaced by the Board.

Yet the Board chooses not to act. The easier and friendlier path is to let the arrangement continue. That path allows a dysfunctional President to consolidate influence through personnel, process, packet control, and record control.

That is shadow governance in operational form.

The Board Ratifies Rather Than Governs

The Board has devolved into a collection of individuals who mostly just show up to vote on the second Saturday of each month, assuming they decide the meeting is worth the inconvenience. They spend little time collectively discussing strategic or tactical issues between meetings. Then, when the meetings themselves are sanitized of real content, voting on perfunctory approvals and trivial projects consumes most of the Board’s available energy.

If the President needs to ram something through, he cajoles a collection of friendly Directors through private, one-on-one phone calls far away from the meeting record. In many cases, he has his votes lined up before opening the Zoom app.

That is not Board governance. That is pre-cleared ratification.

The Board offers little resistance to this progressive decay of organizational discipline and hierarchical integrity. Most Directors appear content to go with the flow, following the path of least resistance. Keep the meeting short. Avoid unpleasant conflict. Approve the minutes. Accept the reports. Let the Chair smooth the edges. Let the Secretary tidy the record. Let the President handle whatever is unpleasant. Then sign off in time for the 75-meter Early Net.

In this environment, the Board does not need to be conquered. It merely needs to keep surrendering by habit.

What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate

Shadow governance occurs when the organization’s formal decision paths remain on paper, while real decisions move through access, loyalty, appointment control, agenda control, and record control.

That is the disease.

The Club cannot cure it by changing one committee chair or revising one rule. It must restore the Board as the actual governing body.

Committees must be independent enough to review matters honestly. They must choose their own chairs, or at least not have chairs imposed as presidential control points. Directors must be the member access path. The Chair must serve the Board, not the President. The Secretary must preserve the record, not manage the narrative. The President must execute Board policy, not become the hidden routing switch for everything that matters.

The official system still exists on paper. The unofficial system now does much of the actual work.

That is why the Club feels increasingly incoherent. It has a Constitution and Bylaws describing one organization, while daily practice reveals another.

• The formal structure says Board governance; the shadow structure says presidential routing.
• The formal structure says committee review; the shadow structure says committee labels.
• The formal structure says minutes preserve the record; the shadow structure says minutes manage the narrative.
• The formal structure says Directors represent members; the shadow structure says access beats representation.

In our golden years, we seem to be running for the shadows.

David Bowie just rolled over.

See my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 38: On the Issue of Shadow Governance appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

This essay examines the Club’s existing membership paradigm, explains why “free lifetime membership for all” has become a broken model, and offers practical suggestions for separating historical membership mythology from the active membership reality the Club actually needs to manage.

Our subject organization loves large numbers when large numbers are useful.

A Club of Over 4,000 Members?

“Over 4,000 members” sounds impressive. It suggests size, vitality, tradition, reach, and organizational legitimacy. It conjures an image of a sprawling national amateur radio club with a deep bench of engaged members, eager voters, willing volunteers, and meaningful democratic participation.

Then one looks at actual voting totals, Board participation, committee activity, net activity, award applications, and volunteer availability, and the 4,000-member Club begins to look suspiciously like a barn painted on the side of a cliff.

The problem is not merely rhetorical exaggeration. The problem is structural. The Club does not appear to maintain a meaningful active membership roll. It confers lifetime membership automatically through award achievement, then carries that membership indefinitely, whether the member remains active, inactive, unreachable, uninterested, Silent Key, or lost somewhere in the glorious swamp of historical data.

That means the Club cannot reliably answer the most basic membership question:

How many members does it actually have?

Not how many people have ever earned a first 100-Point Award, how many names exist in an award database, and not how many call signs appear in legacy records. Not how many people can be invoked when the President wants the Club to sound large.

How many living, reachable, interested, participating, voting, dues-supporting or award-supporting members does the Club have now?

That number matters. And right now, the answer seems to be: nobody really knows.

How Membership Happens

Under the Club’s current model, membership is not obtained through an application, dues payment, annual renewal, Board approval, or even a conscious act of joining in the ordinary sense. For a licensed amateur operator, full voting membership is conferred upon earning a first 100-Point Award. For a shortwave listener, associate non-voting membership follows earning the SWL Award. For a club station, associate non-voting membership follows earning a first 100-Point Award.

This is charming in its original spirit, although it is interesting to note that the the original Articles of Incorporation refer to an application for membership in Article 10 c.

The Club was born around nets and awards. The idea was simple: participate, make contacts, earn the first award, and become part of the Club. Membership was not a paywall. It was a recognition of participation. In that sense, the model reflects the best part of the Club’s history. You earned your way in by getting on the air and doing the thing.

But a model that was charming in 1977 can become dysfunctional fifty years later.

The first 100-Point Award is free. Therefore, a person can become a lifetime voting member without paying a membership fee, without submitting a membership application, and without providing meaningful demographic or organizational information beyond what is needed to issue the award. In practical terms, the Club may associate a membership record with a name, address, call sign, and award history, but not with the kind of information a normal membership organization would collect and maintain.

That might include email address verification, ARRL membership status, military service, communication preferences, emergency contact limitations, volunteer interests, willingness to serve on committees, current activity status, or consent to receive election communications.

Instead, the Club has something closer to a historical award-recipient database that it sometimes treats as a membership roll.

There is a difference: One is an archive while the other is an electorate.

The Lifetime Membership Problem

Lifetime membership sounds generous until one tries to govern through it.

If membership never expires, is never renewed, and is not periodically confirmed, attrition cannot be measured. Members leave the hobby, stop checking into nets, and stop chasing awards. Some members lose interest and some become physically unable to participate. Members change call signs and email addresses. They move, they die. Members remain in the database anyway.

That produces a comforting fiction for publication in the Centurion and in braggadocio by the President.

The Club can claim thousands of members because the database contains decades of accumulated award earners. But that number does not distinguish active members from inactive members, reachable members from unreachable members, voters from nonvoters, living members from Silent Keys, or current participants from historical artifacts.

This is not merely an accounting problem. It is a governance problem.

A club that cannot identify its active membership cannot accurately measure participation, cannot meaningfully report attrition, cannot calculate turnout, and cannot know whether elections are representative. Furthermore, it can neither evaluate whether Area Directors represent living constituencies, nor can it determine whether programs are serving current members or merely honoring a vanished population through sentimental arithmetic.

And it cannot be honest with itself.

The President can invoke “over 4,000 members” because no one can point to a clean, maintained, independently understood active membership count and say, “No, that is not the real number.”

The number cannot be challenged because the number has not been defined.

That is convenient. A little too convenient.

Ghosts in the Electorate

A lifetime membership roll creates another problem: stale names and old email addresses can be politically useful.

This is not an accusation that any particular election was decided by ghosts, zombies, or retired operators rising from their recliners in ectoplasmic protest. Let us not get carried away, at least not before lunch. The point is more basic and more serious.

When a Club preserves email directories of long-dormant members without a transparent system for active status, such lists are open to exploitation. A President, official, editor, campaigner, or anyone with access to past member data might try to activate these names for electoral advantages. While some contact info remains valid, other entries are outdated. Certain messages may reach people who haven’t participated for years yet still hold voting rights. These individuals might be unaware of present-day issues or candidates, allowing them to be influenced by whoever controls the narrative.

That is not healthy membership democracy. It is database politics.

If the Club wants lifetime voting membership, then it needs clean rules for voter eligibility, current contact confirmation, election notice, opt-in or confirmed email status, and inactive-member handling. Otherwise, the Club has created a strange situation in which active members carry the Club, inactive members inflate the Club, and old addresses can be rediscovered when convenient.

A clean membership roll protects elections. A mythical membership roll protects whoever controls the myth.

The Free First Award Problem

Then there is the matter of money, investment, and assimilation into the Club’s culture.

The free first 100-Point Award has obvious historical appeal. It lowers the barrier to entry. It welcomes newcomers. It encourages participation. It gives a new operator a tangible accomplishment without immediately asking for payment. In a net-centered awards club, that is not a foolish idea.

But “no barriers to entry” can become “no investment in belonging.”

A person can become a lifetime voting member without paying a membership fee, without submitting a membership application, without affirmatively joining in the ordinary sense, and without contributing anything to the Club beyond the time needed to earn the first 100 points. In the old culture, that time commitment probably meant something. A new station had to get on the nets, learn the rhythm, make contacts, understand the Club’s customs, and gradually become part of the operating community.

That assumption no longer holds as strongly.

A Slam-Dunk

Today, depending on circumstances, a first 100-Point Award can be earned very quickly. A newcomer attending an Eyeball could gather the necessary contacts through the friendly miracle of QRP nets, where the award path can be compressed into a weekend of handouts, smiles, signal reports, and organizational self-congratulation. That may be good hospitality. It may even be good recruiting. But it is not the same thing as assimilation into the Club’s culture.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The phrase may be old, but the principle still works. When a person invests nothing, that person has little to protect. A free first award attached automatically to free lifetime voting membership may generate a new member number, but it does not necessarily create commitment, loyalty, understanding, or responsibility. It may not create a future volunteer, a serious award chaser, a net regular, a voter, or someone who cares whether the bylaws are followed, the finances are sound, the records are preserved, or the awards system remains credible.

That is the hidden cost of free lifetime membership.

Nominal Membership

The Club may gain a nominal member without gaining an engaged member. It may expand the historical roster without strengthening the active community. It may create the appearance of growth while adding another name to the database that will later be counted, invoked, emailed, and perhaps mistaken for a living constituency.

This is not an argument for slamming the door on newcomers. The Club should remain welcoming. The first award should still feel like an invitation, not a toll booth. But there is a difference between welcoming someone and conferring permanent voting membership with no application, no contribution, no confirmation, no orientation, and no continuing connection.

A free first award may be good outreach. Free lifetime voting membership attached to that award may no longer be sound governance.

Stakeholders, Not Just Names

A healthy club does not merely collect members. It creates stakeholders.

Stakeholders care because they have something at risk. They have time invested. They have effort invested. They have money invested. They have friendships, awards, traditions, operating habits, volunteer work, and institutional pride invested. They care because the Club’s decay would cost them something.

That is why active members become protective. They want accurate records because their awards depend on them. They want sound finances because the Club’s infrastructure depends on them. They want competent officers because volunteers depend on them. They want clear bylaws because fair process depends on them. They want a credible awards system because their own work inside that system has value.

A zero-investment membership model weakens that natural protective instinct.

If membership is conferred automatically and permanently after a free introductory award, the Club may have no practical way to distinguish between a member who is deeply invested and a member who merely passed through. Both remain members. Both may remain on the rolls. Both can be counted in the great mythical membership total. But only one is carrying the Club.

This is where the free first award becomes part of the larger membership-roll problem. It is not just a revenue issue. It is a culture issue. It is a governance issue. It is an accountability issue.

A member who has invested nothing may have no reason to care what happens next.

A Club built on members who no longer care will eventually be governed by the few who still do, or by the few who find the inactive names useful.

What the Club Does Not Know

Because there is no real membership application, the Club does not collect basic information that could be useful for planning, governance, outreach, and affiliation.

For example, many amateur radio organizations track military service or veteran status because such information often matters culturally, historically, and socially within the amateur community. The same is true for first responder status. It can support recognition, outreach, event programming, and member connection.

The Club also does not track ARRL membership status. That matters because ARRL affiliation and related programs can offer practical benefits to clubs, including resources, listings, communications tools, and insurance-related opportunities. I researched ARRL affiliation years ago and ran into the same brick wall that keeps appearing in this organization: the Club could not identify what percentage of its members were ARRL members because the Club did not collect or maintain that information.

Imagine that.

A club claiming thousands of members could not answer a basic eligibility question because it did not know enough about its own membership.

This is not a small administrative inconvenience. It is another example of organizational entropy: information that should exist does not exist, so options narrow, planning weakens, and leadership substitutes mythology for data.

Define Active Membership

The first fix for the vexing quandary over membership numbers is simple in concept, though probably complicated in execution because human volunteers will be involved. In this entropic organization, that typically means the same five people who do everything else, with tight coupling to the whims of the President. But I digress.

The Club should distinguish among several membership statuses:

Historical Member: Anyone who earned membership under the traditional rules and remains in the permanent historical record.

Active Member: A member who has confirmed contact information and has participated in a defined way during a recent period, such as checking into nets, applying for an award, voting, volunteering, donating, or confirming membership status.

Inactive Member: A historical member who has not participated or confirmed contact information within a defined period.

Silent Key: A deceased member, preserved respectfully in the historical record but not counted as active or voting.

Associate Member: SWL and club station members, recorded according to the bylaws but distinguished from full voting members.

This would allow the Club to preserve its history without pretending history is current membership. The Club could still say, proudly and accurately, that more than 4,000 people have earned membership over its lifetime. But it should not say or imply that it currently has 4,000 active members unless it can prove that absurdity without needing a fog machine.

Annual Confirmation Without Dues

One option is an annual membership confirmation.

This would not require dues. It would not revoke historical membership. It would not punish inactive members. It would simply allow the Club to know who is still reachable and interested.

Each year, members could receive a simple electronic or paper confirmation request:

• Are you still active or interested in the 3905 Century Club?
• Is your call sign current?
• Is your email address current?
• Is your mailing address current?
• Do you wish to receive election materials?
• Are you an ARRL member?
• Are you interested in volunteering?
• Do you consent to receive official Club communications electronically?

Members who respond remain active. Members who do not respond after a reasonable period become inactive for administrative purposes. They remain historical members. They can reactivate at any time by confirming their information.

This is not draconian. It is basic housekeeping.

Every organization that wants to know who its members are eventually discovers the radical administrative practice of asking them.

Couple Voting Rights with Current Membership Status

The next question is harder: should voting rights require active status?

I think the Club should at least consider it.

A person who earned a first 100-Point Award in 1989, has not checked into a net in twenty years, has not applied for an award in decades, has not confirmed contact information, and has no current involvement in Club affairs should not carry the same voting weight as a member who is participating now.

This is not disrespect for long-standing members. Quite the opposite. Historical members should be preserved and honored. But voting should reflect current connection to the organization.

One possible rule would be:

A full voting member remains eligible to vote if, within the previous three years, the member has confirmed contact information, voted in a Club election, checked into a Club net, applied for an award, served as a volunteer, made a donation, or otherwise confirmed continued interest.

That gives plenty of ways to remain active. It does not require award chasing. It does not require constant net participation. It merely requires some living connection to the Club.

The Club should not be governed by ghosts, stale email addresses, or database archaeology.

A Modest First-Award Reform

The Club does not need to abandon the free first award tradition. It should not punish newcomers for wanting to try the Club. It should not turn the first contact with the awards system into a shakedown at the clubhouse door.

But it should separate the free introductory award from permanent governance status.

Several options are available.

Option 1: Keep the first award free, but require a membership application.
The applicant receives the free first award, but voting membership requires a simple membership form with current contact information, communication consent, ARRL status, volunteer interests, and acknowledgment that the member wants to be part of the Club, not merely receive a certificate.

Option 2: Keep the award free, but make membership activation affirmative.
The first award would confer eligibility for membership, but the new award recipient would need to activate membership by confirming contact information, opting into official communications, and acknowledging voting rights and responsibilities.

Option 3: Keep membership free, but require periodic active confirmation for voting.
This preserves the traditional no-dues model while preventing inactive historical members from bloating the voting roll forever. A member who remains interested can confirm status easily. A member who disappears becomes inactive for voting purposes until reactivated.

Option 4: Create an introductory member status.
The first 100-Point Award creates introductory membership. Full voting membership begins after the member confirms information and demonstrates continuing connection, such as earning a subsequent award, checking into Club nets over time, volunteering, donating, or otherwise affirming active interest.

Option 5: Solicit a voluntary first-award contribution.
The first award can remain free, but the application should clearly explain that the Club incurs costs and invite a voluntary contribution to support awards, technology, records, and operations. Some people will contribute if asked directly and respectfully. Astonishingly, adults sometimes respond well when treated like adults.

Option 6: Pair the first award with orientation.
A new member should receive more than a certificate. The Club should provide a clear, well written welcome packet explaining the awards system, nets, bylaws, elections, volunteer opportunities, current officers, communication channels, and expectations for participation. If the Club wants members to become part of the culture, it must introduce the culture instead of assuming osmosis through signal reports. When I was last involved, promptly sending such a welcome package to new members was the responsibility of the “Communication Team”. This should be a mandatory policy.

None of these options destroys the Club’s tradition. They refine it.

The goal is not to create financial barriers. The goal is to create intentional membership. The Club should still welcome newcomers generously, but it should stop pretending that a free certificate, a database entry, and lifetime voting rights automatically produce engaged members.

A first award should open the door. It should not be the entire membership process.

Protect the Awards Culture While Fixing the Membership Model

The Club must be careful not to damage what actually works.

The awards system is the Club’s core identity. Membership tied to award achievement makes cultural sense. The first award should remain welcoming. New members should feel encouraged, not taxed at the door like they wandered into a county fair with a parking fee.

But the Club can preserve the awards culture while fixing the membership problem.

It can still welcome newcomers through the first 100-Point Award, it can still honor every historical member, it can still preserve lifetime recognition, and it can still avoid annual dues if the membership hates dues as much as one suspects.

But it must stop confusing historical recognition with current governance. That distinction is the whole point.

An award record says: this person accomplished something. A membership roll says: this person is part of the current organization. A voter roll says: this person may help choose Club leadership. Those are related concepts.

But they are not the same concept.

The Club’s current paradigm blurs them together, and the result is inflated membership mythology, unmeasurable attrition, weak planning, election uncertainty, and a governing structure that cannot tell the difference between active members and sediment.

The Real Number

The Club should publish three numbers annually:

• Total historical members.
• Current active members.
• Voting-eligible members.

That alone would change the conversation.

No more hiding behind “over 4,000 members” when fewer than 100 people vote. No more pretending database accumulation equals organizational health. No more invoking a giant membership body when actual participation suggests a small active core surrounded by decades of names.

The Club might not like the real number. That is usually why organizations avoid measuring things.

But honest numbers are better than comforting fiction. If the active membership is fewer than 200, say so. If the voting-eligible membership is fewer than 150, say so. If only 89 people vote in a presidential election, say so and ask why. If whole areas produce one, two, or four votes, say so and confront what that means for representation.

A shrinking Club can still be a good Club. A shrinking Club that lies to itself cannot.

Conclusion: Stop Counting Ghosts

Free lifetime membership for all may have served the Club well when the nets were younger, when the paper flowed more slowly, and when the active membership was easier to see. But fifty years later, that model is producing bad information, inflated claims, unmeasurable attrition, and a voting universe that may not reflect the members who actually sustain the Club.

The answer is not to erase history. The answer is to separate history from current governance.

Preserve every member record. Honor every award earner. Maintain the historical roll. Remember the Silent Keys. Keep the first award welcoming. But create an active membership status. Confirm contact information. Track current participation. Collect useful voluntary data. Identify voting eligibility. Ask about ARRL membership. Build a membership roll that can support planning, elections, outreach, affiliation, insurance, and honest reporting.

The Club does not need another myth. It needs a roster. A real one.

Because a Club that cannot identify its members cannot honestly claim to represent them. It can only count ghosts, inflate numbers, and hope no one asks how many living, active, interested members remain.

And in this Club, hope has already been assigned too much committee work.

The Absurdist Papers series of essays, written by a former officer and director of this organization, is intended to create discussion fodder for Club members and policy makers alike. My departure from volunteer service frees up my time to explore the Club from the unique viewpoint of an outsider with inside knowledge and institutional memory accumulated through a decade of service. I write this drivel hoping that it will inspire the few remaining committed volunteers to stem the tide of organizational entropy in a Club I have long cared about.

See my catalog of the entire Absurdist Papers Series by Vox Incommoda.

If you want some further reading about organizational entropy, I have written a paper that relates ham radio award nets to thermodynamic systems. Sounds boring, I know, but if you wish to dive into it, you can download it here.

The post Absurdist 37: Free, Lifetime Membership: A Broken Paradigm? appeared first on The Nittany Turkey.

Absurdist Paper #36 dissects the draft minutes for the June Board meeting, at least the first iteration. They present another fine example of our subject organization’s growing problem with official memory.

These draft minutes do not chronicle the meeting in a meaningful way. They are minimal, whitewashed, and in some sections, flat-out misrepresentations, replete with personal opinions and rule articulations. They are a mess. The issue is not that the draft minutes are imperfect. Draft minutes are drafts. Corrections happen. Names get misspelled. Page references drift. Human beings, against all evidence and better judgment, continue to prepare documents.

The issue is that these draft minutes do not merely contain errors. They shape the meeting into a softened, sanitized, and sometimes self-serving version of what happened. Key exchanges are omitted. Revealing comments vanish. Uncomfortable details are compressed into fog. The Secretary inserts his own procedural interpretation into the record. Once again, the minutes become less a neutral record of governance and more a post-meeting attempt to control what future readers will think occurred.

This is minutes laundering, not recordkeeping.

About That Workload, Doug

Before we proceed, let us pause over the Secretary’s workload complaint, because it has now become part of the Club’s official atmosphere. At the June meeting, the Board was told that preparing packets and minutes can consume something like twenty hours per week. The implication was clear enough: this is burdensome work, Directors should be more restrained, and anyone unhappy with the minutes is welcome to grab a shovel and help dig the trench.

Fair enough. Let us test that.

This analysis was assembled in a few hours using contemporaneous meeting notes, the draft minutes, and the meeting recording. It identifies date errors, stale roll-call information, omitted exchanges, mischaracterized discussions, softened controversies, and inserted procedural interpretations. With access to the Zoom AI Companion transcript discussed in Absurdist 34, a competent Secretary could have prepared far better minutes in significantly less time than the workload figure being floated from the head table.

That matters. If a former Director pushing 80 can reconstruct the substantive meeting record in a few hours from the outside, then the Board should not simply accept “twenty hours” as a magic shield against scrutiny. Directors should return the challenge. What exactly consumes that time? Is the workflow broken? Are reports arriving late? Are templates poor? Is the Secretary transcribing when he should be summarizing? Is he manually doing work the software can already do? Or is the complaint being used to justify thinner minutes, fewer questions, and less accountability?

No one should want the Secretary buried under unnecessary work. But the solution is not to reduce the historical record, discourage Directors from asking questions, or insert defensive interpretations into the minutes. The solution is to modernize the workflow, use the tools already available, and produce accurate minutes without treating every substantive Board discussion as an attack on the person holding the pen.

Surely a comparatively young whippersnapper like Doug, properly equipped with AI transcription and a disciplined template, can outperform this old fart with a notebook, a recording, and a grudge against institutional fog.

Now, on to my analysis.

The Date Still Does Not Work

Let us begin with the easiest problem, because apparently the Club now struggles with the calendar.

The draft minutes identify the meeting as “Minutes – Unapproved 14-June-2026.” They then state “Local Saturday, June 14, 2026,” followed by “June 15, 2026, 01:00 UTC.” Later, the minutes say the meeting was called to order at 0100Z.

Those statements cannot all be true.

If the meeting was called to order at 0100Z on June 14, then it was the evening of June 13 in the United States. If the local meeting date was June 14 at 9 PM Eastern, then the UTC date would have been June 15. The draft minutes preserve the same date confusion that infected the agenda packets, as though time itself has now joined the Club’s document-control problem.

This is not a cosmic mystery. It is a recurring monthly Board meeting. The organization should be able to state when it happened.

A Board that cannot correctly record the date of its own meeting should perhaps be cautious before interpreting the bylaws, restructuring committees, changing meeting dates, or lecturing Directors about what is and is not “out of order.”

The Roll Call That Time Forgot

The roll call still lists Virgil Warren, W9WWG, as 9th Area Assistant Director.

Virgil resigned in May.

One might think that a resignation from a Board-related position would have some effect on the roster used in the next month’s minutes. Apparently not. The Club’s official record continues to move names forward by inertia, like a ghost ship crewed by copy-and-paste.

This matters because roll call is not decorative. It establishes who held office, who was present, who had authority, and who participated in the governance of the corporation. If the roster is stale, the record is stale. If the record is stale, future readers inherit fiction with line numbers.

The Secretary could possibly bank on a weak excuse. The President kept Virgil’s embarrassing resignation low-profile, failing to announce it while quietly sweeping it under the rug to save face. Meanwhile, the Secretary might have been too busy assembling Board packets to have heard the news through the back-channel grapevine.

Again, this is not a complicated correction. Remove the resigned Assistant Director from the roll call. Leaving him in there does not assuage the sting and embarrassment of his departure.

There. Governance.

Doug’s Procedural Pronouncement

The most revealing problem appears in the discussion of the May minutes. The Secretary is at it again.

Mac objected to the May minutes because they contained the Secretary’s editorial statement that a prior discussion was “out of order.” Mac’s point, correctly stated, was that the Secretary does not rule Directors out of order. The Chair does that during the meeting. The Secretary records what happens. He does not get to become Parliamentarian Emeritus in the minutes after everyone has gone to bed.

So how do the June draft minutes handle this?

By giving Doug another platform.

The Gospel According to Doug

The draft minutes state that the Chair explained the packet publication process. Then, gratuitously, the minutes add that there is “no problem” inserting reports after the final agenda is produced on Monday because the five-day lead-time restriction applies only to agenda discussion items.

Say what?

That is not minutes drafting.

That is Doug’s bylaws interpretation, inserted into the historical record out of left field under the guise of summarizing a minutes discussion. That, coming from the author of a patronizing comment added to each agenda: Did we actually record the events and discussions of the meeting correctly?

Answer: No, but we added our passive-aggressive “no problem” nonsense.

This is precisely the type of transgression Mac objected to in the first place. The Secretary is using the minutes to editorialize, interpret, defend, and normalize his preferred procedural theory. His earlier “out of order” remark generated an objection. The cure was apparently to insert a new procedural ruling into the next set of minutes.

That is not improvement. Seems more like escalation.

If Doug believes the bylaws allow reports to be inserted after the final agenda is produced, he should say so in a proper discussion, where Directors can challenge him. If the Chair believes that interpretation is correct, the Chair can rule accordingly. If the Board wants to clarify the issue, it can refer the matter to the Bylaws Committee through proper channels.

What Doug should not do is launder his own interpretation into the minutes as though it were settled fact.

Minutes are not the Secretary’s private commentary channel. They are the Club’s historical record.

The recording secretary records the meeting. Articulating rules and misquoting the bylaws is not part of the deal.

The Missing “Why”

The Bylaws Committee discussion is another example of selective memory.

My notes from the meeting show that Kirk reported the committee was considering moving the regular Board meeting from the second Saturday to the third Saturday of each month. Gary then asked the obvious question: why?

Kirk’s answer was the revealing part.

“Ours is not to reason why…”

That response matters. It was not merely a joke. It signaled that the Bylaws Committee was being asked to consider a governance change without openly stating the underlying reason. Since then, I have heard enough to confirm what the exchange suggested: this was not some independent committee initiative bubbling up from neutral review. It was another example of back-channel tasking.

Back-Channel Machinations

Dean wanted something explored. Kirk brought it to the Bylaws Committee. The committee was placed in the position of examining a structural change without the normal discipline of a formal motion routed through the Chair.

That is ass-backward.

The Bylaws Committee should not be used as an informal sounding board for presidential preferences, secretarial workload complaints, or anyone else’s procedural wish list. If someone wants the Board meeting date changed, a Director or voting officer should prepare a motion and submit it to the Chair. The Chair should route it through the Bylaws Committee for review. The committee should analyze the governing documents, report what changes would be required, and return the matter through the formal process. Moreover, transparent records must reflect the entire process.

That is governance.

What we appear to have instead is casual, back-channel machinations: private presidential nudges converted into committee activity, then sanitized in the minutes as bland procedural housekeeping.

The draft minutes omit Gary’s question. They omit Kirk’s deflection. They omit the part that revealed why the discussion mattered. They record the shell and bury the signal.

That is how dezinformatsiya works in small organizations. Not by dramatic lie, but by omission, compression, and boredom.

The NCS Guide Memory Hole Gets Formalized

The draft minutes also report that the NCS Guide review committee has been provided “the most recently adopted NCS Guide from the club website.”

That sentence should set off alarms.

The website contains the older, 2023 guide. It does not contain the 2025 NCS Guide produced after months of Bylaws Committee work and publicly announced in 2025 as going into effect. The draft minutes now help launder that erasure by referring to the website version as the “most recently adopted” guide.

Adopted by whom?

When?

By what action?

And what happened to the 2025 guide?

The 2025 NCS Guide did not crawl into a ditch on its own. As we thoroughly discussed in Absurdist 31, it was completed, praised, announced, and then left unimplemented. Now a new workgroup is being sent back to the website version as though the completed update never existed.

That is not document control. That is institutional amnesia wearing a committee badge.

The Awards Report Discussion Gets Flattened

The Awards Committee report discussion is one of the most important parts of the meeting, and the draft minutes manage to flatten it into procedural pablum. Ho hum.

The draft minutes say Craig raised concern that the report “does not show all the information that might be desired.” After “lengthy discussion,” the President asked whether Craig would work with Rich on the content of the awards reports.

That is not an adequate account. A review of the YouTube video confirms that my meeting notes accurately reflect what happened. Doug’s minutes do not.

Craig’s Points

Craig made two distinct points. First, financial information belongs in the Awards Committee report because the Audit Committee needs a way to compare expected award income against actual receipts. If the awards report contains only award-count exhaust, the Audit Committee loses a key management tool. This is especially important because the Club already has a history of reconciling award revenue against receipts, and eliminating that information from the report weakens oversight at exactly the wrong time.

Second, Craig said, speaking as a Club member and Director, that the current Awards Committee report does nothing for him. It does not show what the Awards Committee is doing. It does not report ongoing projects. It does not identify substantive work. It does not help Directors understand whether the committee is functioning, drifting, or merely producing statistics.

That is not a committee accountability issue, not just formatting.

The missing discussion matters even more because of what followed. Gary eschewed involvement and said whatever Rich wanted to put in the report was fine. This was the Treasurer discussing a report whose financial information should help reconcile award activity and revenue. The Treasurer’s response was essentially: leave me out of it, whatever Rich wants.

That should be in the minutes.

A Simple Solution, a Presidential Parry

Craig then stated the obvious, uncomplicated solution. The Awards Committee report should revert to the previous format, the one used before the President and Awards Secretary stripped its financial information and converted the report into a statistical placemat.

Dean’s response was not decisive leadership. It was managerial fog. Craig had “some great ideas.” Forward them along. Dean would forward them to Rich. Craig stated the simple solution of reverting to the prior format. Dean deflected, “We’ll try to figure that out then.”

Try to figure what out?

The old format existed. It worked. It contained the needed information. It existed through November 2025. It later changed because the President declared the revenue numbers “meaningless,” and now one of the very people who needs the information for audit work is strongly criticizing that omission.

This is not difficult. Go back to the former format.

But the draft minutes do not preserve the actual issue. They turn a concrete oversight problem into a vague content preference and an action item for Craig to work with Rich. That framing protects the people who caused the problem, obscures the Treasurer’s disinterest, ignores the President’s deflection, and hides the simplicity of the solution.

What we have here is data laundering, not historical record.

Sanitizing the Logo Contest

The logo contest discussion receives similar treatment.

The draft minutes make it sound routine. The contest will run June 15 through October 15. Gene will contact Peter. A judging committee exists. They are publishing format and DPI resolution specifications. Several Directors asked whether there was interest in updating the logo. We will need a motion at some point to implement a change.

That is the sanitized version.

The meeting itself was messier and more revealing.

Gene had already sent an email to the membership before the meeting announcing the logo contest, including contest dates, submission instructions, judges, and prizes. Peter said Gene had not contacted him as promised. Gene admitted he had not contacted anyone. Dean asked whether anyone had submitted a motion to approve the need for a new logo, because the Board needed to approve that before going to the membership. Doug said he had reviewed the April minutes and could not find recorded approval. Craig remembered Dean telling Gene to go ahead. Gene was flabbergasted because he thought he had a “go.” Clay told Gene to explain to the members that the logo requires Board approval and to slide the contest one month.

That was the story.

The issue was not whether Gene published DPI guidance. Sheesh! The issue was that a Club-wide logo contest had left the station before anyone could identify clear Board approval for the train.

The draft minutes reduce that governance train wreck to a harmless project update. Worse, it exacerbates what is already a foggy record of bobbing and weaving.

Again, the pattern repeats. Remove the embarrassment. Preserve the bland action. Bury the accountability.

The Watered-down Report-Discussion Gag Rule Deflection

The draft minutes also soften Mac’s Q&A challenge to the agenda’s passive-aggressive language regarding reports.

The draft minutes say only that someone raised a question about the wording for discussion of reports and that the membership has the right to observe the discussion. Clay indicated the wording was “not great” and he would modify it.

That is not wrong, but it is thin.

Mac made a specific point. Reports are Board business. Directors should discuss them openly at Board meetings where members can observe. This was a direct challenge to the agenda language attempting to push questions about reports into the CCNBoard reflector and away from open meeting discussion.

Clay’s response also matters. He said he would change the wording, but added that he did not want discussions to become “War and Peace.”

That quip belongs in the record because it explains the tension: the Chair wants efficiency, but the Board still has a duty to discuss matters of governance. Meetings should not become endless novels. Fine. But neither should they become staged readings of preapproved paperwork.

The draft minutes again preserve the outcome while softening the conflict.

The Adobe Question Loses the Important Part

The description of the financials discussion presents itself in a way that protects the fog.

The draft minutes say a question was raised about the Adobe software expense of $49 and whether it was paid once or monthly. Gary answered that it is a monthly charge.

That is only part of the exchange.

Peter’s question went further. He wanted to know what software the Club was paying for. Was it InDesign? Something else? Gary said he did not know. He just pays the bill. Dean chimed in to further obfuscate the matter and deflect questions. He and Rich would deal with it.

The Treasurer not knowing what monthly software charge he is paying is a more important fact than the mere recurrence of the charge. A financial report should not become a guessing game. If the Club is paying monthly for software, the Treasurer should know what it is, who uses it, what is its need, and whether it remains justified.

And in our subject organization, the Treasurer is also the Fourth Area Director. Fiduciary, policy maker, involved on multiple levels. No need to defer to the President and Awards Secretary.

The minutes must record the President’s deflection, too. A Director asked him for specifics; he responded with a parry. The President answers to the Board.

The draft minutes record the harmless answer and omit the uncomfortable ones.

How convenient.

The Larger Pattern

Taken individually, some of these omissions and errors might seem small.

Together, they show the method.

The draft minutes repeatedly preserve the least embarrassing version of events. They record outcomes but omit revealing exchanges. They summarize conflict into fog. They remove names, soften accountability, and convert governance failures into harmless updates. At the same time, they allow the Secretary to insert his own bylaws interpretation when that interpretation protects his packet process.

This is not what minutes are for.

Minutes are not a public-relations product. They are not a comfort blanket for officers. They are not a procedural sermon from the Secretary. They are not an opportunity to protect the President, the Chair, or the packet from scrutiny.

Minutes are the official memory of the Club.

And this Club already has a memory problem:

• It forgets completed work product.
• It forgets why reports mattered.
• It forgets what committees actually did.
• It forgets who resigned.
• It forgets which guide was completed.
• It forgets whether Board approval was granted.
• It forgets that agenda language designed to suppress discussion was challenged.
• It forgets that a Treasurer said whatever Rich wanted was fine.
• It forgets that simple solutions were offered and buried under “we’ll try to figure that out.”

That is not accidental entropy.

That is entropy assisted by editing.

The Dean-Clay-Doug Axis

At this point, the pattern is too obvious to ignore.

Dean controls too much of the operating environment. Clay presides over meetings in which uncomfortable governance issues are softened, deferred, or converted into manageable fog. Doug controls the written record and repeatedly inserts interpretive gloss while omitting key facts that future readers would need to understand what actually happened.

This Dean-Clay-Doug Axis does not need to issue dramatic decrees. It merely needs to shape what reaches the Board, shape what happens in the meeting, and shape what the minutes preserve afterward.

• Agenda fog.
• Meeting fog.
• Minutes fog.

By the time the Board approves the record by acclamation, the controversy is already processed, pasteurized, and rendered safe for historical consumption.

Dean may be secure for the next eighteen months, but Doug and Clay are not sovereign institutions. They serve at the Board’s discretion. That point should not be whispered. The Board, not the President, is responsible for managing the Club. The Constitution and bylaws establish that structure, even if current practice sometimes looks like the President manages the Board through a compliant Chair and Secretary while everyone else waits for the packet to tell them what reality is this month. Doug and Clay require direction from the Board. They should not be allowed to convert administrative convenience into procedural control, nor should the Board permit them to narrow discussion, shape the record, or manage meeting flow in ways that serve the President’s preferences rather than the Board’s responsibilities.

Directors: Please Read the Minutes!

That is why Directors must read the minutes.

Not skim them. Not trust them. Not approve them because everyone wants to move on to the next item. Read them. Compare them to memory. Compare them to recordings. Compare them to reports. Compare them to what people actually said.

• If the minutes are wrong, say so.
• If the minutes omit material exchanges, say so.
• If the Secretary editorializes, say so.
• If the minutes launder the meeting into a more convenient story, say so.

Approval by acclamation is not a substitute for Board review. It is not a magic wand. It is not absolution. When Directors approve minutes without reading them carefully, they become accomplices in the corruption of the record, even if their sin is merely laziness.

Mac objected.

Good.

Mac has been doing what Directors must do: read the documents, remember what happened, challenge bad recordkeeping, and refuse to let procedural fog become institutional fact. That effort deserves recognition, and it deserves support. One Director cannot carry the record alone. But one Director can force the rest of the Board to decide whether it wants minutes or mythology.

Correct the Record

The Board should not approve the June draft minutes as written. It should demand corrections.

1. The meeting date and UTC/local-time problem should be fixed.
2. Virgil Warren should not be listed in a current roll-call capacity if he had already resigned.
3. Doug’s interpretation of the five-day agenda rule should be removed unless it is clearly attributed as a statement made during the meeting and subject to correction. It should not be presented as settled procedural truth merely because the Secretary typed it with confidence.
4. The Bylaws Committee discussion should include Gary’s question and Kirk’s “ours is not to reason why” deflection.
5. The Awards Committee report discussion should reflect Craig’s two distinct points: financial data is needed for oversight, and the report should show what the Awards Committee is actually doing.
6. Craig’s call sign in the Awards Committee discussion should be corrected. He is VE3CMB, not VE3CMT.
7. Gary’s statement that he did not need to be involved, and that whatever Rich wanted in the Awards Committee report was fine, should be recorded.
8. Craig’s recommendation to return to the former Awards Committee report format should be recorded. Dean’s vague “we’ll try to figure that out” response should be recorded as well.
9. The logo contest discussion should be corrected to reflect the actual governance issue: the contest had already been announced to members before clear Board approval was identified; Gene believed he had a “go”; Craig remembered Dean telling Gene to proceed; Doug could not find recorded approval; and Clay told Gene to slide the contest because Board approval was needed.
10. The Q&A discussion should identify Mac’s objection to the report-discussion language and Clay’s promise to revise it.
11. The financials discussion should record that Gary did not know what Adobe software was being paid for, not merely that the charge was monthly.
12. The NCS Guide entry should not be allowed to obscure the completed 2025 Guide. If the committee is reviewing the website version, the record should say so plainly, and the Board should ask why the completed 2025 version is being ignored.

None of this is hard.

It only requires the Club to value accuracy over convenience.