The Flaws of International Board Elections

My current understanding of how the International Board is elected is as follows:  Candidates caucus at International Convention, and are given limited time to have a “Meet the Candidates” and give speeches and answer questions.  Regions are then allowed to vote.  Votes are allocated to regions based on their size, and ballots given to the regions.  The region then votes, choosing 5 delegates.  The 5 delegates are chosen with Regional Board going first, then Chapter Godols, then Regional Chairmen, then other attendees.  Yes ladies and gentlemen, 5 people from your region are allowed to vote on the candidates for I-Board, and those 5 candidates alone.  I will not even go into the philosophical argument of a Trustee voter vs. a Delegate voter, for you do not even need to think that hard to begin realizing the flaws of this system.
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BBYO Phone Conference

(I’m pleased to welcome a new author to BebersGhost.com: ShanesGhost [read more about him on our about page]. Posts by ShanesGhost do not necessarily reflect the opinion of BebersGhost, but that’s ok, because posts by BebersGhost don’t necessarily reflect the opinion of ShanesGhost either. I’d also like to take this opportunity to note the arrival of Max Baer’s Ghost on “The Dead Aleph’s Society”. With so many ghosts, it’s like Halloween every day. Trick or treat…  – BebersGhost)
Last night there was a phone conference between international staff and members of BBYO. I use the term “between” lightly, because it was really just International staff speaking for an hour and twenty minutes while members tried in vain to get their questions past the Grand Aleph Godol’s selection criteria. While I was not privileged enough to sit in on the conference call, I did have a link forwarded to me containing the audio log of the call.
After listening to the mp3 in its entirety, and pondering over it for a good amount of time, the biggest concern I have is that the members, and the staff do not see eye to eye. In the beginning of the call it seemed that the members had one understanding of how these changes would affect their chapter, and the staff had another. But by the end, it seemed as if nothing had changed that, and the conference call had only served to reinforce each side’s arguments. With the plethora of mysterious whispering, and the almost mocking laughter from Ian aside, the conference call seemed to run in circles. Some great questions were answered, but the energy seemed to die off with statements from staff conveying a message that seemed to say “We are not convinced”. So what does it take to convince a member of international staff, and how can you get both sides to see eye to eye?
Well, it is in the inherent nature of all members of BBYO should have slightly different goals than that of staff, but is this the cause such a disagreement? While it was clear that BBYO Inc. is highly concerned with the safety of every member, and the members of BBYO were highly concerned with the hassle and burden of the proposed red tape, is there no grounds for a compromise? I can guarantee that this dispute will only be calmed if both parties gain a level of mutual understanding, and both parties agree to some form of eye-to-eye communication.
-Charles