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First the intro: I am Lyman Brainerd checking in from Sedona, Arizona where
I've been living the last ten years practicing my irresponsibility skills,
not particularly successfully. Before retiring and heading out here I had
been Assistant Dean of the Faculty and then Director of Personnel at
Princeton University. My first love throughout was in the training and
development area. In my 15 years in New Jersey I (and colleagues) developed
and led a number of organizational effectiveness programs at Princeton, and
three of us formed a moderately successful consulting group (Nassau
Consulting Group of Princeton, now NCG of Sedona) doing problem solving and
leadership training, mostly for colleges and universities.

Now the request: I'm currently Chair of the Board of AVSC International, an
international family planning and reproductive health organization located
in New York--staff about 225, budget about $30M. In recent years we've
taken major steps to internationalize the board by electing citizens/
residents of other countries, and expect to continue doing so in the
future. We currently schedule two board meetings and three executive
committee meetings annually--all in New York. The executive committee is
the principal instrument of board functioning. It's about a dozen people,
mostly the board officers and heads of the major board committees.

Here's the issue: Five New York meetings a year is a problem for most of
our international boardmembers--both in time commitment and travel expense.
If, however, we restrict executive committee membership (and therefore
major committee membership) to US board members, we are missing most of the
advantages of an international board (to say nothing of introducing the
hazards of a two-class board structure.) So at the last meeting we amended
the meeting requirement to allow the option of what I called "virtual
meetings"--in that we could disseminate info and make decisions by
email,fax, mail, telephone around the appointed date without the necessity
of a physical meeting in NYC. Well we haven't tried it yet, and probably
won't until next fall; but when we do one, I'd like to do it smoothly and
well. And I'm trying to get prepared...

Now the request:...I would much appreciate any experience on meetings like
this (virtual, remote) you could share with me or any resources to which
you could point me.

Forgive cross posting. Many thanks.


Lyman B. Brainerd Jr. (lbb@sedona.net)

In a message dated 98-01-22 10:06:41 EST, you write:
Subj: Intro and Request
Date: 98-01-22 10:06:41 EST
From: lbb@SEDONA.NET (Lyman B. Brainerd)

<< Here's the issue: Five New York meetings a year is a problem for most of
our international boardmembers--both in time commitment and travel expense.
If, however, we restrict executive committee membership (and therefore
major committee membership) to US board members, we are missing most of the
advantages of an international board (to say nothing of introducing the
hazards of a two-class board structure.) So at the last meeting we amended
the meeting requirement to allow the option of what I called "virtual
meetings"--in that we could disseminate info and make decisions by
email,fax, mail, telephone around the appointed date without the necessity
of a physical meeting in NYC. Well we haven't tried it yet, and probably
won't until next fall; but when we do one, I'd like to do it smoothly and
well. And I'm trying to get prepared...

Now the request:...I would much appreciate any experience on meetings like
this (virtual, remote) you could share with me or any resources to which
you could point me.

Forgive cross posting. Many thanks. >>
I am on the board of the National Speakers Association. We have three board
meetings per year and about two weeks before each we get a "Board Book" which
contains issues, proposals, etc. to be discussed at the board meeting. There
is a cutoff date prior to each of the "Board Books". If proposals, discussion
items don't make it by the cutoff, they don't get discussed. The advantage of
this is tht it provides each Board member with substantial printed information
about each issue...very helpful if you have English as a second language. It
also allows Board members to review and prepare so that each person comes to
the meeting "up to speed".

Something new that we have added this year is a Monday Morning Memo (MMM).
Each Monday the Executive VP of the association sends a memo to all Board
members as past presidents (whom we consider valuable resources, although not
voting members of the board). The memo contains issues and discussion items
which may need to be dealt with by the Executive Committee between meetings.
Each person has until Thursday to provide comments on the items which are then
summarized back to the board on Friday. The MMM helps each Board member to
stay "connected" to association issues, needs, and concerns between board
meetings.

We have also amended policy to allow for email voting in cases of extreme
need.

At 02:50 PM 1/22/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Lyman B. Brainerd wrote:
>>
>

what about virtual board meetings?


You could also contact The MetaNetwork Design Group at http://www.tmn.com/
They provide online conference services for nonprofits just like yourself.
Ask for Frank Burns.

Mark Michaels
President, People Technologies
Michaels@ipat.com
To move a mountain, start with one pebble at a time.

Lyman B. Brainerd wrote:
>

what about virtual board meetings?

Lyman,

Two thoughts: the research done at Xerox Parc on collaborative work in a
virtual setting is very rich. Secondly, services such as Netscape can
provide you with a 'place' on-line: whiteboard, chat, etc.

Good luck and those of us in the NYC area can't imagine why you wouldn't
want to pay to come back here in January ;-)


--
T.J. Elliott
Cavanaugh Leahy
http://idt.net/~tjell
914 366-7499

Mark Michaels wrote:
As a further follow-up to Lyman B. Brainerd query about virtual board
meetings: There is an article in Personnel Psychology, Spring 1997 v50
n1 p121(26). titled Effects of leadership style and problem structure on
work group process and outcomes in an electronic meeting system
environment. The authors are Surinder S. Kahai, John J. Sosik and Bruce
J. Avolio It comments on how participative and directive leadership
styles play out in that situation.
--
T.J. Elliott
Cavanaugh Leahy
http://idt.net/~tjell
914 366-7499

Other than the obvious suggestions of getting material to people well in
advance and having good agendas to focus any meeting, I would like to suggest
that you look into videoconferencing with your international members. The US
members could meet in NYC with the international member "joining" through a
videoconference link. With 5 meetings a year, I think you could put a good
cost justification together for such an arrangement. Purchase of a good
quality sustem would cost around $50K-$65K depending on a whole slew of
factors. What might cause problems is the video link at the international
site. Depending on where the internatinal members live, they may be able to
find a mutlinational corporation willing to donate the use of their equipment
for a day. If you follow this approach there will still need to be a lot of
work done offline since a videoconference of 2-3 days (You didn't say how long
the meetings were scheduled for) could get cumbersome. Send the background,
have time to ponder, link for some discussion and a vote.

Best to you on your virtual journey......

Lyman B. Brainerd wrote:

> Now the request: I'm currently Chair of the Board of AVSC International, an
> international family planning and reproductive health organization located
> in New York--staff about 225, budget about $30M. In recent years we've
> taken major steps to internationalize the board by electing citizens/
> residents of other countries, and expect to continue doing so in the
> future. We currently schedule two board meetings and three executive
> committee meetings annually--all in New York. The executive committee is
> the principal instrument of board functioning. It's about a dozen people,
> mostly the board officers and heads of the major board committees.
>
> Here's the issue: Five New York meetings a year is a problem for most of
> our international boardmembers--both in time commitment and travel expense.
> If, however, we restrict executive committee membership (and therefore
> major committee membership) to US board members, we are missing most of the
> advantages of an international board (to say nothing of introducing the
> hazards of a two-class board structure.) So at the last meeting we amended
> the meeting requirement to allow the option of what I called "virtual
> meetings"--in that we could disseminate info and make decisions by
> email,fax, mail, telephone around the appointed date without the necessity
> of a physical meeting in NYC. Well we haven't tried it yet, and probably
> won't until next fall; but when we do one, I'd like to do it smoothly and
> well. And I'm trying to get prepared...
>
> Now the request:...I would much appreciate any experience on meetings like
> this (virtual, remote) you could share with me or any resources to which
> you could point me.



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International Management Services Company
Augusta, Georgia
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