Anger; sure. Resentment? Perhaps, any number of emotions might apply as well such as dismay, frustration etc. Entirely reasonable reactions considering the abuse he was exposed to and the false claims that were made. We saw many of them here on the Zed e.g. "ARRL leadership is seeking the destruction of amateur radio". I don't know why you seem to think having normal reacitions is inappropriate. His descriptions though are not emotional nor drama laden. He is describing the emails people sent to him in a factual basis.
I don't think having normal reactions is inappropriate, but expressing them in the manner he did, in that venue was. He put himself a lot further out there in terms of lack of "collegiality" than anything I've heard in terms of Mr. Norton. The bottom line (for me at least) is, that, no matter how bad interpersonal relation on the BOD may have been, his idea of ..."Enough of this b.s. We're taking charge of this thing , and if you don't want to do it our way, you are gone, by whatever means necessary" was by definition a hostile takeover. I'll even give him this one bit of credit from the conference call. Clearly he himself is done pretending it was anything else. He stated flat out that he still thinks packing the BOD was a good idea (and give me a break, that IS why he wanted Pres/VP to have the vote), and clearly the only thing he regrets is that the Proposals were "leaked" before the meeting. Ethically, nobody has any business attempting to enforce a "Director led" agenda or assert that the BOD itself has a right to privacy or "Unanimous public support of the agenda" in a membership services organization, begin, period, end. If the Board is dysfunctional, or ones own relationships untenable, don't run for another term, let someone else take a shot at it. The minute anyone on a volunteer board in a membership services organization thinks the Board needs "protection" is the minute they should recognize that they aren't in the right job. Pragmatically/Politically, he bet his entire wad on the Bylaw Proposals and ARPA. The guy doesn't exactly strike me as Mensa material, but at some level, he must realize this. It's probably why he was so angry, and why he just let his "Screw them all" freak flag fly. All, anyone running against him has to do is go to club meetings, play the recording, and he is toast. If he has any dignity left, he'll call it a day, but I haven't seen any signs of that dignity at this point.
Well, I guess Mike Lisenco is not gonna bring the Beenies & Weenies to the next campfire get together.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Oh, that's so much better. Thank you for reposting that. I'm listening to it now. de NK2U
https://yourlisten.com/milen/townhall-2018-02-11 The above link graciously provided by an earlier poster has excellent audio. I listened to the entire recording. I had to force myself to try to turn off my cultural bias which is not really possible. For you see here in south-central PA where I've lived almost my entire life, things are a bit more laid back. Culturally we are more like central and western VA, the old western NC, northwest SC, northwest GA, and NE Alabama. I find Lisenco a bit overblown but he lives in a completely different world. I disagree with much, although not all, of what he had to say. He really tears Dick Norton a new one while being deliberately vague at the same time. He provides some detail to the public excoriation of K1MMH. Perhaps a bit more specificity would lead to that personal legal exposure he discusses later. I'm afraid he misses the point about Gallagher. I seem to recall in my earlier training there was a Harvard Business School case study done about certain actions at Ford Motor Company in the late 1960's. Semon E. "Bunkie" Knudsen was brought in from GM to be the President of Ford Motor Company by the Chairman, Henry Ford II. This temporarily derailed the presidential aspirations of Lee Iacocca, who proceeded to go Defcon III. The skirmishing began immediately and it was relentless. Knudsen came to Ford and brought one person with him, a stylist by the name of Larry Shinoda. Neither lasted very long. I'm afraid this was the mistake made by the Executive Search Committee and/or the consultant they engaged. From what Lisenco is saying there are going to go down the same path to try to find the same kind of person. "Rita" made some good comments concerning K1VR yet I thought Lisenco was borderline rude blowing her off as elitist and Hopengarten as unqualified. But again, different worlds. Toward the end of the recording an older ham basically sums up the Harvard Business School/Ford Motor Company case study without so many words. He says ARRL found a CEO who was a Finance guy who just happened to have a ham ticket, and the next CEO should be a well-known amateur experienced in managing an organization. Today they call it 'gravitas'. Bona fide is the more accepted term. There is more to being a leader than what an applicant lists on an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper. The individual has to be known and respected in the industry as well as compatible with the organization he seeks to join. That the person has to be a respected heavyweight is to rally the troops and by God get things done.
I listened to the whole thing. Thank you for providing it. Now I have a much better idea of what we are dealing with and why there was such a stink raised prior to the board meeting. I have been wondering how, or if, any of the directors would come out in public following the Jan. board meeting and defend any of the things that caused such a huge backlash among the membership. I got my answer, and "it ain't good! " Thanks again.
If you would like to do a compare and contrast, here is a link to a talk given by Director Norton N6AA recently
Thank you AGAIN. I am watching the whole thing, and am about half way through, but just wanted to pop back in and say that he appears to be a completely reasonable, rational, competent director, Someone who I would be proud to have as my director. He's very experienced, obviously loves ham radio. Has operated dx from every zone in the world. It is hard for me to imagine anyone censuring this man, and in fact my impression from watching his presentation and listening to the audio of the other director is that I would seriously question what motivates anyone to disagree so violently with this gentleman that they would do what they did to discredit him.
N2YBB is a huge part of the problem. He needs to go in the next election, period, along with a few others! Hope Hudson Division dumps this guy!
Went in expecting to be disappointed and heard some Catskills Schtick. OK, I was disappointed it wasn't more Rodney Dangerfield.
Mr. Norton has a reputation of "Not suffering fools, well." One of the things that I've become more aware of through this is Amateur Radio, much like the Greater society seems to be getting more and more divided by "class." You can tell that Mr. Lisenco has some real issues with "Elitist Contesters and Dxers", and to be fair, there are a number of us who snicker about the "Old Fat guys with the HTs over their belt loops." I was away from the hobby, other than some Repeater stuff myself, for about Twenty Five years, and I see that the composition of the Field Staff has changed drastically. Back then the Section Managers/Section Communications Managers and the Division Directors tended to be DXers, contesters, and professional technical types of some sort. They were people in your logbook, if you were active at all. N6AA types were more the rule than the exception. Now, they are mostly EmComm and local Club people. No doubt there are many exceptions to the rule, but it's fair to generalize that the "DX/Contest" types tend to be wealthier and worldlier, and the local/EmComm folks more likely to be Blue Collar. All have equal value as humans, as Amateur Radio operators, and if serving in a position, as holders of that position, but they aren't going to have equal capacity. I think we've seen enough "own goals" such as ARPA, regulation by bandwidth, and the short tenure of NY2RF to safely say that a majority of the current BOD is in over their heads and human nature being what it is, are lashing out, and trying to, as Eric Cartman would put it "Assert Our Authortah." I think we'll be able to get rid of the bad actors in the next year or two, *IF* capable people run against them, but in the meantime, as Mr. Lisenco no doubt has said a time or two, "Oy Gevalt."
Thanks for sharing the audio! I listened for about an hour before my headache came. My headache was not so much from the poor quality recording, but from the egotistic "I know best" attitude. And the reference to everyone but him is being "Toxic". Most of what I heard was CYA and I know best! I hope our fellow hams in the Hudson Division raise up and replace him in the election! 73, Dale W5WI
