Hi Ken,
No, not embarrassed, not confused. Frustrated, by where we are, for sure.
But its awkward to try and cover ground that we've already discussed in members notes and communications.
We moved on from the management company because we couldn't turn things around fast enough regarding $$ flow from where we thought we were when we signed them up in Burlington. Lots of intertwined reasons for that - chief among them $$$$, or lack of it, actually.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that our history is irrelevant. Its actually on my mind all the time as I (we) have to make decisions regarding the running of the organization.
As to this:
Personally, I would prefer to do this in a way in which at least I know what it was that we all collectively did wrong such that members and supporters can take care not to repeat the same mistakes in the future.
The short answer?
Excerpted and paraphrased from an email that I've sent to many members:
We’ve worked hard to understand buildings that have stood for hundreds of years.
And we have applied that understanding to design, craft, and build structures that will last hundreds more.
Yet we, as an organization, have failed to look after ourselves with the same discipline and respect as we do our history, craft, and buildings.
Our timber frames may be standing for centuries.
Yet our ‘community’, our ‘guild’ is having trouble outlasting a subprime mortgage on a suburban McMansion.
This covers everything from (lack) of grant seeking (with a few exceptions for publications), care of our books, leveraging our legacy, monetizing our IP, protecting ourselves with regards to copyright, backing up our data, archiving our videos and photos, building a database driven easy to use website.... etc. etc. - as well as burning through our assets at an alarming rate that was not arrested soon enough...
I may sound negative about things, and critical, but I would have resigned long ago if I didn't think we could turn things around, if I didn't believe that we'll sort out the issues, and make peace with and respect our past while moving forward, to a place where the TFG is relevant to a greater audience, and we move from more of a 'club' to more of a 'guild'.
