All,
I'm thinking about attending convention in three weeks. My reasons are several but most important is that I want to become more involved in USMS and I figure the best way to find out how/what/when/where is to attend convention.
Does this make sense? Would it be worthwhile?
Paul
I had the good fortune to attend last year's convention, and I must say it wasn't really my cup of hair ball tea. The delegates are incredibly enthusiastic and do a wonderful, obviously committed job. But I often had a sense that there were issues behind the issues that required some kind of insider understanding to fully comprehend. Case-in-point: some masters group in southern Illinois or Missouri or similarly remote location that wanted permission to move back to its former association with the Ozark zone.
Yeah, there is a lot of inside baseball that goes on. Alas, it happens in any group with power.
To me, it seemed a reasonable request. Why fall under the purview of Chicago-area bureacracy when all the meets these folks swam in were much, much closer across the border in the Ozark region. Anyhow, there was a big brouhaha about this, or at least it seemed this way to me, reminiscent of the American Colonies attempting to get out from under the thumb of King George. I never really did understand what the argument was all about, and still don't--other than a vague sense of control-freakish turf war bureacracy.
Agreed, lots of time wasted but people got to feel important ;-) This happens and is to be expected, you see it within companies, churches, civic organizations, political organizations, and professional societies. Put a bunch of (smart, committed) human beings together who disagree on mattes and you get...conflict. At least there were no sharp objects in the room at the time.
Anyhow, permission to secede to the Ozarks was voted in by a slim margin, after much hand wringing and objections by what seemed to me the more entrenched members of the politburo.
And at the end of the day, this did not affect 99.9% of the membership of USMS. Everybody had a drink afterwards and forgot about it within a couple of hours. Ah, deliberative bodies...
Maybe this is what Ande hopes to avoid--just a baffling sense that what seems to be going on, and what is really going on, are destined always to be at least a little different is such settings-- perhaps an inevitable consequence of well-meaning human beings who make the mistake of forming committees, subcomittees, super commitees, and adding to all this parliamentarianism and tabling rights and maybe, just maybe, the slightest snifter of Franz Kafka bafflement were he to write about swimming organization.
In summation: they also serve who encourage their fellows to swim for health, be this through USMS, YMCA Masters, FINA, or without any governing body whatsoever.
Circling back to a previous posting, you can be much more effective on the local level if you get involved there. The "challenges" of Convention are much larger than those at the LSMC level. Focus on the little things close to home you can change and get your (organization's) house in order. Then sustain this over time and improve it. Only at that time should you seriously consider getting involved in USMS on a National level. Otherwise, go there, learn, meet people, and have a good time. After all, this is not life or death.
I had the good fortune to attend last year's convention, and I must say it wasn't really my cup of hair ball tea. The delegates are incredibly enthusiastic and do a wonderful, obviously committed job. But I often had a sense that there were issues behind the issues that required some kind of insider understanding to fully comprehend. Case-in-point: some masters group in southern Illinois or Missouri or similarly remote location that wanted permission to move back to its former association with the Ozark zone.
Yeah, there is a lot of inside baseball that goes on. Alas, it happens in any group with power.
To me, it seemed a reasonable request. Why fall under the purview of Chicago-area bureacracy when all the meets these folks swam in were much, much closer across the border in the Ozark region. Anyhow, there was a big brouhaha about this, or at least it seemed this way to me, reminiscent of the American Colonies attempting to get out from under the thumb of King George. I never really did understand what the argument was all about, and still don't--other than a vague sense of control-freakish turf war bureacracy.
Agreed, lots of time wasted but people got to feel important ;-) This happens and is to be expected, you see it within companies, churches, civic organizations, political organizations, and professional societies. Put a bunch of (smart, committed) human beings together who disagree on mattes and you get...conflict. At least there were no sharp objects in the room at the time.
Anyhow, permission to secede to the Ozarks was voted in by a slim margin, after much hand wringing and objections by what seemed to me the more entrenched members of the politburo.
And at the end of the day, this did not affect 99.9% of the membership of USMS. Everybody had a drink afterwards and forgot about it within a couple of hours. Ah, deliberative bodies...
Maybe this is what Ande hopes to avoid--just a baffling sense that what seems to be going on, and what is really going on, are destined always to be at least a little different is such settings-- perhaps an inevitable consequence of well-meaning human beings who make the mistake of forming committees, subcomittees, super commitees, and adding to all this parliamentarianism and tabling rights and maybe, just maybe, the slightest snifter of Franz Kafka bafflement were he to write about swimming organization.
In summation: they also serve who encourage their fellows to swim for health, be this through USMS, YMCA Masters, FINA, or without any governing body whatsoever.
Circling back to a previous posting, you can be much more effective on the local level if you get involved there. The "challenges" of Convention are much larger than those at the LSMC level. Focus on the little things close to home you can change and get your (organization's) house in order. Then sustain this over time and improve it. Only at that time should you seriously consider getting involved in USMS on a National level. Otherwise, go there, learn, meet people, and have a good time. After all, this is not life or death.
