BCS votes to keep spending secret
Confidence motion shows little confidence
Posted in Management, 2nd July 2010 10:57 GMT
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The Extraordinary General Meeting of the BCS yesterday voted in favour of the wide-ranging reforms recommended by its current management, but revealed a substantial rump of angry rebels remains.
The vote to suspend further spending on the "Transformation" scheme until there is full and open transparency of where the £5m is being spent was supported by 37.6 per cent of voters. Some 32 per cent of BCS members voted - about twice as many as usual.
The vote of no confidence in the current board of Trustees was opposed by 76.5 per cent of the membership who voted versus 23.5 per cent in favour of their removal. A vote of no confidence in chief executive David Clarke was supported by a similar number - 23 per cent.
The board withdrew its attempt to stymie future revolts.
Current regulations mean that just 50 BCS members can force an EGM, the board was pushing for this to go up to two per cent of members, this resolution was withdrawn pending further consultation.
Rebels had questioned the skills and experience of senior managers at the BCS and the corporate culture they have created. They also expressed concerns at how the rebranding money has been spent.
The charity brings in £30m a year and employs 266 staff. ®
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COMMENTS
What is the point of this lot ?
I've never figured out just what the BCS are supposd to do or be about.
I first came across them in the 1970's & couldn't figure out what they were doing for me then, a lowly programmer.
Things haven't changed since - I've never come across any evidence that they have any relevance to workers or managers in IT.
I just don't see the point of them.
Charity and 266 staff
The BCS has been very charitable and their 266 staff all have CITP CEng and CSci ... those of use working at the coal face just have to pay money (and then get turned down because "our" work is "irrelevant")
Join the ACM or IEE ... much more relevant and professional.
Gravestone should read BCS instead...
This is not going to end well
The way that this is going is not good for the BCS or its members.
I can imagine in future going to an interview and being asked "Are you or have you ever been a member of the BCS", in the style of the McCarthy communist hearings in the US.
Maybe it would be better to make it a secret society.
How much money? How many employees?
Who actually gives the BCS the £30,000,000 per annum? What for? The BCS has been an irrelevance to people at the sharp end of computing for as long as I've been a professional programmer, and asking around my office, none of my younger colleagues have even heard of it.
Unpossible!
The Five Angry Wizards were VERY angry indeed. How could Slytherin have triumphed over the champions of Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and... er.... Babbagin and Turington.
I'll tell ye how: most of the voters will have been exactly the sort of non-Wizard bean counters who joined the B"C"S in the past couple of years and turned it into an offshoot of the MBA Old Boys network, i.e. the people that were attracted by the very changes that the Wizards are protesting against.
In short, the Five Angry Wizards asked these noobs to vote to turn the BCS back into the sort of society that they'd never have joined in the first place.
Still, at least that basic FAIL in understanding illogical hew-man motiations demonstrates their status as *true* Wizards. Doubtless they'll respond with a rant about how the membership must have not failed to discomprehend that they weren't voting to unchange the opposite of the status quo.
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