The AKC Nominating Committee Procedural Changes Brings More Participation

By Fran Reisman

 Q&A with the AKC nominating committee’s Chairperson, Gretchen Bernardi

Q: You have mailed out letters to all delegates asking them if they would be interested in running for the Board. This is a new way of finding potential candidates. Why do you feel this new approach was necessary?

A: Actually, I had Jim Crowley post a letter for me on the delegates’ chat list.

I didn’t really think a new approach was necessary. I just thought it was time to try to improve on the past approaches, which people seemed to find a little suspect. I have been interested in the nominating committee process for a very long time and, as a member of the bylaws committee, was interested in working on a sort of guideline or policy handbook for future committees. To that end, I sent out a survey over a year ago to those delegates that had served on a nominating committee in the past ten years. Every single person, save one, was dissatisfied with the process in one sense or another, so I thought, having been given the opportunity, I would try a new approach. I tried to incorporate as many suggestions as possible into this year’s procedure. First, I wanted to cast a very wide net and I wanted to be encouraging, not the opposite. I wasn’t satisfied with these very long questionnaires, which I felt were inadequate and possibly misleading. So we used a short questionnaire and are relying heavily on our face-to-face interviews.

Q: Did you have any problems in getting an okay to send these letters?

A: The day after I was informed I was chair of the committee, I made a list of the things I’d like to do and called Jim Crowley and asked if they were okay. He said yes on all counts. I then wrote the letter and sent it to all of my committee members for approval before it went to the delegates. By conducting our interviews in conjunction with the delegates’ meeting, we didn’t incur any outrageous expenses and it worked out well. The committee will meet face to face at the end of the month to make our final decision. Everyone at every level at AKC has been encouraging and helpful. And I had many delegates who made a point of telling me how they liked this method, especially that it seemed open and inviting. Virtually every candidate who was interviewed expressed the same opinion and welcomed the opportunity to speak directly to the committee.

Q: I read somewhere that the response wasn’t stupendous. In interviewing those that did reply, did you find any who might be nominated by the committee?

A: Actually, I think the response was pretty fantastic, since I know actually getting people to run has been a real problem (in the past). I had ten requests for the questionnaire and nine of those returned it and were interviewed in Newark, New Jersey. Our four nominees will come from that group of nine.

If you are interested, here is my presentation from the delegate meeting minutes:

The Chair called on Gretchen Bernardi to address the Delegates.

Ms. Bernardi: Before I say anything about that, could I just say that although being a Delegate for 25 years has been a great privilege, Becky Stanevich puts us all to shame. She is the real deal, and I’m humbled to have her among us. (Applause)

The Nominating Committee has been hard at work since we were selected, and we’re privileged to have had an extra month to be doing our work and we’ve taken advantage of that. We’ve reached out to everyone, and yesterday we conducted nine interviews, all afternoon, almost an hour each. It was very, very exciting to be able to do that, and we’re proud of our work.

We know that people can still put their names into us. We’re meeting at the end of this month. The names of the final slate are due the 15th of October, and will be on time, and we’re going to have one more face-to-face meeting. Of course, we also know that it is possible for Delegates to run from the floor and bypass the interview process. We hope that all the Delegates are mindful of that when they cast their ballots. Thank you very much.

(Applause)

Q: Thank you, Gretchen. Living here in Santa Barbara, I hear very little AKC News. That is definitely one of the downsides of living on the West Coast. I am looking forward to continuing these reports, and hope I can write to you for your thoughts on other delegate matters.

A: Of course. Happy to do so.

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Posted by amy on Sep 24 2012. Filed under Breaking News, Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.