Nominating Committee Attempts to Defend its Existence.
In an unsigned, "anonymous" letter from the self-anointed "Nominating Committee", someone (presumably chairwoman Vail Shipley) uses a litany of logical fallacies to defend its history of self dealing and inbreeding of leadership. There are also some outright lies.
The Board and Management, led by Gary Baum and Doug Egly, have plunged the club to some of the worst financial years in recent history. Some say the board is, and has been, incompetent. Status quo has got to go.
The Nominating Committee was formed to keep a small clique of members in decision making positions- and mingles the financial future of the club with petty social politics. The Nominating Committee should be disbanded immediately. It's existence is one of the single greatest threats to future leadership of the club.
Read the anonymous letter from the Nominating Committee below:
Why a Fixed Slate for Haig Point
This is the fourth year the Nominating Committee has presented a fixed slate of candidates for the Board. We have received many compliments from Members about finally making this transition and thanking us for adopting this best practice. At the same time, we have also received comments suggesting elections be handled the old way – by nominating multiple candidates and let the Members decide, after all, that’s the democratic way, right?
On the surface, having a choice is appealing and seems to be a reasonable way to select our Board. However, Haig Point’s experience over the first fourteen years after turnover from the developer tells us otherwise. From 2001 to 2014 we had some great boards, and we had some that were ineffective. Regardless of whether the board was good, bad, or somewhere in between, the bigger issue was the lack of continuity in our strategic direction and leadership. This led to an ever-changing, zig-zag approach that adversely affected Haig Point. Homes were not selling or were selling at a loss. Our club and community assets were in disrepair, our Internet speed was 1% of what it is today, club lots were not selling, and we were not attracting many new members.
This all has changed for the better as we transitioned to a CEO and management team operated club, allowing the Board to shift its focus to oversight and strategic direction. During this transition, the Board adopted a long-term plan, and made many subtle but very important changes to our governance process. One of those improvements was changing the Nominating Committee to a standing committee working year-round. Its charge each year is to identify, select and recruit the right candidates with the relevant experience and skills based on the current needs of the Board and Club.
There is work yet to be done, but the Club is clearly moving in the right direction, with significant improvement in all the key areas including real estate, lot sales, high speed internet, refurbished ferries, and many new Members. This success is attributable to having a cohesive, highly qualified Board, and continuity in the leadership and execution of the long-tern plan.
In addition to Haig Point’s experience, the experts also agree. Leading consulting firms serving clubs and communities like ours recommend a single slate of candidates. Richard Kopplin, from Kopplin & Kuebler, opposes contested elections and emphatically states in his article The Perfect Board that “the days of popularity contests for board seats in private clubs should be over”. Joe Abley and David Duval, from Club Benchmarking, state in their white paper Governance Essentials – Best Practices in Club Governance, “contested elections can be problematic and present challenges in a number of areas, namely succession planning, board harmony, integration of needed skill sets and consistent implementation of long-term plans.” They recommend avoiding contested elections for all these reasons.
Change is difficult but necessary to improve and grow. The Nominating Committee has, again, presented a fixed slate of candidates to give Haig Point the best chance of ensuring continuity of leadership and consistency in our strategic direction. We hope that you will, again, support the slate of candidates that we invested hundreds of hours vetting and selecting.
The Nominating Committee
Our email address is: info@haigpoint.com