The PR Society, which has a record 11 board positions to fill, conducted two teleconferences yesterday but only two potential candidates asked questions.
There were no questions at all at the morning conference when the microphone was thrown open after 35 minutes of presentations by PRS leaders and staff.
After similar presentations in the afternoon session, questions were posed by Michael Jackson, a director in 2002 who asked if he could run for CEO-elect in 2008 (yes), and Prof. Francis McDonald, of Hampton University, Hampton, Va., who asked how committee chairs were picked (volunteers work on what they are interested in).
Mike Cherenson |
Chair-elect Mike Cherenson, describing what it’s like to be a director, said those who join the board must “check your PR hat at the door and put on your board of director’s hat.”
Directors cease being PR people when the join the board and instead become “leaders” and management, he said.
Staff will handle PR, he added, saying directors were to “keep out of the weeds…let the staff do their part…we have a great staff, extremely capable people…they have the tools to be successful.”
“You’re not PR people on the board,” said Cherenson, recalling that 2005 director Steve Lubetkin had often voiced the same sentiments.
Troy, DeRupo Are PRS PR Staff
The two PR people on staff, Janet Troy and Joe DeRupo, were not members of PRS when they were hired.
Troy, hired in 2004, told the Bergen Record that she was “flabbergasted” that PRS even “existed” and was “clueless to it.” She said the Society needed “more visibility and I’m here to help fix that.”
DeRupo, hired in September 2007, previously was with the National Coffee Assn.
Current PRS policy forbids them from answering press questions. There have been no stories in the general press about the 2007-2008 60th Anniversary of PRS and the anniversary committee apparently has been disbanded. It has been removed from the list of boards and committees on the PRS website.
Severe Shortage
There has been a severe shortage of national candidates in recent years. No one showed up for an open Southeast District position last year and the nominating deadline had to be extended.
The only Southwest candidate, Marlene Neill, an M.A. candidate at the Missouri Journalism School, was rejected by the nominating committee and a special search was conducted for the district director.
The candidate shortage is so severe that Blake Lewis of Richardson, Texas, and 49 other members created a task force to work at attracting candidates from the chapter level on up. The Lewis group has been silent in recent months.
This group got the Assembly to pass a resolution demanding “transparency, complete openness” for PRS and its board.
Rules Eliminate 95% of Members
About 80% of members can’t run for national office because they’re not accredited.
Other rules eliminate another 15% or more. Candidates must have headed a chapter, district, section or national committee or have voted in an Assembly.
Educators and others block any discussion of removing the APR rule, apparently feeling that removing this rule will spell the end of the APR program. Less than two percent of qualified members take the APR test each year.
Available Positions Listed
Positions available are chair-elect, treasurer, secretary, and directors for the East Central district, Midwest, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Sunshine, Tri-State, Western, and one at-large seat.
Rhoda Weiss, 2007 chair, said district directors are not to think of themselves as representing a district but as working for the entire Society and the entire PR industry.
“You’re not here to represent a chapter or district…you represent not only members but the profession…we’re all becoming so global,” she said.
An attempt by the board to combine the ten districts into five with the eventual aim of eliminating districts was defeated by the 2007 Assembly.
The voting record of the individual delegates on this question is being withheld from members as are the audiotape of the Assembly and the transcript of the Assembly. Transcripts were made available to members until three years ago.
Julin collected about 300 ideas for the Strategic Plan from the Assembly during lunch but refuses to supply this list. It would be part of the transcript since he read many of them at the close of the 2007 Assembly which was to have been a “Town Hall.” Reporters were barred from attending that Assembly lunch for the first time in PRS’s history.
3-4 Hours Weekly Needed
Jeff Julin, 2008 chair, said directors spend about three to four hours a week on PRS work and this can increase at certain times of the year.
They are required to attend four two-day board meetings and the Silver Anvil function and “Leadership Rally” each year which are held on adjacent days in June.
Travel and hotel expenses are paid but not meals, he noted. Travel expenses are only paid in the city where a meeting takes place and not in the home town of the director, he noted.
It was not pointed out that directors are forced to sign an oath of confidentiality in which they promise not to discuss PR or PRS matters in public, letting the elected chair and certain staff members of PRS act as the sole spokespersons.
Cherenson said becoming an officer of PRS is the “best kind of professional development,” adding he has “learned a lot about financial management and leadership.”
Both he and Weiss said board and officer service results in many opportunities to make new friends and contacts.
Weiss, noting she has been on the PRS board seven years (since 2002), said she has been able to make “lots of friends—dozens, hundreds, thousand of people.”
Re-Writing Bylaws Is Big
Re-writing the bylaws of PRS was described by Julin as the “most important project of 2008” for the Society.
He said PRS is looking at how other groups are organized.
PRS leaders thus far have given no hint of what bylaws might be changed or whether there is any consideration of switching the corporate charter to Delaware, which allows electronic meetings and votes by members or their representatives.
Current bylaws allow non-APRs to be Assembly members but the board is still all-APR as is the nominating committee.
For its first 50 years, no one returned to the board after leaving it. The bylaw forbidding directors from “succeeding themselves” was thought to bar this.
However, in recent years, because of the severe shortage of candidates, directors have been allowed to come back on the board as officers.
Whether this rule will be tightened one way or another remains to be seen.
Proxies were never allowed until the past several years. Robert’s Rules forbid proxy votes but New York law says they are allowed as long as there is no specific bylaw against it.
Venable, law firm for PRS, has said many times that New York State law governs PRS and not its bylaws or Robert’s Rules.
New York law establishes the boards of groups as the ultimate governing body unless there is a specific bylaw giving power elsewhere, such as a house of delegates.
An attempt in 2006 by Central Michigan to model PRS governance after the American Bar Assn. and American Medical Assn. failed. Not one other chapter supported the move to give more power to the Assembly.
Members Seek Minutes
Members are seeking the minutes of board and executive committee meetings for 2008 and 2007 but COO Bill Murray has replied that such minutes are only available under New York State law if a lawsuit is filed.
The executive committee of PRS (the top four officers plus the immediate past chair) met separately from the board on the morning of Jan. 25 although the 12 other board members were also present at h.q.
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