Dear esteemed members of this WNN, I want to believe the WNN and the WNF are NOT yet dead. I also want to believe that the doldrums in the discussions here do not mean that members have agreed to the suggestion that the WNF, which has just been registered, should be wound up / discarded at this very point in its history.
For the leaders of WNF, I would like to urge a little more patience. If indeed the question Mr. Alaka asked in his April 6 post: “Members what do we do?” is still open, we can still resuscitate this apparent still birth and make the WNF work. I second suggest Aggrey’s suggestion: *Just make the third-last call for an open meeting to re-present, discuss and adopt the documentary instruments and prospective projects of the proposed West Nile Foundation. Circulate that call on the net and let 'members' confirm their attendance on line. Even if 10 persons gather, let's find room to formally adopt these instruments by physically appending our signatures to them and we move on.* * * Caleb and the Interim leadership that is your challenge now: Calling a physical meeting as suggested. I suppose one not-to-miss item in this meeting – the issue of the membership fee – will be settled and the treasurer will start the collections. This will enable some of the programs to start running. I hope the leadership of WNF realizes that without such a meeting, everything is stuck and this will literally be like hitting the last nail on the coffin. I am sure you do not want to hear that. Considering the diverse location of the members in this NET, if you got upto 50% turn up in such a meeting, that would be unprecedented. For those whose spirits have been dampened by what’s been going on lately in the WNN (viz: the impasse in activities of the Foundation), let’s note that in such social groupings as ours, there are always people in the group who at one time or another may play the role of the devil’s advocate. We all do that at one time or another, purposely or inadvertently. These moments are useful too: for they point out how one can improve things. It is not always just a matter of “savor[ing] the idea of . . . leaders failing”. Besides, we can’t rule out the fact that some people are blatantly critical, judgmental and/or opinionated. If we do not grow crocodile skins towards such input, we’ll throw in the towel or hit the “Ignore” button. And NOBODY wins. What’s worse, a potentially useful discussion or enterprise or even group gets hijacked. As Caleb noted, it is indeed time the WNF started a website. I believe starting a site would not take long. One day is enough for the basics. I am sure the website can contribute towards organizing communication for the WNF. As Diana says, “members of the WestNileNet can be updated where need be”. Besides, new members will be able to more easily read the relevant documents and pieces of information if we organized our communication in a website. That’s my take. Over to you all. Maandera On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 10:18 AM, alaka caleb <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear members, > > Some time last year, we tried to build a consensus on payment of > subscription fees of 50,000/= Uganda Shillings for West Nile > Foundation. This idea was vehemently opposed by several members. Some > even pretended that they had never seen the strategic plan, the > memorandum and articles of association of WNF. Other members suggested > that we should go slow on issues of money. As a result to-date we have > no secretariat to co-ordinate our activities. We can't implement or > move any thing. Members what do we do?. Should we all abandon this > idea of having an umbrella organization. We have resisted all good > ideas, from West Nile night, the Investment Club, and even the Science > Cafe which records miserable attendances. We are comfortable and we > actively involve our selves in smaller or sectarian organizations, > when it comes to the bigger picture we sit back and savor the idea of > our leaders failing. We have forgotten that Kigs uses money to host > the West Nile net. He and Gordon Obitre-Gama had to import a server > from USA to host the net. We have taken advantage of their magnanimity > and abused it. What if they one time get fed up. By now we should have > had our own website. I think the idea of a West Nile Foundation and > the West Nile Net or forum should be discarded. Some of us were useful > to our community without these organizations, We can still be useful > without them. Lets agree to dissolve the Forum and the Foundation. > Lets concentrate on our Local Counties, Districts, Old boys/girls > organizations in our old schools were we are more comfortable, tribes > and probably religion. Without payment of subscription fees, we have > no right to belong to and hold an organization and its leadership > accountable. Lets wind up the WNF and if our treasurer has > contributions by some members let him arrange to refund them. We > resisted the idea of a Ministry for West Nile affairs and now other > regions have Ministries. West Nile doesn't deserve us. We lied to > ourselves that we are of the Golden generation. But at this rate we > are worse than our ' Kasamvu' (Sugar cane cutter) relatives. For they > were not as enlightened as we are. > _______________________________________________ > WestNileNet mailing list > [email protected] > http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet > > WestNileNet is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ > > All Archives can be found at > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > > The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including > attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. > _______________________________________________ >
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