I know you and Punki would love to try and pin the failure of this on the mods - but actually, it was TB that failed. Hindsight is always perfect (just like Punki's motions
) but there were a number of ways in which what we did fell short of what was necessary to drive this from concept to actuality:
- after the motion was written, there was no attempt to take account of or resolve any of the problems identified. As I said earlier, the sticking block here is that the motioner has not actually accepted any of the feedback made about it - when someone describes their motion as 'perfect', then their mind is pretty closed to new ideas, or concerns.
- We failed to sell the concept to the membership at large - this was not something where I saw many members going 'That's a great idea - why haven't we done that already?' I'd describe the reaction as apathetic at best
- we failed to convince the moderator group that this was something which would work for them and help them
- the approach on this was simply too confrontational. We tried to dictate, when we should have listened and reassured. We don't rule, we serve and I think that was forgotten on this occasion.
Lots of learning points in this one - if we are prepared to accept responsibility and actually learn from them and not just try and blame the failure on other people. If we cannot sell an idea on its merits to the wider membership, then I don't think the blame lies with the wider membership if they don't just rollover and do what we want them to do.