I forgot to mention, I was on the BoD of a local online radio station (we had intentions of being an LPFM, but that didn't work out). We had quarterly meetings, and the org was extremely small. So one meeting a year for an org as large as AMSAT seems very odd to me.
73, John Brier KG4AKV
On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 2:21 PM John Brier johnbrier@gmail.com wrote:
From what I understand, what started this was just different opinions about ways of doing things between Patrick and officers/directors, and in different ways, between Michelle and officers/directors. They each have very different contributions to AMSAT, and that they ran into similar issues from those different avenues gives more credence to their claims.
With Patrick it was mostly about issues with how AO-92 L-band operations were run. With Michelle there seems to have been tensions going back further, between her and Jerry most recently it seems. She has dealt with sexism in this community. I saw it first hand when she gave the AMSAT/TAPR keynote at Hamvention a few years ago. I talk about that here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ9Rch9MjjM
BTW, IMO I felt there was never a threat she would sue AMSAT over discrimination. From talking to Michelle, she has dealt with sexism a lot in her career and much worse than what she reported publicly about AMSAT. I think she is more interested in doing things and the sexism was just one of the impediments she experienced related to getting things done. With the money she has raised recently for AMSAT I think she is trying to show that, and I think she succeeded. She has a lot of free time and abilities and has and is offering a lot to the community.
AMSAT didn't have to hire a lawyer to get an anti-discrimination policy. There are dozens of open source projects, sponsored by large corporations, that have policies they could have adapted. It is also interesting that they adopted a policy after the accusations, and then decided hers didn't meet the definition of discrimination in the adopted policy. Not that that can't be done ethically, there is just a huge pitfall in adopting a policy after accusations have been made.
I am not sure about the accusations she made, but does anyone else remember what I referred to in my video? Could AMSAT publicly acknowledge that and say it is not acceptable?
With Patrick, the idea that he harassed Drew over issues with AO-92 L-band does not seem like a reasonable description of what I know about that situation.
As I said in the video above Drew behaved hypocritically and when Patrick pointed that out I thought it was courageous. There were also issues with Drew blocking Patrick on Twitter. That info is on Patrick's website.
IMO the use of words like attack to describe accusations is over the top. It was criticism. And what threats were levied? That he would run for a directors seat? Attack and threat are strong words and some definitions use violence to describe them.
I don't think Drew or others handled valid criticism well. The blocking of access to the email archives and then the opening due to the demand letter show to me that their judgement in blocking that was wrong, and that they actually haven't been welcoming to the new directors. Clayton also said in his own letter that the only power they have is to vote during meetings... and they only had one meeting in a year!
The last thing I will leave you with is a quote from a blogger I follow that outlines how the ways we evolved make it exceptionally hard for anyone to deal with situations like this well:
"As some evolutionary psychologists argue, our moral instincts didn’t evolve to help us to discern right from wrong, but to help us convince other humans that we’d make good additions to their clan—that we hate their enemies, share their affinities, and shake our heads at the same behaviors.
That’s why having your beliefs affirmed by others feels so good, even when the belief is devoid of moral significance: that the Packers are better than the Vikings, or that your favorite movie doesn’t deserve its bad reviews.
Enjoying this feeling doesn’t even require the belief to be true, which explains why people are generally uninterested in contradictory evidence, and why solidarity groups form around claims that the earth is flat, that vaccines cause autism, and that the real Paul McCartney died in a 1966 car crash.
Because existing beliefs feel so much better than ideas we don’t yet believe, we all drift naturally toward the comforts of the echo chamber."
- David Cain
73, John Brier KG4AKV
On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 1:06 PM Russ Ramirez via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
I have been a member on/off since 2012. I have never been removed from this AMSAT mailing list, but have not always been able to log into the AMSAT.org web site. In spite of this, I have renewed my membership, typically at Hamvention (until this year, but did so online), and made extra purchases to support the work of AMSAT.
I definitely echo the message of Hans BX2ABT. Not everyone is bad, but unfortunately too many are not good either.
When reading over each point of view of this ongoing dispute, it is not very clear what started this dispute. In a statement in response to allegations of financial mismanagement, Clayton wrote:
*AMSAT's corporate records give a full accounting of all expendituresand are provided to its Directors upon request, in compliance with ourgoverning documents and law of the District of Columbia (D.C.) Ouroffice remains closed due to COVID-19, where those documents reside.Furthermore, AMSAT complies with IRS rules for 501(c)(3) disclosure ofpublic financial documents, such as the Form 990 available on theAMSAT website *
The above statement is either wholly true, or gray, because making a statement like this which is completely false would be illegal.
Michelle, you have claimed that you (and Patrick) were denied access to financial transaction records upon your written request. Can we simply focus on *what* specifically started this whole thing?
Russ Ramirez K0WFS _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb