MEETING BEING HELD TONIGHT. SEE LINK BELOW.
National Verbatim Reporters Association members were recently alerted to three board resignations.
Members from the voice writing community came onto social media to discuss the occurrence.
A letter from Amy Armstrong was made public.
Donald Scott, formerly a board member and president of NCRA, offered his perspective on the event.
This culminated in a meeting being called by members of the community.
The link to the meeting is here.
I don’t know that I can say much. I’m a relatively new member of the National Verbatim Reporters Association and am fairly distant from its politics and leadership. But I can honestly say that as a blogger I’ve now had quite a few people come to me about obfuscatory or suspicious things in various court reporting associations, so it doesn’t surprise me too much that NVRA is also having issues. On the best of days, leadership is tough. Being a leader at a time when some of the biggest names in the business can get together under a shell nonprofit and pump the market with lies, and with impunity, is probably worlds tougher.
For what it’s worth, when I read the bit about digital entry, my mind wandered to that piece I did about the cost of corruption. Again, no direct evidence that NVRA or any association is “corrupted,” but they wouldn’t be particularly hard to corrupt.
Maybe associations need these squabbles to stay competitive. If you don’t run the risk of some of your members breaking off and starting a competing association, what motivation do you have to improve?
Addendum:
11/9/23:
It sounds like a lot of immaturity creating unnecessary drama. Read your Roberts Rules of Order, know it, understand it, memorize it. NVRA is better off without these drama queens. Starting off a letter to the board with a demand, such as reinstate me as chair of x committee or I’ll resign, is a big red flag. I mean, one need not read more than that first sentence to understand the problem. But “A retired senior white man” says it all – I mean, who would write something racist like that in 2023. It sounds like the board had some serious issues with these individuals that go beyond a “conflict of interest.” Arrogant, entitled, immature. Good riddance. The one nugget in this whole diatribe was the paragraph about digital entry in NC, but it was totally incomprehensible. Can someone elaborate?
Respect your opinion, but I take the counterpoint. These things make associations more competitive. I find that if they are not facing competition, they just sit on their asses doing the same old stuff. Babysitting instead of innovating. Consolidating power instead of empowering members.