Tom (or is it hillary?),
Thanks for the response. But I'm afraid your insistence that "BSR...has spent no time at all in any organized way advancing 'the marketability and profitability of its business members' " does not seem to reflect the groups offerings.
The Solar Hot Water workshops appear to be for credentialing professionals in order to be eligible for renewable energy incentives. The March 30 workshop is subtitled: "Energy Incentives and Job Opportunities for You". These are professional development trainings geared toward increasing financial remuneration, and from what I've seen these are typical of BSR/VBGN's offerings. At least the latter is free.
And thanks for the suggestion of joining the board to help guide the mission and objectives of BSR. I've served on several non-profit boards. But your job description makes it clear that the candidates must be willing to be involved in fund-raising, member recruitment, marketing and industry liason. That sounds like the job description for any mainstream corporate board and not one that encourages a diversity of participation.
Thanks, but I think I can be most effective as a gadfly.
- Robert Riversong master housewright, educator, agitator
--- On Thu, 3/11/10, hillary haselton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: hillary haselton <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: BSR - VT Solar Hot Water Workshops 2010 Series!
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Thursday, March 11, 2010, 11:22 AM
As president of BSR, I would like to respond to
Robert
Riversong’s comments.
1)
To invoke yet two more philosophers
– William
James and John Stuart Mill – BSR’s principles are largely
pragmatically-based
and utilitarian in nature. Our group is made
up of builders, architects, and other building-related professionals,
and we seek
to make positive changes in the world mostly within the context of our
professional work. BSR is not,
in fact, a trade
association, and actually has spent no time at all in any organized way
advancing
“the marketability and profitability of its business members.”
2)
It
is regrettable in some ways that we don’t offer the Solar Hot Water
workshops
for free. They do cost money to put on,
however, and we also hope to be able to fund some mission-related
activities
with any proceeds we receive from them.
It costs money to do pretty much anything in our society –
especially anything
that attempts to get people’s attention in challenging the grossly
destructive
values of the mainstream status quo. A
sliding fee is not out of the question, however. Also,
of course, there are other ways to get
the essential information of these workshops –books or magazines,
professional
apprenticeship, on-line seminars, etc.
3)
To
examine ways of changing the values of our society as a whole: to move
away
from market principles, profit motive, fee-for-service, and other
related elements
of capitalism – not to mention the very difficult problems of growth
and
consumption -- is a very important discussion.
BSR has at various times in the past spent time on these issues,
and we
have held topic meetings on problems related to affordability, the
cultural
impacts of our society’s economic structure, and, more specifically, on
alternative housing arrangements and business structures.
The bulk of our work however is devoted to
what we believe are more manageable problems of energy use,
environmental
impact, and ecological sustainability.
This is because that is where most of us feel we can contribute
best.
BSR is
open to anyone who subscribes to our mission, which is, as quoted in
Mr. Riversong’s email “to
advance technologies and practices that
reduce our impact on the environment, while supporting sustainable
communities
and economies." Membership is
relatively inexpensive – $25 a year for an individual – and anyone
interested
has full access to our Board, and if motivated could seek to be
nominated to
become a Director. There are, I believe,
three openings on the Board right now. BSR
is a very open group. If our
organization is misdirected, the best way to redirect it is to get
involved
with it
Tom Perry
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