ICON VP Candidates (’04)

I got a general sense of disappointment over the fact that my last post only dealt with Presidential candidates. Here, then, are the three announced Vice-presidents. It’s long… the original post (with Presidential Candidate info) can be found here.

UPDATE: A little birdy has told me that a lot of info compiled by CKI was not printed in the packet, which may explain why certain candidates did not put their platform points on their literature… so I hereby rescind any criticism of such behavior. (Gotta be fair, you know)


Justin Garrow (Capital)
Here we have one of last year’s election losers coming back to try again. What did Justin learn from his previous campaign run? Apparently nothing. He’s got a decent bit of Circle K experience, the vast majority of it appointed, not elected (which should tell us something) which makes it all the more shocking that he’d actually put out the literature that he did, which is god-awfully ugly. (almost as bad as Doug’s) – speaking of literature…

Well that’s the funny thing – his literature has no platform on it, so in a lot of ways, it’s more self-aggrandizing than Armando’s. I guess we’ll have to look at the bio info he gave to CKI for his “goals.”

• “To enhance the work done by the ad-hoc committees.”
He’s going to “enhance” it. Isn’t that great? What does it mean? We don’t know… but he’s going to do it, by god! This is just more fluff-speak.

• “To work toward better education of our organization and its members.”
Not only is he going to educate CKI members, but he’s going to educate the ENTIRE ORGANIZATION. Holy shit, that’s amazing. Poor wording aside, this is not an International function as much as a District function. Sure, CKI can provide the literature, but the actual education is up to the districts.

• “To increase communication throughout the Kiwanis-family branches. “
Blah, blah, blah. Sounds like we’ve got the ultimate cliché platform! Nothing new and exciting yet, that’s for sure.

• “To see every ad-hoc committee fulfill its potential.”
He really does have a hard-on for these ad hoc committees, doesn’t he? The ad hoc committees are already doing about as much as they can. If they did any more there wouldn’t be enough work for the trustees to justify the tremendous amount of dues money that gets spent on them at board meetings.

• “To begin the process of evaluating the Millennium Plan to look to the next strategic plan and continue to research/implement the directives of the Millennium Plan.”
The first part is something I’ve not seen yet — a new strategic plan. Probably a good idea. The last part, though, is more job requirements.

• “To augment CKI’s diversity.”
Poor Justin… I think he’s got a disease that prevents him from speaking in anything but buzzwords. This disease also seems to effect the creative portion of the brain, preventing any new thoughts or ideas from entering. It’s sad — we should send him a card or something.

• “To research different ways to increase membership.”
All filler, no killer — if you want a list of platform points to NOT use because they’re old and tired, just refer to Justin — he’s seems to have cornered the market on CKI clichés.

• “To remain active in the University of Delaware Circle K.”
You have no idea how thankful I am this is the last cliché platform point. At least he’s consistent.

So, yeah, the whole platform is pretty much worthless. He spent about 10 minutes coming up with these “goals” and probably even less designing his literature. Nice work, Justin, 12 years of Kiwanis Family experience, completely and totally wasted from a leadership perspective.



Ellen Stallcup (Texas-Oklahoma)
So I looked at the literature, it’s a little busy, but she covers a lot of material… and on the second page she has… wait for it… a PLATFORM. With real-live platform points that don’t suck. The most amazing thing, though, is that she doesn’t really give us any “new” ideas, she just takes the time to adequately explain. Her lit would be benefited by highlighting the main idea of each platform point, but let’s not get too picky. I’m not going to quote the paragraphs, just go read them yourself.

• 1. Define a procedure for distributing Tomorrow Fund cash
This is actually important. Why? Because the Tomorrow Fund will be endowed very shortly and if we don’t have a way to hand out the money it’ll turn into a giant cluster-fuck, like everything else CKI rushes through or into.

• 2 & 3. Promote the website, encourage participation
So CKI has a spiffy new website, but it’s still not getting used as much as it should be. The only way to fix that is to promotion. Further, it’s probably the best way to get feedback from the members, because we’ve seen time and again that passing info up the chain of command causes information to halt just as soon as it reaches a leader that disagrees with it.

• 4. Increase communication
Ok, so we have the obligatory cliche, but at least she gave us some hows and whys… not the best or strongest point ever, but certainly a bit above those that we’ve already seen.

• 5. Educate Kiwanis
This is sooo important, and not enough people realize it. Kudos, Ellen. This is the only way CKI will see the changes it needs to improve, and the only way KI will become more hospitable to younger members. It’s about time someone started talking about it.

• 6. Serve, etc…
More cliche, but not bad considering she had 5 good points, which is about 5 times more than most of the candidates we’ve seen so far.

So, despite the fact that I’ve never heard of this chick before, it’s obvious she’s not a blithering idiot and I daresay, by her literature, that she’s worth giving a serious look at ICON. Let’s proceed.


Morgan Westman (Southwest)
As a matter of full disclosure, I do have to mention that Morgan is a dear friend of mine and occasional commenter here. We often disagree about CKI stuff, though — and that’s ok. Morgan did some great things in Southwest, and has even interned at the CKI office (and didn’t come away from the experience a slimy back-stabber — of course, that’s because she didn’t work in the Sponsored Orgs and Progs division). Anyhow, it’s disappointing not to see a platform on Morgan’s literature, but she kept it to one page, and didn’t spend the entire page patting herself on the back as we saw Justin Garrrow do earlier.

• “Improve strategic public relations, placing an emphasis on existing members and programs.”
This is something that the Int’l level can actually do, and Morgan’s experience makes this a very obvious point for her to emphasize — well put, if a bit “jargon-ish”.

• “Positively impact the general member awareness of member benefits and opportunities, member attitudes regarding efficacy, and what the International organization has to offer them, and member behaviors as they relate to the widespread use of and attendance at existing programs.”
This is a big one — awareness of member benefits can be best improved by providing some benefits. If you have to tell someone that something is a benefit, it’s not. There are “benefits” currently that nobody cares about, uses, or wants to pay for — but they’re still trotted out anytime someone gripes about benefits. Let’s lose the crap and add some real benefits… or, and this would work to, just tout the real benefits of CKI, which aren’t really tangible or monetary. The second point about efficacy — I’m not sure if she means member efficacy, or the efficacy of the CKI board, or what… but I’ll take a few stabs. Members don’t feel like they can affect change in CKI because, by and large, they can’t. Members don’t feel like the CKI board is effective because, by and large, it’s not doing things that members see as important, regardless of how important the work actually is. CKI needs to promote the actual job of the CKI Board, and emphasize that the job of a trustee is NOT to be everyone’s friend. The “member behaviors” part is good — let’s hope she can do it (if elected).

• “Foster open and two-way communications between the International office and all other levels of the organization to enhance members’ experience within and image of CKI.”
This is really a jargony platform, isn’t it? What do you expect from a PR person, I guess. It’s important for people to not think poorly of the CKI office and/or staff. The first step to accomplishing that is for the CKI office and/or staff to stop giving the membership REASONS to think poorly of it/them. When that happens, they’ll have a legitimate complaint.

• “Continue efforts to brand CKI through extensive use of consistent, recognizable formats and images for all forms of international communication.”
This is a good plan, but it’s not her job — this is a staff area.

• “If warranted by member research, make the complete switch from ‘Circle K’ to ‘CKI’ in order to be consistent and clear in message for the purpose of making CKI a household name.”
This is a small piece of policy which would need to be backed by a lot of research, and is a good task for the upcoming CKI board.

• “Strengthen ties especially with Kiwanis and Key Club members to ensure that they maintain membership in the Kiwanis family into, throughout, and beyond CKI.”
Sounds like fluff/filler to me. This has been discussed before and at great length.


The Verdict
There are two competent and respectable candidates (based on literature) — Morgan has a more imaginative platform and demonstrates a deeper knowledge of the organization, but it’s not clear (from the platform) that she realizes how drastic a staff/board split there is. Ellen seems a little more naive to the “big picture” but the things she’s got on her platform are reasonable and realistic (for the most part).

Thankfully, the level of bullshit from the VP’s is much lower (not that Justin didn’t try to keep the average up) — two real candidates to work with right off the bat.