Kay Dwyer on the Business Development Club

Whom do we trust to tell the truth? Certainly we trust teachers, even former teachers who happen to be Board members, like Kay Dwyer, to tell the truth. But when Board member Kay Dwyer had the opportunity to speak at the Board’s recent Q & A meeting earlier this month, doubts mounted about Kay’s willingness or ability to tell the truth when it came to the Business Development Club. More than anyone else, and as the former Chair of the Lifestyle Committee, Kay should know better. But on this important occasion, Kay was not about truth telling. In addressing the audience on this occasion, Kay Dwyer was about conveying misinformation?

As a Board member, Kay was so outrageously wrong to make one wonder what nostrum she was taking for surely she had a very serious bout of favillitis. Favillitis, fortunately a rare, non-contagious condition that is curable with due diligence, is frequently found among certain Board and Committee members.

So just what did Kay have to say about the BDC that was so wrong, so outrageous?

Kay Dwyer told us that the BDC was engaged in activities that were beyond the scope of the charter of the BDC when they engaged in their special summer seminar series of events concerning Sun City. But was that statement accurate? Did the BDC do anything wrong in discussing Trumpets this past summer? Fail West thinks so and apparently Kay agrees. While I would like to agree with Kay, who sounded so reasonable, if anyone did anything wrong, it was Kay Dwyer when she set out to portray the activities of the BDC in what I believe was a false light. [To read the views of Bob Frank and Favil West, see the current edition of the South Valley News by clicking here.]

Chartered at the beginning of the year, the BDC had been meeting regularly since April 2006 and had scheduled a number of summer seminars on topical areas involving Sun City, no doubt to boost awareness of and interest in this new club. The first seminar program started off with an informational program designed to present residents with the basic facts concerning the Trumpets lease.

It’s was no secret that Favil West did not want that first meeting to take place, but there was little officially he could do about it. As explained in some detail elsewhere on our website, that meeting was held, went well, and was monitored by two approving Board members. For reasons that remain clouded in mystery, however, that initial meeting on Trumpets prompted the Lifestyle Committee (at the direction of the Board) to hold an emergency hearing on the fate of the BDC’s future meetings. Contrary to the script written in advance by the Board and read at the hearing by Chairperson Phyllis Washburn, the Committee (to its credit) voted to reject the Board’s demands to cancel future meetings of the BDC. [Background: See The Inquisition.]

So, getting back on target, were efforts by the BDC to address Sun City matters off limits? To the contrary, according to club president Bob Frank. He told The SCA View that in early club formation meetings before the Lifestyle Committee, then headed by Kay Dwyer, the issue of the Club potentially engaging in some type of efforts to help Sun City was discussed given the business expertise within the then proposed new club. Rather than being concerned or discouraged, Mr. Frank said that members of the Lifestyle Committee were receptive to the idea of the club working on Association-related projects. Mr. Frank recalled that even when the charter was approved by the Board, a member of the Board challenged the Club not to be totally self-serving, and to reserve some time to SCA business affairs.  A specific example mentioned by the Board was to ask BDC to assist the Clarion project team with its "business plan" prior to it being submitted to the BoD for approval. They had two meetings on that topic with the Clarion group in March-April.  Unknown to the then Communications Committee and the Lifestyle Committee, Mr. West apparently had other plans that led to the demise of that project, as Favil discusses in his response to David Berman in his so called “interview” with Chuck Davis appearing in this past week’s Anthem Compendium.
 
So, from the position of the Association and the Lifestyle Committee at the time the Club was chartered in the spring of 2006, the Club’s potential involvement and assistance in Association matters was something that was encouraged. However, when in the summer of 2006 the matter of Trumpets came up on the Club’s agenda, Mr. West was unwilling to embrace the same philosophy that had been embraced by the Lifestyle Committee and the previous Board.

But Board member Kay Dwyer told the virtually packed audience that the BDC had exceeded the Club’s charter in conducting their summer seminar series that touched on Sun City matters. What was that all about and was Kay’s statement accurate?

To learn more we have to take a look at the Club’s bylaws, or as Kay refers to them, as the Club’s charter.

The purpose statement in Article I sets forth the mission of the Club. It says: 

"To inform and educate on business development and senior employment matters." 

That’s it! If Kay had any doubts or wanted to know what the BDC intended by that statement, she could have gone to president Bob Frank and asked him what the Club intended by that language. That did not happen. Instead, Kay provided a different view of the scope of the club's activities than the one understood by the Club. According to club president Frank, the purpose statement was a concise, simple, and all-inclusive for any business or employment topic the membership wished to consider. That particular language, patterned after the Finance Club bylaws purpose statement, was not intended to be limiting or restrictive in any way.

That the Association has had a long history of engaging in certain “business” matters is understood by all concerned. Moreover, that fact was painfully evident in the case of the Trumpets lease and the troubles the Association has had with the lessee since its inception back in 2002. That the Trumpets lease was not merely ripe for discussion and learning, the cloak of secrecy that preceded its recent unfolding provided unit owners with needed and valued insight, if not some measure of release, that would help to dispel the mystery surrounding the lease.

In gathering helpful information on the internet, coupling the terms “business development” and “non profit,” one will easily tire quickly at searching among the almost 2 million entries for clues at the very broad scope of those terms. Dropping the unnecessary term “non profit” from the search entry, Kay would have been buried in over 41 million entries available to learn more about just what "business development" might entail.

So, why was Kay Dwyer so quick to openly condemn and flaunt the efforts of the BDC as falling outside of their charter? Was Kay Dwyer merely wrong, misinformed, or was she engaged in some type of directed campaign of misinformation?