Board of Directors Meeting, February 4, 1954 3
Dr. Rudolph--Mr. Chairman, are you going to have a business meeting on Tuesday night?
Dr. Bernstein--Yes, I do not want to dispense with the business of our meeting. It does seem an unusual occasion, and we have an invited guest speaker and are inviting guests who are concerned about the subject matter of his talk but are not concerned with our internal affairs. Under the circumstances we will not have a meeting until after the speaker has finished, or we will call a short recess and intimate that in five minutes the members of the Society will go ahead with their regular monthly meeting, which will offer them an opportunity to escape.
Dr. Thompson--Denny, there is no reason why everything you are going to cover should take more than ten minutes. The audience is sometimes late, and I think if the meeting starts at 8: and ends at 9:30 you can get all the business done.
Dr. Bernstein--Do you mean to say that the meeting on Tuesday can consist of a speaker and 10 minutes of Society business?
Dr. Thompson--Yes.
Dr. Bernstein--That is something I do not like.
Dr. Thompson--The point is that sometimes our meetings here last two hours, and it was decided essentially to give all these matters some thought here so that we can hash them over and then, after we have come to some conclusion, place them before the Society. This was done to prevent people getting up in meeting and saying "I move so and so" without giving the proper thought to it. If we bring all the business before the regular meetings, those meetings may develop into two and a half-hour sessions, and I do not know of any faster way of killing the monthly meetings than by doing that. I think this is an important item.
Dr. Bernstein--I think it is the backbone of the whole County Society. It is not a question of degree. We have a Board of Directors to handle the Society, but at the same time we have a Society which does not come to the Society meetings. That may be because they have lost interest in the Society because they do not know what is happening. They pay the same dues, and they go about saying they get nothing whatsoever out of it. The things that are of value to a member of the Society are 1. What makes us work, and 2. How do things in our environment affect us as doctors? The function of the Board of Directors is to serve the men who are the members of the Society.
I am a little upset that members should come to me and say that we do nothing for them.
Dr. Thompson--The purpose of reading the Minutes is that the members shall be informed on what happens. I think the reason the meetings have fallen off in attendance is because we have had poor men for speakers. That lies with the Program chairman. First, we were tied up with the Veterans Administration program, and later, poor men were occasionally obtained. As soon as our programs fell off our attendance fell off.
I am all for you. I think we ought to find out why the men do not come to meetings. I question whether throwing questions at them that we hash out here will do it.
Dr. Bernstein--It is a question of informing them. I sat at the first meeting I presided over, but one of the functions I thought I ought to perform was to lay before them what we do. Minutes do not mean much at all, especially when they are dispensed with. I think that they have a point. I have gone to a man and said that I wanted him to do something for the Society, and he said to me "Go to Hell, what do I care about the Society?" I feel this is not healthy.
Dr. Thompson--This is the same man who is not at the meetings when reports are made or Minutes are read. The men who cry the loudest are those who are forced to admit, when asked, that they were not at the meetings.
