John, I think you have good ideas, but there might be a reluctance to offer too much information in a public forum like this. I do think a discussion group could serve as a valuable communications link between the board and it's membership.
What if there was a separate discussion group for the Friends BOD and it's membership to discuss ideas and offer help ? I hate to see the C&TS monopolize this discussion group. Obviously it would be impractical to restrict access to just members, but I think that with a good moderator and some motivation to make it work, it could be a good experiment.
I don't want to sound too critical, but there is quite a lag between what the board is thinking and what actually communicated to the membership at large. Many of the directors are happy to talk to indivdual members, but it is very time consuming (not that you can't spend a lot of time here..).
Here's what I have in mind. Say a member has an idea to turn the UP yard in Antonito into a winter car storage faciilty. He might post a note on the board, and there'd be some discussion. I would expect some to be overly enthusiatic, but eventually I think enough details would get hashed out to show it's going to be practical or not to actually take some action. The directors could watch what was going on and determine if and when they thought is was appropriate to be involved. Obviously the board may want to have their own discussions and decide if it warrents a response. If it's something that they want to happen, you would already have a good pool of volunteers to run with the ball.
The Friends have a lot of potential, but I think that in the past it was hard to get much activity outside the board. There may not have been a good forum to poll the membership and exchange ideas (with the exception of scheduled meetings and other activities). Maybe this isn't it, and maybe we're not ready for what happens, but I've seen these ideas work in a business environment
