I’ve been able to get students to balance algebra equations with levels of glee almost approaching my own, so I’m going to hope for the best. But if you need a quick summary, also known as a “TLDR” (“too long, didn’t read”): The Board is proud to share its revised Ends Policies, which aim to be simple, effective, measurable, and inspiring. The American Booksellers Association, like other nonprofits, has a volunteer board (myself and the twelve other booksellers/owners) and paid staff, managed by the CEO (Allison Hill). You can read about our Board job description in detail in Section 1 of our Governance Policies, but the Ends Policies are perhaps the most persnickety and most powerful parts of our job. Because our organization uses Carver’s Policy Governance® model, our crafting of Ends Policies is our most concrete leadership. The Ends Policies encapsulate our purpose, our intention, and our hopes for ABA. Allison, as CEO, interprets this document; it informs her work, and therefore the work of the ABA staff. Their labor is what brings members what they need, and they align their actions (the “means”) to reach our Ends. At this stage in tutoring, I’d probably suggest we get up and do a few jumping jacks or sing a verse of a zippy song together to make sure our blood is still flowing to our brains. Are you still with me? Great! Editor me reassures you that exposition is done — now the narrative arc kicks in. Because the Ends Policies are so important to us as a Board, we committed a large portion of our June in-person meeting in Milwaukee to discussing them. We started with the question of whether we thought we should write or revise. We did a bit of reverse engineering: Were we satisfied with the work ABA is doing? From our conversations with members, feedback from the Booksellers Advisory Committee (BAC) and the ABA Children’s Group, and our experiences as members ourselves, we felt that ABA is supporting its members well. Our Ends Policies largely worked for us. We would revise rather than rewrite. The editor in me rejoiced. We worked on our revisions through the in-person meeting, over shared live edits, and again when we were together via Zoom in our July meeting. Hours and hours of discussion and care went into these revisions, and I feel proud of the consideration taken word by word, line by line. I will take you through the changes and the reasoning behind them. We have also included the complete new version and prior version at the end of this piece for your reference. The full explanation of these changes continues on BookWeb. Sincerely, Tegan Tigani, ABA Board President and Children's Book Buyer/Bookseller at Queen Anne Book Company in Seattle, WA |
