My cousin Scott Chamberlain has another whack at the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra (FWSO) debacle. This time, he may think the leader of the FWSO is completely incompetent:
This is perhaps the most stunning portion of this whole piece. It goes without saying that the best way to receive contributions is… to ask people for contributions. And any fundraising professional would tell you that it is far, far easier to raise money from people who have already donated—they are already committed and clearly already support you. Why snub donors? Why on earth wouldn’t you send them a renewal letter? Or cultivate them into becoming larger donors? This seems yet another example of Ms. Adkins’s cavalier attitude to donors she displayed a few months ago when she outright told her board members not to pay attention to people whose average gift was less than $109.
And this bit is interesting:
Ms. Adkins, do you remember how over the last 15 months of negotiations the FWSO management never deviated once from its “best” offer, to the frustration of musicians… and the federal mediators brought in to try and find a solution? You were attempting to impose a contract unilaterally on the musicians, which is why they declared a strike. In a previous story in the Star-Telegram, you stated: “We cannot allow a threat from the union to coerce us into fiscal irresponsibility.”
It is astonishing that you are trying to label the musicians as recalcitrant.
That is a bit of a jaw-dropper, if true. Negotiation and compromise are American favorites; unilaterally imposed pay cuts are the tools of authoritarians such as, say, Vladimir Putin. Does Ms. Adkins understand she is in a position where you serve the community – not your tin-pot dictator pretensions? Drop the quality of your orchestra, and perhaps not as many show up. Forcing … oh, most readers should get it. The toilet bowl effect.
It’s not time for digging in your heels. It’s time for creativity, outreach, and brain-storming. The moment concerts were canceled was the moment the board should have dumped her.
