Alan Chartock Blog

I, Publius -- Putting Failures Above Success

Article Published In Berklshire Eagle : Saturday, January 03, 2004 -

One of the cardinal lessons life teaches us is that "No good turn goes unpunished." Just look at the Berkshire South Community Center. This wonderful facility, the brainchild of Ed Jaffe of Stockbridge and Bob Norris of Great Barrington, represents one of the greatest gifts our region has ever received.

I watched as the two men worked day and night to give something to everyone in the region, from toddlers to seniors. The place has been so successful that it has been oversubscribed from the beginning. It has more than met its service projections and, if the folks who were running it were guilty of anything, it's that they tried to do too much and be too generous to those who did not have the resources to use the center.

Anyone who has ever run or been part of a large, nonprofit organization knows that it can become a "no-win" situation. When the money isn't there, you have no choice but to tighten your belt. It happens everywhere.

The Berkshire South Community Center needs to make economies. When a popular exercise teacher was relieved of her administrative duties but asked to stay on as an instructor at less money, some of her followers went characteristically ballistic.

I heard just one of the calls my friend Bob Norris got on his answering machine, using the very worst words we have in our English lexicon.

Moreover, despite the successes in developing and building this huge enterprise, a Berkshire Eagle headline over a story Dec. 26 proclaimed, "Berkshire South has a rocky year."

The Eagle report did say that "membership sign-ups since the doors opened in July 2002 have far exceeded the Community Center board's projections -- 856 memberships as of last week, compared with the 400 that had been projected."

But when you understand how many people are included in those memberships, you come up with an incredible 2,000 using the center on a regular basis.

But the bigger picture is diminished by a long account of the alleged failure of the departing executive director of the center, Nick Broad.

I know Nick, and I know that he can be "tough" in his approach to things. Everyone has a personal style, and his reflects the assurance of someone who knows what is right. But now he's left. His contributions have been numerous. Under the guidance of his two mentors, he worked assiduously to get the project off the ground. The very qualities that make you uncompromising when dealing with contractors and service providers are not always beneficial when you are heading a large staff.

Let there be no question -- every organization is made up of people with strong egos and equally strong fears. From time to time there have to be reorganizations of staff and personnel.

The dean of a school of social work in New York City once said something to me when I was representing the police commissioner in a room filled with other deans.

I had espoused a plan for putting social work students in each of the police precincts in New York. The dean had a problem with a facet of my plan and, growing exasperated, said to me, "Professor Chartock, perhaps you don't recognize the difference between authority and authoritarianism."

At a recent meeting of some of the disgruntled patrons of Berkshire South, someone stood up and said that they could save the money and still preserve the fitness teacher's position.

"We'll pay her salary," the person said.

Bob Norris immediately said no. Good for him. If you don't understand why, imagine your own business. Every organization has to have leadership. If you owned a furniture store and someone liked the salesman and said, "I'll pay his salary and he can be as obstinate as he wants to you," could you live with that? Ridiculous.

The good news is that the center has an excellent new executive director, Eliza Crescentini, who, from all accounts, is talented, humane and a healer. She's had to pick it up from the point that Nick left off.

For those who want the center to do more and to carry on, it's time to get out your checkbooks. The surrounding towns might consider putting something toward the place.

My friend Linda Norris said that the whole idea of this place was to establish a community and a sense of community. She's right, as always.

Now that things have calmed down, some of the critics have become more conciliatory. I've been where there is strife before. Trust me, I've learned from the words of the great Lee Hays of the Weavers, who said of Ronald Reagan: "This, too, will pass. I know. I've had kidney stones."

To the wonderful people who gave their all to make Berkshire South happen, I can only say the same thing: "This, too, will pass."

I will also say something to Bob Norris and Ed Jaffe that some other folks ought to have said long ago: "Thank you."

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Alan Chartock, a Great Barrington resident, is chairman and executive director of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and a professor of communications at SUNY-Albany.

- posted by Alan @ 1/06/2004 05:07:00 PM