The Story

Hélène Beausoleil was the Director-General of the National Council for the Advancement of the Arts (NCAA), a Non-Governmental Organization put together in 2022 to coordinate funding and activities of some fifty-five smaller agencies from coast to coast. The Council, as well as its contributing agencies, had the mission of promoting the advancement of art and culture across Canada.

After just under a year of operations, the NCAA was ready to organize its first National Conference to be held in Montreal. Helen had delegated the project of organizing the conference to Len Carrothers, the Secretary-Treasurer of the Council in February with a projected conference date of March of the following year. Yesterday, 12 October, Hélène held a belated meeting with Len to check on progress: she had been so caught up in the other issues of organizing the Council that she had assumed that all was well with Len and his project. Len floored her with his opening: “Gee, Hélène, things aren’t going very well and I think we’ll have to postpone the conference.” Since Hélène had mentioned the date and agenda for the proposed conference to virtually every Chairperson of every contributing agency, she felt totally committed to going ahead.

In her discussion with Len, Hélène found that the conference project wasn’t remotely off the ground: the accommodation wasn’t reserved, the conference support systems such as food and sound equipment had not been booked and the various coordinators in the agencies were at odds on how best to conduct the conference workshops.

Hélène managed to get at the cause of the problem: Len’s energies had been siphoned off by the very complex job of setting up a combined Federal-Provincial funding program to ensure the ongoing survival of the Council. He had been on the road from coast to coast ever since he had joined the NCAA. He was visibly upset by his apparent failure but Hélène knew the critical importance of the work he had done and refused to hold him responsible for inaction on the conference.