Support, Evaluate & Ensure

In this post, we shall examine the effectiveness of the Grey2K BOD & Executive Members in several more points which have been previously mentioned.

Item #3 - A non-profit Board of Directors needs to "Support and evaluate the chief executive. The board should ensure that the chief executive has the moral and professional support he or she needs to further the goals of the organization."

Well, the Grey2K USA Board of Directors does support the leadership, the husband & wife team of Theil & Dorchak. I'm guessing that they better support them or be kicked out of their honorary positions! There is every indication that Christine Dorchak holds the Sword of Damocles over her Board of Directors. Either that or she's maintaining a vise like grip on their cojones.

Behind Bars....

As to whether the BOD actually evaluates the leadership of Dorchak & Theil...  it's doubtful...  If a good board was to evaluate the leadership, I'm wondering what they would say about the organization's President doing jail time back in her PeTA days... Yes...  I did not stutter... Christine Dorchak did jail time.

By now, people should know that Christine Dorchak was one of the PeTA protesters at the New England Aquarium, protesting the fact that the Aquarium had fish on their menu.  However, I'm guessing most people do NOT know that Dorchak was arrested for protesting at the Macy's at Downtown Crossing in Boston.

Here's part of an article from 1998 about an arrest that was only 4 years after a certain individual's battle back from the brink of death and a 2 year struggle to regain health.

Five fur protesters in chains arrested at Macy's
Boston Globe, City Edition - Boston, Mass.
Author: Daniel Vasquez, Globe Staff
Date: Dec 21, 1998

"Every Sunday, a small group of protesters exercise their First Amendment rights and gather in front of Macy's at Downtown Crossing. Their mission: to dissuade shoppers from buying mink coats and fox hides. But yesterday, members of the group allegedly lay down and blocked the store's doors, and five protesters were arrested... Steven William Baer, of Northborough, Heather Joy Lacapria and Chris Michael Devoncourt, both of East Boston, and Christine Anne Dorchak and Sandi Beth Okun, both of Boston, were charged with blocking a public entrance and disturbing the peace, according to police..."

Then, there is item #4...  The non-profit Board of Directors is supposed to "Ensure effective planning. Boards must actively participate in an overall planning process and assist in implementing and monitoring the plan's goals."

Monitor, and strengthen programs and services. The board's responsibility is to determine which programs are consistent with the organization's mission and monitor their effectiveness.

Let's revisit the mission statement of Grey2K, which was somewhat recently changed.

"GREY2K USA is the largest greyhound protection organization in the United States. As a non-profit 501(c)4 organization, we work to pass stronger greyhound protection laws and to end the cruelty of dog racing on both national and international levels. We also promote the rescue, rehoming and adoption of greyhounds across the globe." 

So now, they pay lip service to adoption. Yep... that's the section that has been somewhat recently added, :promote the rescue, rehoming and adoption of greyhounds..."  If their behavior in Massachusetts was any such example of "rescue, rehome, and adoption of greyhounds", they are in desperate need of education! Their plan in MA was not a good example of "effective planning".  In fact, it was the worst planning possible.

According to the Patriot Ledger, it was estimated that nearly 1,000 greyhounds were in need of a place to go when the MA ban on wagering took effect. (Contrary to what is stated by Grey2K, it is still LEGAL to race in Massachusetts.  The end result of the Question 3 ballot measure was to ban WAGERING, not dog racing.) Grey2K did not help those displaced dogs.  It was only through the efforts of the late greyhound advocate, Linda Jensen, that all the dogs found places to go. Linda was devoted to the care and welfare of retired Greyhounds and was recognized as the 2010 Greyhound Adoption person of the year by the American Greyhound Council. She was the driving force behind Racing Owners Assisting Racers, Inc. (ROAR) which served as a safety net to assure that every dog gets into a retirement (pet) home.  Linda Jensen was one of those vile & evil greyhound racing folks.  She had been involved in greyhound racing for 25 years or so at the time of her unexpected passing.

Even staunch Grey2K supporters like Louise Coleman, have questioned the planning behind the MA effort. In an article in the Revere Journal, Coleman said that the measure might not have had a lot of foresight – especially when it came to providing for the consequences of removing a long-time industry from the state.

“The whole question seemed to me to be, when the referendum was passed, it wasn’t brought to peoples’ attention that just because you stop racing doesn’t mean you don’t have more dogs,” she said. “There was no provision for the care of the dogs that are left afterward…In the abstract, people think there’s no more racing, but in reality there’s all these dogs and whose going to take care of them? It’s especially hard for us.”

Coleman also has concerns about the fate of the breed,

“The adoption movement has created a real demand for these dogs and people want them. The worst-case scenario is that the puppy mills would take them over. Maybe it’s just me, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of planning in this process.”

With all of this lack of planning, it does not seem like the Grey2K Board of Directors is doing its job - ensuring effective planning.

Anyway, with regard to the Grey2K efforts on rehoming hounds.  It sounds like a conflict of interest to me...end dog racing, and you essentially end retired greyhound adoption. You hand the breed over to AKC hobby breeders and, perhaps, to large scale commercial breeders. It is more of the Grey2K's and PeTA's advocacy by extinction as espoused by Dorchak's mentor - Ingrid Newkirk. Such compassion.

Hmmm....  I just thought of something...  I wonder if Grey2K's opposition to crating dogs ("confined to cages for 20+ hours a day") is a direct result of Ms. Dorchak's jail time?

Anthropomorphism at its finest?


Yours in greyhounds....