======================= Grand Council Chronicle ======================= Issue #16 -- May 17, 1995 Contents of this issue: Purple [fwd]: Problems with Zip Codes Wolfgang [fwd]: Territoriality in Britain Fiacha: GC Issues; Outsourcing Proposal Alysoun: Terrotoriality -- not yet; Poor Policy-Making Gareth: GC Issues This is the Grand Council Chronicle, the proceedings of the Grand Council of the Known World, a body chartered to examine the structure of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc., and make recommendations of changes. The contents represent the opinions of the contributing authors, and do not necessarily represent the official policies of the SCA, Inc. ---------------------------------------- [Approved by Justin] Date: Thu, 11 May 1995 15:21:35 -0500 (EST) From: art samplaski Subject: Re: SCAGC #15 Just a quick note after reading the bit about continuing to use zipcodes as the defining criterion for group borders: In addition to other possible problems (e.g., two groups claim same set of codes and politics at the kingdom level causes one group to get assigned the set even though they don't do anything with it, said codes are closer to the other group, and potential members in the concerned codes would rather play with second group), the USPS _changes the geographic definition_ of zipcodes from year to year. Usually minimally, but it is entirely possible that a group defined as zipcodes A-C could one year find a hole within their borders because the boundaries were shifted around to create zipcode Q in the area... No idea of course what the situation is like for other countries; just wanted to toss in a couple cents' worth as someone who worked for a demographics company for two years (and watched people go through sundry contortions each year to recompile data as the boundaries changed...). -Purple ---------------------------------------- [Approved by Justin] From: Andrew Casson Subject: Re: Grand Council Chronicle #15 Date: Fri, 12 May 95 14:44:17 BST Greetings from Wolfgang Adolphus Jager, Seneschal of Harpelestane I've a comment (well, more a data point) on something said in the latest GC Chronicle, if it's possible for you to forward it. Fiachra writes: > I would prefer to see branches have a core territory defined to the > satisfaction of the regional and kingdom seneschals (guided by kingdom law) > and make no effort to define borders of any sort. Just to note that the Isles region of Drachenwald (ie. the UK and Eire) seems to be heading in that direction (unofficially - we're not making laws about it, just working out how to do things in practical terms). In sorting out the borders of the shires recently the suggestion was made that each should take a core area, where their membership is concentrated and marches where they are nominally responsible, but are looking more towards setting up new groups. Thus Harpelestane, which covers Southern Scotland, is taking the EH code as a core and 5 or so others as marches where we're responsible, but are looking towards new groups. One is G (the Glasgow code) - it doesn't make sense for an Edinburgh-based shire to 'run' Glasgow, but it does make sense for us to be responsible for that area until someone local sets something up. Now this is all very well in a sparsely populated (in SCA terms) region, but should still be possible in denser areas. In service Wolfgang Adolphus Jager Harpelestane (Dominic Hunter, Edinburgh) ---------------------------------------- Sender: Nigel Haslock Subject: Re: Grand Council Chronicle #15 Greetings from Fiacha, I have no problem with voting. I am neutral on the question of publicising the names of who voted. I suspect that we need someone to open issues for voting and keep track of the results. I'm a little too busy these days to volunteer for that job. > 1) Mission Statement for the Grand Council. Little as I like the wording in the Charter, I think we need to address that first. > 2) Voting procedure: There are reasons why parliamentary procedure does this differently. Counter-proposal. Once we have a 'vote coordinator' any motion can be put to a vote by being submitted, in identical wording, by any three members of the GC. Motions submitted for voting will appear in the next three GC Chronicles with the names of the submittors and their votes and a tally of any other votes recieved. In the fourth consecutive chronicle the motion and the final tally of votes will appear. Motions may be withdrawn early by the agreement of the submittors. Members may reverse their votes as often as they wish during the open voting period. I do not believe that we need a concept of pass or fail for motions. Let whatever votes are cast stand as the GC opinon on the motion and include it in the report. Perhaps the board will direct us to be more selective, but we should wait and see. Issues > no! there should be, must be, at least one corporate publication. > this does not mean ti should remain exactly as it is now, but > there must be _something_ that comes out quarterly or bi- > monthly from the corporate/federal/whatever-we-come-up- > with level, just to keep everyone educated as to what's > happening. besides, some of the articles _are_ almost useful. I will not deny that there have been useful/interesting articles in TI. However, I am not convinced that the TI is either good value for money or that it is worth the effort it takes to produce. Re the long list of issues. All need attention. Turn each of them into a proposal that the board do something to address each one and I'll vote on them. Pick any three and I'll argue about the proposal until we have something to submit. Regards Fiacha Proposal 1. The GC requests that the board initiate enquiries with respect to outsourcing the the membership list maintenance, and that the board work with or delegate authority to a sub-committee of the GC to create an accurate Request For Proposal. ---------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 May 95 09:31:47 EDT From: Carole.C.Roos.2@nd.edu (Carole Roos) Greetings from Alysoun. For Justin or Nathan or whoever is keeping track--yes votes to Kyle's proposals, with an emphasis on study in the first. Forget any 90-day countdown. I will not support anything going to the Board until GC gets a hold on itself. This goes for voting on territoriality as well. We have not decided on such matters as alternate corporate forms. It strikes me as ridiculous to decide in May that there should or should not be territoriality if in November we may decide to recommend some other corporate structure. More to the point: we have no facts on how territoriality works. Justin said that a former seneschal in the East Kingdom says it's a problem. Is this representative or is there something in East Kingdom culture that creates the friction? Is it more likely to be problem for groups of a certain size? In urban or rural areas? Is the biggest problem the inability to split groups when people don't get along (and why can't they get along?) or are there other problems? How flexible are the current standards and how do they vary de facto among the kingdoms? My bet is that the rest of you are not demanding this kind of information because you know it is not there. Maire has offered to send me an organization chart (thank you! thank you!) and I will try to get it to everyone else as quickly as I can. Why is Maire the only one with a chart to give? Why doesn't the Board have one? What sort of training/orientation is given to new board members, seneschals, royalty? The latest TI has a long article on Russian weddings, encouraging the possibility of re-creating them at events. This arrived within days of our kingdom newsletter, which reports that the seneschals are restricting weddings as features of events. For the record, Russia is not generally considered Western Europe and medieval weddings in Western Europe were secular for most of the period, taking place outside the church (often literally on the doorstep). The practice that the seneschals no doubt wish to restrict is focusing an event around a 20th century religious ceremony performed with a medieval flair (garb & banners). Our seneschal went on to advise about demos: no religious symbols, black outfits, or using the word "medieval" for Pete's sakes! As written, this seems to target those of us who are clergy, in religious orders, or medievalists. I hardly think that these people are the source of public image problems. (Yes, I am personally offended by this!) While demos should certainly put our best foot forward, do any of you seriously think that outsiders won't notice what is worn to events? Some events are held right downtown! That is like assuming that rec.org.sca is a private phone line: can we discuss vampires for a month on-line and then pretend we don't have any? This is the kind of scattershot policy that has gotten us into the current mess. Either the Grand Council gets off its duff and makes an intelligent study of the state of the SCA or it should be content to make one and only one recommendation: that the Board create a body capable of making an intelligent study. ---------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 May 95 12:15:10 -0800 From: rgathercoal@foxmail.gfc.edu (Roy Gathercoal) Subject: GC-Response to #15 On voting, majorities and legitimacy: I consider the most important aspect of this question for us to be legitimacy. We are not a rules-making body, so we need not be so concerned about potential problems in interpretation of specific language (the need for legal-ese). We are also not a representative body (selected to closely reflect the diversity of the membership) and so we do not need not struggle quite so hard with balancing various local interests. However, we are also not a decision-making, but rather are a consultative body. I would suggest that we think of our role as analogous to that of a hired consultant--we have been given some (though never complete access) in order to bring our expert opinions and experience to bear on some specific problems. Our "employers" (angry harangues about who works for whom aside) have asked for our suggestions and all we can do is give opinions. This does not make us impotent, however. The greatest power available is not that of physical compelling action but that of persuading (even a "period" view, see Thomas Wilson's "The Arte of Rhetorque" 1553). Our greatest opportunity is not to maneuver to some political position in order to force certain changes upon an evil board, but rather to work hard to understand the various facets of complex issues and then to persuade members of the board of the wisdom of our recommendations. Thus I would suggest these principles: First, we should not send any recommendation to the board until we are all ready to stand by it. It may be that each of us is not entirely happy with each point, but if we start passing stuff through over the strong objections of some of our own "team of consultants" how should we expect the board to "take our word" for it? Thus I would encourage us to use a consensus model--with all of its shortcomings. I would rather take longer and work harder and suffer more frustration among ourselves than to send a "28 vote for A, 10 for B, and 2 for C" recommendation. After all, why should they assume that this particular group of 28 is right while the 10 (or even the 2) are wrong? Surely we do not think that the board is short of outside counsel on what to do and how and when? I would imagine their mailboxes are still full of suggestions from intelligent and well-meaning people. We need to do more than simply be one more source of advice--we need to make them believe us. This is unlikely if we do not believe each other. Second, let us be very careful to not make any recommendations before we are sure. As with any organization, most of our members do not fully understand the reasons behind many apparently stupid things. You would be hard pressed to find any organization of any size in which most of the members did not think that top management was stupid and ill-informed. Most people are certain there are no good reasons for the latest stupid policy enacted. Sometimes there are not good reasons, but sometimes the good reasons are just not apparent. Each time we make a recommendation without understanding the implications, causes and complications of the scenario, we throw away a hunk of our credibility. If I make a recommendation to an organizational client only to have them say (patronizingly) "that would be a good idea, except that . . ." I have just made my job a whole lot harder. If I do this several times, I might as well pack up and go home because I have trashed my own credibility--they have no reason to believe that I am right in matters of which they are not sure if I am wrong in matters of which they are sure. Third, we are working in a politically charged environment. For every person who steadfastly believes that the members of the board are self-seeking, power-hungry blind prisoners of their own follies, there is a person who believes that the most vocal critics are ill-mannered, unchivalrous self-serving opportunists. Neither of these positions are helpful, and neither will allow us to succeed in our task. Yet to ignore the political environment is to plot a course through the rapids as if they did not exist. So as long as our deliberations are public, and therefore available to use as ammunition, let us be careful not to dump additional large boulders in our own path. We should speak the truth as we know it, but we should do so with dignity, courtesy and awareness. For if we become another tool for board-bashing (with or without our active participation) we will have sacrificed our legitimacy in the eyes of the board. By joining this body, we have united with the board (like it or not) in the hard task of properly governing this Society. ----------------------------------------