From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 17:55:06 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 17:12:42 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Tibor: Outside directors To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Esclarmonde... -- Justin >Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 17:06:43 -0500 (EST) >From: Lisa Steele >Subject: Re: Tibor: Outside directors >In-Reply-To: <01I01UA7IMGC9BZ21X@delphi.com> On Mon, 15 Jan 1996, Alban St. Albans wrote: > the sca? well, we're sort of like the civil way people, but not totally; > we sort of do history, but not completely; we have this really interesting > internal set-up that doesn't really match anything else out there.....and > so forth. I am certain one could find a fair number of folks in SF/F fandom or gaming or any of the other similar fields who are already familiar with SCA but have no strong ties to it. --Lisa From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 19:59:45 1996 Return-Path: Priority: Normal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Erik Langhans Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 19:58:01 CST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Erik Langhans Subject: Response to Board Selection To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L No to Outside directors! Yes to Galleron: Review of Board Selection Method 7: 7) Appointment by Board, Monarchs, and Unelected Kingdom Senechals Each Board member gets two votes, each Monarch and Kingdom Seneschal gets one. A compromise between the strengths and weaknesses of 1) and 6). Does not increase the extent to which the Board is selected with the explicit consent of the Membership. -Modius e-mail: modius@cityscope.net web page: www.cityscope.net/~modius From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 20:41:40 1996 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: INTERNET"scagc-l@listserv.aol.com" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 19:53:03 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: galleron's election list To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L on galleron's vast collection of election proposals, i make the following comments: introduction: galleron mentions direct and indirect elections. i prefer direct elections; if we go indirect, then we'll have to worry about picking the electors, unless it's decided that kingdom seneschals/crown/great officers/strange combinations thereof become the electors. this will produce an undemocratic election process, and lots of people will fuss and bother and whine. it's not worth it. go direct. 1) election by the board. nope; this is the present method, and doesn't always work very well. on the other hand, it works. i'll accept this if necessary, but won't like it. 1a) nominating committees. i hate the idea. right now, anyone in the sca, official member or not, can nominate someone. why futz with this? 2) election by paying members. it's a simple idea. it's easy of execution (a page in TI or the kingdom newsletters for the ballot and candidate's brief resume/statement). the only problem is counting the ballots. i prefer this idea over number 1. 2a) limited suffrage direct election, most likely by those who subscribe to the board minutes. i like the idea, especially if there's an unofficial method to help those who are terminally poor to pay for the necessary subscription. the suggestion that there also be a "send-me-a-ballot" check-off box is a very good idea. why do i get the feeling that board-minutes-plus-check-the-box balloting is simple, cheap, and effective? i like, really like, this idea. 3) indirect election by local seneschals. i see no reason why local sensechals should have any more power than any other local officer, or, indeed, any other member, simply because of their office. would you like to have the board elected by, oh, the local chatelaine? same idea, same stupidity level. 4) indirectly, by regional group. overly complicated. 5) election of one director per kingdom. too costly, not needed. 6) appointmnet of one director per kingdom. too costly, not democratic, and i don't trust the crowns any more than i trust the local seneschalate. 7) appointment by board, crown, and kingdom seneschals. phooeey. in short: i'd accept election by the board. i love direct election by board minutes subscribers and those who check the box for getting a ballot. the rest i dislike. well, no, some i actively loathe. alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 20:43:10 1996 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: INTERNET"scagc-l@listserv.aol.com" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 19:52:21 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: arthur, tibor, etc. To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L on arthur dent's proposal received on monday, 15 january: 2) Hire a qualified person to take verbatim notes and extracts thereof. i know jaelle of armida from atlantia often shows up at board meetings, computer in hand to take notes. i believe she performs similar functions mundanely (federal bar association?). she might be willing to be paid for her troubles. i would be tempted to suggest the executive assitant (lori taylor) but suspect she's sufficiently busy with other items during the meetings. 3) Automating the ballot counting. how much would ocr software and such cost? and, more importantly, would _any_ software be cost effective - if there are only 100 votes for every election, then counting by hand should be enough....it'd probably be a good idea to have an external counter; renee has enough duties already, and i'm not sure the populace would accept the board counting its own ballots. on tibor's comments (same date) to arthur's proposals: 2) on allowing people who donate extra to vote: hell, no. there are a number of people out there who can barely scrape together an associate member. presuming that the voting population _should_ be increased, increasing it purely on the basis of how much money one has is a bad idea. and, tibor, do you really want to give the board even more money to waste. (on the other hand, one would sort of need extra money to subscribe to board minutes. hmmmm. i could see setting up a very informal fund to allow one's poor friends to get the minutes...this requires more thought.) footnote 2: "If we are being exhaustively populist, I could see arranging so that Kingdom Senschals are also sent ballots." and what would they do with them? vote? copy ballots and distribute to local groups? make paper airplanes? if it's just seneschals, why? why not the rest of the great officers? 4) "With an extended voting scheme we are discussing, we need to have a means to insure that those whose names appear on the ballot are willing to serve before the ballots are printed." there is a means. it's phoning the candidates before the ballots are printed. 6) scheduling of elections/replacements. well, do it like the U.S. Senate, on a 3-year rotation, with 3, 2, and 2 directors being picked. replacements could be called up either with a special election (if they quit in the first half of the year) or on a special spot on a usual ballot (if they quite in the last half). let's keep this simple? on galleron's comments on tibor's comments on arthur's comments. (is someone keeping track of all these comments?) "In that case, the voters would consist both of members who care enough to subscribe to the minutes, plus those who are uninterested in the minutiae of Board activities, but with a strong enough opinion on a particular candidate or issue to motivate them to send for a ballot. It could work." this was part of your discussion about tibor's extra-donation-buys-a-vote idea: you know, i have no idea whether you're supporting tibor's notion of voting rights based on board minutes subscriptions or an extra donation; or whether you're suggesting that someone who wants to vote send in enough money to buy membership just to vote; or whether someone wanting to vote send in a donation _without_ getting a membership. whatever you're saying, i'd suggest we keep everything simple. alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 00:45:01 1996 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: INTERNET"scagc-l@listserv.aol.com" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 00:01:46 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: tibor's minor questions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 14:45:52 -0500 >Greetings from Tibor. >Galleron sent me some private mail, asking about ballots and >voting, and what I thought. >I came up with three borderline scenari that I would like to get >some feedback upon. >1. Say a couple gets a subscribing and a family membership, >along with a copy of the Board Minutes. Do both become >eligible to vote? yeah, sure, why not? >2. Say a Corporate Officer gets the Board Minutes for free as part >of the position. Can they vote? the original intent of having board minutes subscribers becoming voters was that getting the subscription showed interest on the part of the subscriber, and as a way to have a knowledgeable electorate. i believe that a corporate officer also fills both intents, no? so, the answer here is, yes. >3. If you recall my qualifications step, it was that someone who >paid money to the corporation could vote. It dawned on me >that this was too vague: If I donate $100 dollars to my local >group, I've donated (technically) to the SCA Incorporated. Can >I vote? Should I? theoretically, a case could be made for saying "yes". however, to keep things simple and confusion minimal, it'd be best to suggest donations be monetary, and made directly to milpitas. anything else would lead to bizarre rules and regulations. (like, oh, "well, i just gave the Crown a new set of thrones that easily cost $59.95 in materials alone", "i contributed gas money so that my seneschal could get to the known world seneschals colloquium", and "well, hell, the backrub i just gave the great officers of state would have cost $153 down at the local massage parlor, so that means i contributed that much, easily!") of course, a donation to your local group _would_ entitle you, under this theory, to vote for the board of directors of your local group. keep it simple. alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 04:25:59 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 09:51:20 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Galleron: Ballots in Board Proceedings (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >1. Say a couple gets a subscribing and a family membership, along with a > copy of the Board Minutes. Do both become eligible to vote? Yes, of course. The alternative, forcing everyone to get individual Minutes= =20 subscription, involves a deplorable waste of paper and energy *and* reducin= g=20 a group of (I suspect) mainly women and young people to second-class member= s,=20 with access to Minutes but without voting rights. =20 >2. Say a Corporate Officer gets the Board Minutes for free as part of the > position. Can they vote? Yes, of course. >3. If you recall my qualifications step, it was that someone who paid money > to the corporation could vote. It dawned on me that this was too vague: > If I donate $100 dollars to my local group, I've donated (technically) = to > the SCA Incorporated. Can I vote? Should I? I don't like the idea as such. Subscribing to Board minutes or writing and= =20 asking for a ballot should be the only requirements for voting. All schemes= =20 can be abused, but, at least, anyone with sufficient interest can abuse the= =20 "asking for a ballot" model. If you base voting rights on monetary donation= s,=20 it becomes theoretically possible to buy an election - a thoroughly=20 unpalatable idea.=20 (Hmmm... well... I guess someone rich enough could pay people to write and = ask=20 for ballots, too. A bit far-fetched, though...)=20 /Catrin =20 Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 04:40:35 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 31 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Approved-By: "Potter, Michael" Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 02:09:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Potter, Michael" Subject: My status To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I've been swamped with work over the last couple of weeks so I haven't been able to kept current in my reading. I've managed to catch up and I have a few comments. I support direct elections as I'm uncomfortable with Crowns and Kingdom officers doing the selection. I feel that many of the complaints that people have about the BoD stem from the fact that they have little say in who is on the Board. The same complaint would hold if the Crowns and officers (generally appointed by the Crowns) selected the BoD. I think that members (defined as those who have paid their membership fee - associate and higher, all adults in a family membership) should be the voting pool. Once a year all Kingdom newsletters can print a ballot which is mailed in. Participation may turn out to be low, but that's the fault of the individual members. I'm uncomfortable tying the removal of BoD members to a vote/petition by the membership. The cases where a director would be removed would fall into an individual obviously not being suitable (and I'm sure that the other directors would take action in this case) or where the membership at large feels that a BoD decision is inappropriate. This could be partially controlled by giving the IAC veto power over BoD resolutions/changes to Corpora. The two year limit would allow members to vote against unpopular directors fairly quickly. regards, Sir Myrdin the Just Michael G. Potter (currently working in Raunheim, Germany) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 05:35:35 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: klth-jsp@pop.lu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Janna G Spanne Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 11:26:36 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna G Spanne Subject: Re: Galleron: Review of Board Selection To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >... I'm not discussing questions of removal/recall/referendum or repeal, >>not because I think they are unimportant, but because they will be so >>strongly influenced by what changes, if any, are made to selection >>methods that it seems better to defer discussion on that subject. Yes. >When the Council is ready, I suggest voting be done as follows: >Vote yes for any you like (including the current method) >Vote no for any that are unacceptable to you. >Leave blank those you don't have strong feelings about >This would be a non-binding vote to see if any consensus emerges. My >idea >is that all methods will be passed on to the Board, with who voted >for >what. ... Good idea. > ... a significant portion of both the Council and the Society >considers >electoral politics a positive evil. Cariadoc and others >pointed out, >however, that the sort of electioneering typical of >campaigns for public >office in the U.S. is rare within non-profits and >other organizations like >ours. ... Yes. Besides, some of the resitance to the idea of elections stems from people not wanting electioneering to interfere with the medieval re-creation. Board elections should be clearly and distinctly a mundane matter. >1) Current Method >Directors appointed by current Board. Names of candidates are published >>and comments solicited. NO. Why? >Con: Members feel disenfranchised and powerless. Decisions of the Board >>lack the legitimacy that comes from the explicit consent of the governed. That's why we started messing with it in the first place. >Morgan reports that in many organizations that elect their leadership, the >>Board/Nominating Committee puts a number of candidates on the ballot >>that slightly exceeds the number of vacancies. this seems like a good >idea >unless there is a complete shortage of qualified candidates. Makes sense. Also, the Nominating Committee could handle the matter of maintaining a balanced Board in terms of competence, mundane background etc. >Several of the following models for indirect elections assume that local >>seneschals are in actual practice chosen by the local members, either >>formally or informally. SCA governing documents reflect the theory that >>they are appointed by their superiors. It may be desirable to modify the >>governing documents to reflect the actual practice. Definitely. I believe that the actual requisite is that local officers be *acceptable* to their superiors and, if applicable, to Royalty. A possible modification would be having the membership elect the officers, subject to confirmation by their superiors (and the Coronet/Crown). >2) Direct Election: All paying members can vote YES - with some reservations. >Con: ... Awkward for non-US members. Not particularly, if the deadlines are reasonable. >Most members are unfamiliar with most Board candidates. Publish a presentation - it can be fairly brief. >... Board is less likely to be a balanced mix of skills and abilities. A good nominating committee would solve this. >Cost and Duration: ... Aye, there's the rub! Also, those who don't like politics would find it a pain. >2a)Direct Election, Limited Suffrage >All members who subscribe to Board Proceedings can vote. Ballot and >>position papers distributed with Board proceedings. YES!!! With Tibor's modification (Send-Me-A-Ballot-option). Saves the anti-electionist members contact with nasty politics, and any interested member gets a say. Decidedly my favorite. >3) Indirect Election by Local Seneschals... YES - IF local seneschals get elected by the members (participants) and *not* appointed by their superiors or royalty. One more Pro: a possibility to give non-member participants a voice. The local group would have the right to decide who gets to elect the seneschal. >4) Indirect Election by Regional Group YES - possibly. Who elects the electors, and how? Everything hinges on this. >5) Election of One Director per Kingdom NnnnOoo - don't think so. Expensive and unwieldly if the Board goes on micro-managing, unnecessary if it doesn't. >6) Appointment of One Director per Kingdom NO WAY. >7) Appointment by Board, Monarchs, and Unelected Kingdom Senechals NO WAY. /Catrin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 13:14:00 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: maghnuis@cp.duluth.mn.us X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: "James D. McManus" Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 11:28:47 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: My status To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L BoD resolutions/changes to >Corpora. Good point is raised here. If we have any body with authority to veto BoD actions, then no actions are final till this veto procedure has had opportunity to run. This could totally shut down the BoD's ability to run the Corp. On the other hand, changes to Corpora might be restricted much more. Perhaps they would not take effect until approved by All Kingdoms. Just a couple thoughts leaking out, Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 13:17:10 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: maghnuis@cp.duluth.mn.us X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: "James D. McManus" Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 11:38:57 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: tibor's minor questions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I realize that Buying Votes is a great Tradition of Democracy, however the concept does make my skin crawl. For Sale: One Idealistic Medieval Society, now accepting bids. Sarcasm? Yes Legitimate fear? Also yes I think. Appearance of strictly cash based elitism? Definitely Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 13:17:10 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: maghnuis@cp.duluth.mn.us X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: "James D. McManus" Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 11:38:57 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: tibor's minor questions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I realize that Buying Votes is a great Tradition of Democracy, however the concept does make my skin crawl. For Sale: One Idealistic Medieval Society, now accepting bids. Sarcasm? Yes Legitimate fear? Also yes I think. Appearance of strictly cash based elitism? Definitely Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 13:19:10 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 6 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 12:39:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Cash based elitism To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >Appearance of strictly cash based elitism? Definitely One big problem with tying votes to subscription to the BoD minutes. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 14:14:26 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 318 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 13:37:10 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: tibor's minor questions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601181738.LAA15900@CP.Duluth.MN.US> from "James D. McManus" at Jan 18, 96 11:38:57 am Legitimate fear? Also yes I think. Magnus, I'm afraid I don't see vote buying as being a legitimate fear. Can you expound? When would it have happened, how could it happen? Who has that kind of money or influence? I've rehearsed a few scenari in my mind, and I'm afraid I found none of them convincing. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 14:18:47 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 645 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 13:42:15 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Cash based elitism To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <30FEB264@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> from "Steve Muhlberger" at Jan 18, 96 12:39:00 pm >Appearance of strictly cash based elitism? Definitely One big problem with tying votes to subscription to the BoD minutes. And, a big reason to add Galleron's check off box to the subscription form. He and I have discussed this a bit, off-line. I like his last suggestion quite a bit. You can: 1. Ask for ballots when you join, and they will be sent to you. 2. In addition, they are automatically included in the Board Minutes [This step is starting to become more optional] 3. At any time, with proof of membership, you can write and get a ballot. I, for one, am finding his input invaluable. Thanks, Galleron. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 14:49:16 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:04:09 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: My status To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601181728.LAA15757@CP.Duluth.MN.US> (maghnuis@CP.DULUTH.MN.US) Magnus writes: >If we have any body with authority to veto BoD actions, then no actions are >final till this veto procedure has had opportunity to run. This could >totally shut down the BoD's ability to run the Corp. That's a *very* extreme way of putting it. No, things aren't final in the most formal sense -- that doesn't mean they can't take effect. One perfectly viable model (and probably the most sensible one) would be that Board actions *are* in effect until and unless overturned. In other words, a repeal mechanism instead of a veto mechanism. Slightly weaker, but considerably more practical. -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "Think before you think." -- Margie de Sade Chairperson, Housewives Against Titillation & Exploitation From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 16:07:35 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2077 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 15:27:59 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Buying Outcomes (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Katerine/Angharad/Terry by Tibor. Forwarded message: Date: Thu, 18 Jan 96 15:24:22 EST From: jtn@eng2.uconn.edu (Terry Nutter) To: schuldy@abel.math.harvard.edu Subject: Buying Outcomes Greetings to the good gentles of the Grand Council, from Katerine Rountre (who used to be known as Angharad ver' Rhuawn). Several people have written expressing qualms about the possibility, under various schemes, of wealthy people purchasing outcomes. So long as decisions are made by humans, this possibility cannot be ruled out. At present, if we are willing to assume (as I am not) that the people in question have neither principles nor views of their own, to achieve pretty much any outcome at the national level*, one would need only purchase four votes (for matters other than appointments to the Board that require no changes to the By-Laws) or seven (for appointments or By-Laws changes). Having done this on a few occasions over several years, one would then have controlled the composition of the Board, and could presumably get much of what one wants for free. This has never happened. I see many good reasons why it has not, but none of them are related to appointment processes. Under any process that requires more than seven votes for such matters, all the existing controls would still be in place, and the hypothetical rich person would now need to be a Whole Lot richer. So: either one believes that there are good reasons people aren't already doing this, or one does not. In the first case, they do not go away with changes in the appointment process. In the second, changing the appointment process makes the exercise of this kind of corruption harder, not easier. -- Katerine Rountre (Terry Nutter) * At the kingdom level, it's generally easier. Buy the Crown. By contrast with the national level, I have heard of cases of this, with various forms of coin; but they are relatively rare, and again, unaffected by any of the proposals before this body. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 16:58:53 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 3880 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 16:08:07 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Galleron: Baseline assumptions for elections (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 16:05:08 -0500 Subject: Galleron: Baseline assumptions for elections Please forward to GC Here are is my baseline assumption of how elections would work. Subject to your suggestions and comments, I will insert it in the next draft of my election summary. Schedule of Elections Directors will continue to serve three year terms. Normally, a single election will be held each year by postal ballot. We can either move to a 3/2/2 triannual schedule for electing directors, with those elected taking office immediately after the election, or we can maintain the current rotation, with those elected not taking office until their predecessor's term ends. The current system of listing nominees is continued, but renamed "Candidates for nomination", and used as a pool from which the Board and others draw its nominees for the ballot. Six months before ballots are mailed the Board publishes a description of the number of vacancies, an announcement of the deadline for non-board nominees, a renewed plea for comments on the "Candidates for Nomination" and a brief description of any special abilities they are looking for. "Since director X is leaving next year, we will have a particular need for someone with knowledge of accounting. As always, we try to choose directors from kingdoms not currently represented on the Board" It is desirable for the Board to list its nominees at this time, but not essential. The election will choose the directors to take office in the coming year, plus two alternates. These will take office if a position needs to be filled before the next election. Unless it is unable to find sufficient qualified candidates, the Board will nominate at least one more candidate than the number of vacancies plus alternates. Candidates may also be added to the ballot by petition. Such a candidate would need the votes of 10% of the Crowns and Kingdom Seneschals (that is, currently, three Crowns, Seneschals, or any combination), or 2% of the local seneschals with not more than half from any one kingdom, or 1% of the membership. If suffrage is limited to part of the membership, then 10% of the voting members would also be sufficient. The ballot will include a brief description of each candidate. The Board or its delegates will be responsible for those it nominates, candidates nominated by petition are responsible for their own, subject to reasonable restrictions on length and inflammatory/defammatory language. The board may also include a brief statement of its special needs. "Candidate Y is an accountant, and we really need one on the Board right now" Lead time between closing the ballot and mailing will depend on the method of distribution. Let us assume that two weeks are required between submission of statements (with verification of petitions) and delivery of ballot to printer/publication to allow time for review of ballot, layout, typesetting and delivery time. TI would need to receive the ballot material some six weeks before mailing to insert it at the layout/pasteup stage. (Ten weeks if it was to go to the typesetter with the regular content) Kingdom newsletters would require about a month lead time. A mailed ballot or one included in the Board proceedings might need a week. Assume six weeks from mail date to close of election. If ballots are tallied on a weekly or ongoing basis, the tally should be completed shortly thereafter. Then the lag between finalizing the ballot and the end of the election would be about 14 weeks if ballots were distributed in TI, twelve if by Kingdom newsletter, and nine if mailed. Comments please. Will McLean/Galleron From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 17:38:47 1996 Return-Path: Date: Thu 18 Jan 1996 16:32 CT To: SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM From: UDSD007@DSIBM.OKLADOT.STATE.OK.US (Mike.Andrews ) Subject: Re: Galleron: Baseline assumptions for elections (fwd) This message was originally submitted by UDSD007@DSIBM.OKLADOT.STATE.OK.US to the SCAGC-L list at LISTSERV.AOL.COM. If you simply forward it back to the list, using a mail command that generates "Resent-" fields (ask your local user support or consult the documentation of your mail program if in doubt), it will be distributed and the explanations you are now reading will be removed automatically. If on the other hand you edit the contributions you receive into a digest, you will have to remove this paragraph manually. Finally, you should be able to contact the author of this message by using the normal "reply" function of your mail program. ----------------- Message requiring your approval (80 lines) ------------------ Galleron wrote (reformatted to 65 columns for readability, and parts deleted where I had no comment): > The current system of listing nominees is continued, but > renamed "Candidates for nomination", and used as a pool from > which the Board and others draw its nominees for the ballot. > > Six months before ballots are mailed the Board publishes a > description of the number of vacancies, an announcement of the > deadline for non-board nominees, a renewed plea for comments > on the "Candidates for Nomination" and a brief description of > any special abilities they are looking for. "Since director X > is leaving next year, we will have a particular need for > someone with knowledge of accounting. As always, we try to > choose directors from kingdoms not currently represented on > the Board" It is desirable for the Board to list its nominees > at this time, but not essential. > > The election will choose the directors to take office in the > coming year, plus two alternates. These will take office if a > position needs to be filled before the next election. > > Unless it is unable to find sufficient qualified candidates, > the Board will nominate at least one more candidate than the > number of vacancies plus alternates. > > Candidates may also be added to the ballot by petition. Such a > candidate would need the votes of 10% of the Crowns and > Kingdom Seneschals (that is, currently, three Crowns, > Seneschals, or any combination), or 2% of the local seneschals > with not more than half from any one kingdom, or 1% of the > membership. If suffrage is limited to part of the membership, > then 10% of the voting members would also be sufficient. Not in any SCA I belong to. I see no reason to limit candidacy to those with a big-enough bloc, whether it be from the populace at large, the seneschalate, the peers, or the nobles. We're looking at limiting suffrage already. Why in the world would you (or anyone) want to limit candidacy as well? I do think that having some spares ready to install in case of a failure?H?H?H?H?H?H?H?H?H an early resignation is a good idea, but that is in other proposals I like better. > The ballot will include a brief description of each candidate. > The Board or its delegates will be responsible for those it > nominates, candidates nominated by petition are responsible > for their own, subject to reasonable restrictions on length > and inflammatory/defammatory language. The board may also > include a brief statement of its special needs. "Candidate Y > is an accountant, and we really need one on the Board right > now" Better yet, make each candidate responsible for what he or she says, period. Descriptive text should be _separate_ from the ballots. It is, after all, not properly part of a ballot: a ballot should (IMHO) show the names of the candidates and any special instructions ("Two from Column 'A', one from Column 'B'". Nor should the board have any special needs statements on the ballot. Their special needs are not properly part of a ballot, either, and should be located with the candidates' statements. For my own part, if the board needs an accountant, and X is a candidate with an accounting background, I may or may not vote for him: it depends on how much his accounting expertise outweighs any flaws I know he possesses which would interfere with his doing a good job on the board. I might vote for a non-accountant with management experience, and tell the board to _hire_ an accountant. The board should not be micro-managing. > Comments please. You got 'em. -- udsd007@dsibm.okladot.state.ok.us Michael Fenwick of Fotheringhay, O.L. (Mike Andrews) Namron, Ansteorra Pray, I beseech you, for the repose of the soul of Kathleen Anna Young Lister, once known as Baroness Caitlin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 17:41:14 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 16:58:50 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: tibor's minor questions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601181837.NAA19756@abel.math.harvard.edu> (message from Mark Schuldenfrei on Thu, 18 Jan 1996 13:37:10 -0500) >Magnus, I'm afraid I don't see vote buying as being a legitimate fear. I almost sent an earlier reply, then scrapped it when I realized that there are a couple of different forms of vote-buying. But on some reflection, I concur with Tibor here -- I just don't find it a real worry. On the one hand, there's "vote buying" in the sense of paying members to vote for you. I can't see this actually happening. Members of the SCA are, broadly speaking, relatively affluent and *quite* ornery. Not only can't I see an attempt to buy votes working, I suspect it would get you ridden out of town on a rail. On the other hand, there's "vote buying" in the sense of buying memberships solely for the purpose of their votes -- that is, buying bogus memberships. This isn't *completely* ridiculous; if we postulate that a voting membership costs $10, one could buy 100 memberships for $1000, and that could make a difference (given the probably-high levels of apathy in most elections). But that's easy to patch -- just establish that a voting membership must be held by a natural person, and that each person may only hold one such membership. This *could* still be circumvented, but not simply, and the social repercussions of trying would be pretty dramatic. All in all, I just don't see it -- while it's possible, I think it's fantastically unlikely. There are legitimate concerns about democratic election of the Board. (I'm not sure I personally want the Board to have that level of popular legitimacy, frankly, as just one concern.) But I just don't think this particular issue is real... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "How many taoists does it take to change a lightbulb? None. If the light bulb wishes to be out, it should be out." -- Fujimoto From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 18:22:49 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 17:42:02 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Galleron: Baseline assumptions for elections (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601182108.QAA26984@abel.math.harvard.edu> (message from Mark Schuldenfrei on Thu, 18 Jan 1996 16:08:07 -0500) On Galleron's election proposal: pretty good-looking. Someone with a couple of minutes to spare want to compare and contrast this with Cariadoc's proposal? (Which was broadly similar, if I recall correctly.) -- Justin Who is a little short on time right at the moment... Random Quote du Jour: "some guys live for money some guys live for sex i live for ATTRIBUTION" -- nj From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 20:36:31 1996 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: IN%"SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 19:45:04 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: Cash based elitism To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L if one were to be anally technical, then one could consider buying any membership in the s.c.a. to be cash-based elitism. all tibor's idea is, is raising the stakes slightly. mind you, i'm *strongly* against paying even more money just for the privilege to vote (aka tibor's idea) - but let's keep this cash-based thread to a minimum? alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 23:47:33 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: maghnuis@cp.duluth.mn.us X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: "James D. McManus" Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 21:59:33 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: veto? Comments: To: Barbara Nostrand To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Solveig Dottir of Throndar, >Well, pretty much everything in the U.S. is subject to supreme court review. >But, that does not shut down the U.S. government. > Excellent point, I was visualizing a system in which BoD decisions would not take full affect until some appeal period had passed. ( Local City Council Zoning decisions and some long awaited Cout decisions have put me in this mindset. Thank you for pulling me out.) Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 18 23:52:58 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: maghnuis@cp.duluth.mn.us X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: "James D. McManus" Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 22:13:34 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: tibor's minor questions Comments: To: "LTjg, USN 3-8401 ext 167 Bldg 8 Rm 207" To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Ian O'Donnel, You said: Do you really believe that buying votes would become a major >issue. With the people I know in the SCA, you couldn't buy many of their >votes, because their honor is higher in the game than in real life. I don't see the >attraction for the job. But I am open minded enough to admit that I may >be overlooking something obvious. Buying a thankless position may not be an attractive proposition. Charting the Future Course of the Society on the other hand is the Nole expression of that which is called Power and Control. Our Society is not free of this and some of the abuses I've seen have been by those with Selfless thoughts of "Helping" the Society goin the right direction. Especially if Voting memberships cost more than lesser memberships, the numbers of voting members will plummet. In two kingdoms I can think of off hand, polls of the populace open to all have been manipulated to serve some end. If buying memberships for 50 or even 200 of the disenfranchised who believe as you do can swing an election or vote this Noble Sacrifice might be worth while. In the mean time, many who might well care will not buy memberships cuz they'd rather pay for a coupl events than vote. Political action is not the reason most people play the game. I hope this helps explain my objections. Magnus Servant to Society and mostly the Dream From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 00:56:25 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 00:30:57 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: Cash based elitism Comments: To: "Alban St. Albans" To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <01I061E0BXRW9C0PUL@delphi.com> ONE of the reasons I have for heavily supporting the 'sufferage by subsicription' method as opposed to direct elections is the unholy fear some people had of th SCA turning topsy turvy becasue of general elections.. some people honestly seem to think electing thier BOD to be too muh trouble , or to intrusive to their 'dream' state... rather than argue the point, and assuming that their voices on the council werre representive of some reasonbly large segment of the society, I figured this sidestepped the whole debate by saying "If you dont want to be bothered with voting, just dont subscribe to the BOD minutes..." ONE of the other reasons was that the solution provided its own vehicle for implementation, and just as important, finance... I think of it as a compromise, with advantages, between general elections, and more restriced selection methods. ___________________________________+__________________________________ "Romance is the Art of Expressing the truth beautifully"--Me. "Any Mildly gothic, renn/SCA types with RPG tendencies in the central NJ area want to come out and play?" arthur@cnj.digex.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 04:15:13 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 09:52:18 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Cash based elitism To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >if one were to be anally technical, then one could consider >buying any membership in the s.c.a. to be cash-based >elitism... Sure. So is buying a membership in my equestrian club, the=20 Mac Users' group, Amnesty International, or... It can also=20 be called expressing an interest - I'll buy a membership in=20 Amnesty International, so I can vote there, as opposed to=20 the local soccer club, where I have no interest in voting as=20 I couldn't care less about what they do.=20 If you want to be anally anti-elitist, I should get a ballot=20 >from the soccer club simply because it's active in my=20 neighborhood. The Tibor/Galleron "send-me-a-ballot"-option effectively=20 gets you voting rights with membership, *if you want them*.=20 Either you subscribe to Minutes, and get your ballot that=20 way, or you write and ask for a ballot simply on the basis=20 of your membership, and all it costs is a stamp.=20 /Catrin Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 04:18:52 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 09:56:30 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Cash based elitism To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L ... (ballots)... > 2. In addition, they are automatically included in the Board Minutes > =C4This step is starting to become more optional=C5 Is it? Does this mean than people who get the Minutes would have to do=20 (1) or (3) as well? Why should they? =20 The three options are just fine as they are.=20 /Catrin Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 04:48:42 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 10:26:25 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: tibor's minor questions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >I realize that Buying Votes is a great Tradition of=20 >Democracy, however the >concept does make my skin crawl. Yes, a democratic system can be abused. No, democracy isn't=20 an automatic insurance against atrocities: Hitler won a=20 democratic election, and so did Klement Gottwald in 1948 in=20 Czechoslovakia, where he then proceeded to engineer a=20 communist coup. =20 Propaganda can do it. So can just straight money. That's a=20 potential risk anytime you let the general population have=20 a voice. (Besides, even an undemocratic system can be bought.=20 Sometimes cheaper, as there are fewer people you need to=20 influence.) >For Sale: One Idealistic Medieval Society, now accepting=20 >bids. To act as dairy cattle to a self-appointing,=20 self-perpetuating group that you have no real way to=20 influence, as we do under the current system, may be more=20 idealistic, but not really my idea of fun. It distinctly=20 spoils the game. Besides, if the society really is idealistic, it should be=20 largely proof against vote-buying. =20 The "cash based elitism" objection has been addressed=20 elsewhere.=20 The current system could be described as a "glorified=20 kitchen table elitism".=20 For any selection method there's at least one nasty elitism=20 label you can stick on to it.=20 /Catrin Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 05:01:15 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 10:37:14 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Galleron: Baseline assumptions for elections (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >... > Here are is my baseline assumption of how elections would work. Subject = to > your suggestions and comments, ... One thing that bothers me about the proposal is that the Board itself=20 functions as the nominating committee. In that case, the election process=20 would simply be a modification of the Board's self-perpetuating nature. Any= one=20 judged not suitable, for reasons unknown outside the Board, simply wouldn't= =20 get on the list of nominees.=20 I believe that we need an independent nominating committee. It should be sm= all=20 enough to be manageable, and it should keep track of the Board's need for=20 specialized competence, but it shouldn't consist of Board members.=20 /Catrin Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 08:32:23 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 167 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 08:01:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Morgan on Board Minutes, Elections To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Morgan--Finnvarr From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel, 72672,2312 To: Grand Council Discussion List, INTERNET:STEVEM@EINSTEIN.UNIPISSING.CA Date: Wed, Jan 17, 1996, 19:15 RE: Morgan on Board Minutes, Elections A lot has flowed past since I posted so I will hit only the high points. Arthur said we could pick his points apart, but I will address only the one where I have a significant nugget of information: >> 2) Hire a qualified person to take verbatim notes and extracts thereof. >> This may be trickier than it sounds because of the itinerate and WEEKEND >> nature of our board meetings. getting the right person will probably take >> at least a month,probably more, from the time the first ads are published. I don't think you need a full-time person; you can hire a court reporter in the city of the meeting for just that day. Fees usually include the transcript, and of course they take it down verbatim. The service I use (in Chicago) charges $45 per hour for court time, slightly less out of court -- and that is much cheaper than hiring an employee on an ongoing basis. You can also get the minutes on disk, and use an indexing program (commonly used by lawyers on deposition transcripts) to create the index, no additional work. Concerning the issue of director being willing to serve after elected: Like any candidate, they cannot be on the ballot unless they agree to serve the full term (emergency situations allowing otherwise) if elected. When I run for office, I know going in what the term would be, and roughly what is expected of me. I would expect that any candidate would be the same -- or am I too idealistic? Outside directors are certainly a possibility. I know that student groups sometimes have non-SCA member faculty as advisors to the student arm of the group. Other persons who don't want to commit to the lifestyle in the SCA but are interested in the scholarship may be willing to serve. However, is this really necessary? Why not focus on choosing from within those person who have the backgrounds most appropriate for Directors? Why do we need outside persons at all, unless people see that there are too few members capable of serving? The latest issue of THE BUSINESS LAWYER has a very interesting article on "The Professional Board" by Ira M. Millstein. [Vol. 50, No. 4, page 1427 - August 1995 (delivery is typically behind the times)] He discusses his "belief that directorship requires ever incrasing time demands, leaves no room for 'amateurs,' and requires compensation for value given, especially for major corporations." NOTE THE USE OF THE WORD 'MAJOR'!! He goes not to say that he "emphatically does not mean to recommend ... that boards of directors be drawn >from a cadre of persons whose only function is to serve on corporate boards of directors, and idea emanating from academia which should be rejected." Catrin pointed out that "Under the current setup, the Board has the right to regulate and intervene in all sorts of details, even those of the medieval game. It exercises this right in frequent meetings that are only partly open to the general membership, *** It issues directives that are irrelevant and unintelligible to groups outside the US," and suggests that "If the Board didn't have the right to micro-manage stuff, people would learn to take their whining elsewhere. If the Board could and would show that it was doing its job correctly and responsibly, people wouldn't suspect it of scheming." I don't generally agree with whiners, but Catrin is right about their peceptions. The Board does micro-manage, and after the election/removal of Board members is settled, perhaps looking at its responsibilities in perspective of the greater SCA and the needs/responsibilities of Kingdoms, would be appropriate. However, I think Catrin's assessment of how an outsider would view the SCA is unnecessarily snide and should be disregarded without proof that this is a general perception. As others have warned, Tony Provide should not be our standard. We can look for someone with outside interests who are not SCA members, people who are interested in the eras and in watching or listening, but do not wish to be active for whatever reasons. I disagree with Esclarmonde, having had too many sour experiences with SMOFs, that F/SF fandom is the place to go -- some of them could see the SCA as a place to act out their elf-eared or magical fantasies, too. Galleron suggested as one option for the elections of Directors: >> Maintain current three year terms. Each year, elect sufficient directors to >> replace those current directors who are scheduled to leave office in either >> the current or the following year who do not have successors already elected. I think this is too complicated. Also, it effectively requires people to commit to an even longer term on the Board, as they have the yearlong waiting period before beginning their three-year active term. [To be honest, I had a lot of trouble reading that post, due to margin problems and the length. It was hard to tell where one comment ended and another began.] I liked Galleron's sugestion about the pool of "Candidates for Nomination" plus people who can get on the ballot if they produce sufficient signature (OF MEMBERS!). Alysoun said that "we don't need to elect directors, we need to control the slate. In theory we already do, we can nominate anyone we want and we can blackball any nominee. The trouble is that the process is hidden: we don't know who all is nominated (just whoever is listed as acceptable nominees) and we don't get any report on the feedback -- how many people wrote in and said that person was a good or bad choice. Instead of worrying over an election system, it might be more fruitful to refine how the pool of potential directors is formed. The board vacancies would be filled from the pool as need be." Agreed!! All you ever see is a list of names in TI, on and on. For example, the Fall 1995 issue is out, I received mine yesterday. [Rather tardy if we are to use this as the source of suggestions, but I know the catch-up Meredydd has had to play.] For example, I see Ghita listed for the second time (also in Summer, not in Spring) and she was already elected to the Board. Should we also consider requiring people to stay in the pool for a certain length of time before being on the ballot, to allow for sufficient feedback? [Not meaning to pick on Ghita, but she is an obvious example.] On a side issue, Finnvarr pointed out in response to something else Alysoun said that SCA folk view additional services from a central office as only the source of higher fees etc. I have also heard that people do not wish it because they do not wish their names and addresses circulated -- the cause of so much uproar concerning the credit card mailing. I know at least one woman who conceals her participation because she sees it as a barrier to progress in her profession (academia). ---= Morgan |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 08:36:53 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 835 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 08:14:27 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Galleron: Baseline assumptions for elections (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <960119.103714.24139@macpost.lu.se> from "Janna Spanne" at Jan 19, 96 10:37:14 am Greetings from Tibor. Catrin wrote: I believe that we need an independent nominating committee. It should be small enough to be manageable, and it should keep track of the Board's need for specialized competence, but it shouldn't consist of Board members. I've been coming to this conclusion also, and I'm glad to see Catrin propose it. While it does add a layer of complexity to a process that is already complex, I find it an important part of the issue of legitimacy and fairness. Just as we ought to have financial auditing that checks on the Treasurer, as opposed to reporting to, even though we don't expect theft >from our treasurers. Nothing could tear us apart more quickly, than dynastic wars over the legitimacy of elections. It would be a crisis of confidence, AND it could be quite expensive legally. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 11:10:50 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2856 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 10:42:18 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Morgan on Board Minutes, Elections To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <30FFC244@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> from "Steve Muhlberger" at Jan 19, 96 08:01:00 am Greetings from Tibor. Morgan wrote: Concerning the issue of director being willing to serve after elected: Like any candidate, they cannot be on the ballot unless they agree to serve the full term (emergency situations allowing otherwise) if elected. When I run for office, I know going in what the term would be, and roughly what is expected of me. I would expect that any candidate would be the same -- or am I too idealistic? I think the issue here, is adaption of the current system. Currently, nominations languish in limbo for up to three years. In the Society, frequently, life circumstances can change during that time. With the current system, there is no problem: You get the call, you say "No, Thanks". With the proposed system that is not so easy. (Three years ago? Yikes. That was before the Mandamus Petition, before my heart surgery, before I bought my house, and five software contracts/jobs ago. I am sure you understand how my personal circumstances are reflecting on my concerns, now.) Re: Outside Directors: However, is this really necessary? Why not focus on choosing from within those person who have the backgrounds most appropriate for Directors? Why do we need outside persons at all, unless people see that there are too few members capable of serving? I don't think *necessary* is the key issue. I wanted to make it clear that we were making the adoption of outside directors more difficult. Part of the challenge of recruiting directors of appropriate backgrounds can be reflected in the Grand Council itself. We worked very hard to find people with the appropriate professional credentials. The end result is, frequently they are too successful and too overwhelmed with their mundane lives that gave them the credentials, to participate. I am not saying that such problems are a given: it is merely an exemplar of the sort of problem I am concerned about. Agreed!! All you ever see is a list of names in TI, on and on. For example, the Fall 1995 issue is out, I received mine yesterday. [Rather tardy if we are to use this as the source of suggestions, but I know the catch-up Meredydd has had to play.] For example, I see Ghita listed for the second time (also in Summer, not in Spring) and she was already elected to the Board. Should we also consider requiring people to stay in the pool for a certain length of time before being on the ballot, to allow for sufficient feedback? [Not meaning to pick on Ghita, but she is an obvious example.] While not a bad notion, this suffers from the same problem that led you to reject one of Galleron's notions (which I deleted above). To be nominated and wait, and then serve, is a yet longer commitment. I wonder if the "pool of candidates" idea really will serve us in an electoral system. Can we tune it? Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 11:57:04 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: fiacha@premier1 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: Nigel Haslock Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 07:50:13 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Nigel Haslock Subject: Fiacha: Re: Baseline assumptions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601191314.IAA26212@abel.math.harvard.edu> Greetings from Fiacha, On Fri, 19 Jan 1996, Mark Schuldenfrei wrote: > Greetings from Tibor. > > Catrin wrote: > I believe that we need an independent nominating committee. It should be > small enough to be manageable, and it should keep track of the Board's > need for specialized competence, but it shouldn't consist of Board > members. > > I've been coming to this conclusion also, and I'm glad to see Catrin propose > it. I was going to agree with this but I changed my mind. We need someone to manage the election and we need that someone to be immune to influence from SCA politics in any form. This someone needs to vet candidate applications, position statements, voting form generation and distribution, vote collection and result announcement. Candidate applications need to include independently verifyable qualifications. (Assume that the membership list and the BoD Minutes subscription list is available to the checker). I like the subscription criteria but I suggest that an additional criteria be a collection of signatures from the candidates supporters, up to some managable number like 100. Position statements need to be vetted for size and for actionable statements. I would not object to the board adding a standard sized endorsement to each candidates position statement or a simple flag to indicate the boards preferred candidates. Forms need to be designed to suit the counting method being used. They then need to be supplied either as an insert to a publication or mailed directly to the electorate. Additional supplies may need to be held for mail in requests. The votes need to be collected, i.e. required to be mailed to a central address and then picked up from that address. They then need to be counted. Counting schemes like multiple transferable votes need to be allowed for. The results then need to be announced. Not simply who won but how many votes were cast, the number of spoiled returns, the number of returns lacking proof of membership, etc. Regards Fiacha From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 12:08:56 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 879 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 11:12:34 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Nominating Committee (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L For Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 11:06:41 -0500 Subject: Nominating Committee Please forward to GC I don't think a nominating Committee is absolutely essential, but it might not be a bad idea. One member per Kingdom, as per Cariadoc, is too big. My suggestion: Seven members, two year terms, elected by same procedure as Board on the same ballot. The current system of listing nominees is continued, but renamed "Candidates for nomination", and used as a pool from which the Nominating Committee and others draw its nominees for the ballot. Nominating Committee sifts through comments, selects non-petition nominees for ballot, is reponsible for preparing description/resumees for its nominees. Shifting workload off the Board is a good thing. Will McLean/Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 16:05:43 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 15:04:35 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun: not happy To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Alysoun who is uncomfortable with all the choices so far If Finnvarr is correct in saying that our objective in considering elections is to legitimize the board in the eyes of the membership, I don't see how any of the plans will do it. (I can be convinced that people might think it helps--until push comes to shove.) The choices seem to boil down into either some version on popular vote or some version of kingdom vote. If it goes by popular vote those smaller areas, such as Europe, could be consistently outvoted--no directors particularly sympathetic to their concerns. If we go by kingdom vote, the needs of the majority of members may be sidelined by the minority interests. Either way it seems to me that a substantial number of people won't consider the board legitimate. Tying the vote to board minutes or write for a ballot doesn't solve the dilemma, because the problem has to do with population distribution. (And by-the-by, it's not so likely that anyone will "buy" votes, it's a matter of get-the-vote-out campaigns. A region, kingdom, or interest group could swing elections--easily, I suspect, given the overall apathy/forgot-to mentality rampant in the society.) Although it is a different topic, relevant here is the question of kingdom size. This would make the most difference if votes are done by kingdom, but it might also influence the popular vote. People are quick to say that members' orientation stems from kingdom history. Two other factors are at work: one is regional (the Midwest is likely to be conservative on some matters whether we are in one kingdom or five) and the other is how the kingdom presently functions. Because of its size, Midrealm is forced to be more institutional than other kingdoms--if it were a number of smaller kingdoms, this would not be the case. I personally think the last is the most influential--that the conception of SCAinc and the expectation held for board members by many members here in Midrealm is based on the needs and interests required by a large kingdom. If I am correct about this, kingdom size would make a significant difference on the "fairness" of an election system. As things now stand, however, I will oppose any change in how the Board is selected and would favor mechanisms which would allow kingdoms to block specific policy implementation in their domain rather than focus on the directors as people. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 16:12:36 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1624 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 15:16:51 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Galleron: Election Baseline compared to Cariadoc's (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 14:03:57 -0500 Subject: Galleron: Election Baseline compared to Cariadoc's Please forward to GC Justin asked for a quick summary on the differences between Cariadoc's election proposal and mine: Yes, they are pretty similar. Mine goes into greater detail on lead time, schedule of elections and other details because Fiacha asked. Cariadoc proposed a Nominating Commitee composed of one elected member per kingdom, current Board, and heads of major society hierarchies. I didn't propose a separate nominating committee but wouldn't mind a small, independent one. Tibor has probably posted my suggestion for one by now. Cariadoc's committee is too big, and doesn't shift work off the Board. I propose two alternates be elected, and that barring lack of decent candidates the Board or nominating committee put up more candidates than there are positions to be filled. Cariadoc doesn't. He has an explicit requirement the Society publications accept requests for petition signatures at their ordinary advertising rates. Fair enough, meant to include it in mine, forgot. His proposal assumes membership suffrage. I intended mine as the default assumptions for any of the electoral methods. He has a 2% of membership requirement for nomination by petition. I think 1% is plenty, and give some other ways to meet the petition hurdle. I'd like feedback on those, by the way. Is three kings or 2% of local seneschals too hard or too easy? Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 16:15:34 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1083 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 15:16:04 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Galleron: Amending the Bylaws To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Tibor. Galleron wrote: My assumption is that any of the proposed changes from the current system of selecting the Board will require changing the governing documents. My sense is that this would be feasible for all the proposals, that it might cost a few thousand dollars in legal fees, and that we can defer discussion of the details of the rewrite until we find out if the Society wants to make the change. I would presume that, should we make a proposal, that it includes all the appropriate language and changes all at once. This would allow the Board to enact it more swiftly. If we move a proposal forward to the Board for its "sense", we must bring language to the following Board meeting, which would have to be approved by an attorney for the meeting following that. Let's save the several months. Besides, with the people we have now, we can get language that is pretty darned close to legal, indeed. And, I've noticed past Boards are not at all averse to changing the language, but with no language provided simply table motions. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 16:17:38 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 656 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 15:13:46 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Galleron: Amending the Bylaws (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 14:03:51 -0500 Subject: Galleron: Amending the Bylaws Please forward to GC My assumption is that any of the proposed changes from the current system of selecting the Board will require changing the governing documents. My sense is that this would be feasible for all the proposals, that it might cost a few thousand dollars in legal fees, and that we can defer discussion of the details of the rewrite until we find out if the Society wants to make the change. Any comments from the legal minds reading this? Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 19 18:49:34 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 49 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 17:03:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Finnvarr: not happy with Alysoun :-) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I think I once again sent a posting to "owner-scagc-l" instead of the list. Is it possible to make the return path to the list instead of to the "owner?" To business: >As things now stand, however, I will oppose any change in how the Board is >selected and would favor mechanisms which would allow kingdoms to block >specific policy implementation in their domain rather than focus on the >directors as people. I share Alysoun's fear that nothing we will do in the way of election will alter the Board's legitimacy -- at least not sufficiently to make a difference. However, the above proposal I think means giving up entirely on having a central authority for either managing mundane business or arbitrating the rules of the game. There clearly is the perception out there that the Board has too much power in too many aspects of the Society's life -- Catrin has just articulated that pretty well. Let me suggest, though, that defining the Board's jurisdiction -- or perhaps the separate jurisdictions of Board and Court of Appeal -- is a better approach. If the limits were clear, AND the Board more responsible to the membership, then the Board might be seen as legitimate in its proper sphere. Otherwise we will drift off into our separate games at ever greater speed. This may be fine with some people, but not me. Here's part of my logic. When the Board intervenes, especially when it intervenes in the game, it is usually because people are vociferously demanding that it intervene. Everyone can think of exceptions, but I've been there and I think I know what I'm talking about. If the Board or CoA has no role in deciding these very divisive issues, or deciding what rules apply, then instead of hot issues being arbitrated by people who have no direct interest, who may be able to take a wider view, they will be decided by people who have a direct interest and are likely mad as hell, in an atmosphere permeated by symbolic loyalties, personal grudges, dynastic ambitions, and so forth. In large kingdoms where one region dominates and others feel left out, the political hassles will be even worse. Instead of the SCA being pulled apart, it will be kingdoms. This is an improvement? Finnvarr Ask for examples if you like. I'll keep names out of them. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 20 12:41:51 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 12:13:35 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun: reply to Finnvarr To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I doubt Finnvarr and I are disagreeing. The question is whether we can discuss it on the list or whether it is too much off the topic? It is relevant to the Board question and if I had been able to post earlier in the election discussion I would have. Legitimacy of the central organization will have to come from universal goals. Universal goals do not mean universal policy. The idea is to get the central body and the kingdom speaking the same language as far as objectives go, but recognizing that the means for meeting those objectives can and should vary by local conditions. This is what is happening sub rosa in places like Sweden when there is no good fit between US-based directives and local law and custom. If anyone has the real scoop on demo reports, I would appreciate knowing it. The general opinion locally is that this comes from the top in order to support our educational effort for tax purposes. If so, it is poorly conceived, inefficient, and silly. What needs to come from the top is an open-ended directive, something like: we need to substantiate our educational effort. It would then be up to the kingdom to determine how to best assess and report this--which in turn would depend on how the educational dimension works in that kingdom--demos, classes, displays, whatever. What is not up for question: the goal of educational effort; the responsibility of the kingdom for that effort in its domain; the need to assess that effort. I'm all for the Board being able to disintegrate any kingdom that fails to respect basic goals and objectives. On the flip side of the coin, the kingdom should be able to resist any directive which works against those basic goals and objectives within its domain. The kingdom should be given the rationale to evaluate for the Board, explaining why the policy (demo reports) would not be successful in implementing the objective (assessing the educational effort) in its area. Take the example of the membership fiasco: Assuming that the objective was simply solving a financial problem (which I don't for a minute believe), the Board should have sent an emergency alert to the kingdoms and the kingdoms should have responded in a way best fitting local conditions. One kingdom might opt for the non-member event fee, another pay to fight, and others come up with creative alternatives. (Note that different membership requirements predate this incident.) WE could all legitimately raise cain that the financial situation had deteriorated to such a state and demand that it was fixed. All this depends on having articulated basic objectives--which I think must be derived from serving members. The central body has to explain how any of its directives enhance member participation and it must back off when any kingdom can show that it works to the contrary in their particular situation. And getting back to Finnvarr, the same objectives are available to the players and can be used to appeal policy from any level. So for example, given the Canadian dollar, those members should be able to demand a membership adjustment and the Board should respond. Or, those areas of Midrealm which never see royalty can petition and speedily receive principality or even kingdom status. Or, members in a local group which consistently fails to coalesce can ask that territoriality be waived. If you all will look back over the many topics we've discussed and the grounds for our disagreement, you will see that much of the problem lay in trying to fit one approach to a multitude of particular situations. We need as many approaches as there are particular situations, but we don't need a multitude of goals, and that is what should hold us all together. How it works in Ansteorra may seem strange when I am standing in Midrealm, but when I go to there it should make sense. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 20 19:07:32 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Schuylab@AOL.COM Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 18:41:02 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Eichling Von Amrun Subject: Re: Selection/Removal of BoD To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Subj: Re: Selection/Removal of BoD Date: 96-01-16 22:45:29 EST From: Schuylab To: GC Subj: Selection/removal of BoD Date: 96-01-16 00:13:35 EST Greetings to the GC: Like Finvarr's, my missives show a disturbing tendancy to go flying off into the aether. Below is the reply I 'sent' earlier this week. Perusing the communications since then, I am observing again an inclination for the GC to loose focus on the issue under discussion just as it seems that we are approaching some sort of a coherant response. Is this really the time to ask if we should be switching topics and discussing kingdom size a a prerequisite to our currently ongoing topic of election/removal of BoD members? I'm pleased with the progress we are making; those individuals in Caid to whom I've casually mentioned the concept of votes-per-BoD minutes have responded with a, "Hmm. You know...That's not bad. I kinda like that idea..." Since the opinions of these individuals are well worth soliciting, I am quite heartened. Let's continue to pursue this concept. Who is planning on being at Estrella this year? Could we get together, perhaps? Eichling (original message below) Greetings- I have attempted to catch up on several weeks of correspondence.Congratulations to those regular contributors, far more diligent than I, who are managing to keep pace with the missives. Whew! While I'm certain that I have far from done justice to the many interesting messages transmitted, I have at least caught the gist of the current topics. Here are my opinions: 1) One of my overt purposes in becoming part of the GC was to try to insure that those individuals who have been steadfastly contributing to the SCA for one-or-several decades under the IMPRESSION that they were actually members were not entirely in error. It seems to be the consensus that the vote of the total paid membership would be too cumbersome to handle logistically; the option (I believe suggested by Tibor) that the voting constituency be the subscribers to the BoD minutes is satisfactory. Any one who really cares to vote, can. 2) I also like Tibor's idea that vacancies be filled by previous BoD members. This is also in accord with current practice. 3) The vote for a director can be a leisurely process. The removal of one may be an immediate necessity.Justin's plan of allowing the removal of a BoD member by 50% of the Crown heads (likely to be the fastest moving in case of an emergency), or 50% of the kingdom seneschals, or 5% of the members (this, I assume means the BoD subscribers?) suffices. 4) Yes. I think agree with Modius that the BoD minutes should be posted on the Rialto. The official minutes would still be sent to subscribers by mail -- but there is nothing wrong with making them easily available more quickly. We want to increase access to information, after all. Let me review the first point in more detail. What is being proposed is essentially a four class system: Participants (no newsletter, no vote, no power to make decisions), subscribers (newsletter, but no vote, no power to make decisions), members (newsletter, vote, no power to make decisions), BoD members (newsletter, vote, power to make decisions). Is this correct? I shall try to keep up a bit better... Eichling From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 20 22:38:56 1996 Return-Path: Priority: normal X-Mailer: ExpressNet/SMTP v1.1.5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Roy Gathercoal Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 19:00:23 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Roy Gathercoal Organization: George Fox College Subject: Board whining To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Afraid I agree with Alysoun on the board whining thing. The board is remote, and that is all it takes. People whine about the stuff the boards of directors do at GM, and the American Heart Association, and the Roman Catholic Church (in spite of the ramifications. . .) People whine about the curia and great officers and royalty, especially of the larger kingdoms, and especially if the whiners don't know anyone personally who is currently serving. When I joined the SCA a long time before any of the last few rounds started, people were whining about which copy machine was being purchased by "those Californians." Shoot, now even the people running for office in the Congress of the US are whining about the Congress of the US--about the people who were elected because they were effective whiners two, four and six years ago. We should not deceive ourselves into thinking that any election scheme, removal scheme, or governance scheme will do a thing to even reduce the amount or intensity of whining. As long as people care about the organization, they will whine. This does not mean, however, that we should not address legitimate problems in order to make things better. Let's just not start reacting to whining. It's more a themometer of the health of the whiner, than of the whinee. Gareth -- From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 20 23:04:01 1996 Return-Path: Priority: normal X-Mailer: ExpressNet/SMTP v1.1.5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Roy Gathercoal Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 19:35:15 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Roy Gathercoal Organization: George Fox College Subject: Taking exception to a characterization of the board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Janna wrote: >To act as dairy cattle to a self-appointing,=20 self-perpetuating group that you have no real way to=20 influence, as we do under the current system, may be more=20 idealistic, but not really my idea of fun. It distinctly=20 spoils the game. This is the sort of characterization that gets us nowhere. This statement if false, in that there are clear ways to influence the board, and the board's selection of board members. For heaven's sakes. The list of nominees is published so often as to be tedious, and letters of comment are begged. Yet few write, and those seem to be principally the same commenters time after time. Please do not think that the board is a chummy group who selects its friends for the next available slot--this is much more likely on the kingdom level. Often, there is no one on the board who personally knows the new member. The selection criteria has been principally balance, between ex-royalty and not, fighters and non-fighters, large kingdoms and small, as well as modern occupation and skills. If there were already two members serving from one kingdom, for example, all candidates from that kingdom would be virtually eliminated from consideration. When I sat in on the deliberations (ex-board memebers check my experience, here) discussion focussed on the experiences and abilities of the nominees, with attention to the letters of recommendation (both for and against). The procedure was much more a discussion than a vote, with all (or nearly all) of the directors coming to agreement before a decision was made. Serving on the board is currently an awful responsibility, and has wrecked the SCA experience for many who had previously survived great office and royalty. Gareth -- From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 20 23:52:58 1996 Return-Path: Priority: normal X-Mailer: ExpressNet/SMTP v1.1.5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Roy Gathercoal Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 20:20:15 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Roy Gathercoal Organization: George Fox College Subject: A few thoughts on voting To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I am not a proponent of voting as a first solution. It should only be used when the membership is so disjointed, so divided and so oppositional that an agreement is not possible. Voting divides people, so that the elected (bumper sticker: Don't blame me, I didn't vote for him) are supported by the victorious majority, while the defeated minority are encouraged by the structure to look for ways to become the victorious majority. This can mean working to be sure that the efforts of the winners (person or party) are shown to be failures. Of course, this is not inevitable. But it is supported by the structure. Even the preface written by Roberts (Rules of Order) acknowledges consensus to be better for the body than voting. Voting as we know it is a personal, not a public act. Therefore, it is far easier to highlight one's personal potential gains and to shadow the good of the society. When I must engage others in the group, especially when the rules encourage me to honestly listen to what others are saying, and to know that what I say will be heard, it is more likely that I will place the good of the group foremost. No process of decision making will save a group bent on self-destruction. But some processes structurally encourage people to understand, while others encourage people to compete. I consider the embrace of consensus to be one of the brighter aspects of the SCA's legacy. Encouraging people to work out differences rather than simply to command a majority is consistent with the values we express, such as tolerance, charity, civility and gentility. Is it truly the case that we do not like the selection of board members? I challenge anyone to espouse a system that would perform better over the long haul, in selecting selfless, serving, generous and thoughtful people for the board of directors. Is it the case that we do not like the decisions made by some boards? Then let us address those decisions, or more fruitfully, examine the assumptions and other bases for these decisions. If we, as a society, wish to avoid becoming more like a business, then let us find a way to collectively say this to this, and every future board. Telling board members "decide what you will, but if you err, we will shoot you" is no answer. If input to the board is what we want, then let us find ways of creating effective means for providing input to the board. Quarterly business meetings and individual letters are incredibly ineffective ways of channeling effective input to the board, and the historic board policy of assigning each letter to a board member for a personal answer is pure folly. Is it the case that legitimacy is the real problem, that we fear that the populace does not believe that the board has the right to select board members? Perhaps some believe that, but let us acknowledge that most of the boards around are effectively selected by a small group of people. Most organizations realize that effective boards (those which do enough of the right things, and stay out of the wrong things) are too important to leave up to the whims of an uninformed electorate, and I see no way of transforming the SCA into anything but an uninformed electorate. We are too large, too diverse, and too geographically spread. I served as Kingdom Seneschal of what is (depending on how you count) the largest or second-largest kingdom. I visited every area, and nearly every state and province in the kingdom, and knew more about what was happening in each local group than did any Crown (not intended to be either a poor reflection on the Crowns, or a credit to me--my term was two years, I was heavily involved with curia for several years before I took office, and I had an effective information-gathering network). Yet there were many competent people in the Midrealm I did not run across, and many others I only knew by rumor. And however large it is, the Middle Kingdom is only one kingdom. Even after two years, there were several other kingdom seneschals I had not met, and many kingdoms from which I knew not even a handful of people. I had no basis on which to decide who would make a good director, except personal knowledge and the opinions of others, most of whom knew the same people I knew. The directors can carefully review letters of recommendation and resume's of applicants. Do we wish to make this same information available to the entire SCA world? Perhaps a forty or fifty page election handbook each year? Or are we to let some nominating committee (which does not even have to live with the consequences of their actions) effectively make the decision for us, providing a list of three similar candidates for two slots. If legitimacy is the goal, this would be a sham. Some have questioned that universal votes could be unduly influenced. I would suggest that there will be great apathy in the Society, unless someone who can dominate the platform calls for action. I could see a situation in which a Crown could easily use the kingdom newsletter, pronouncements in court, etc. to call the people of the kingdom to be sure and vote. I cannot believe that most SCA people would do anything but vote for the person from their kingdom! And a high turnout from one large kingdom would be more than enough to create a plurality among a multiple-candidate field. Further, I would suggest that given a universal election from a large slate of candidates, it is unlikely that any small kingdom will see a board member from home until and unless there is cross-kingdom electioneering, and effective local mechanisms to get out particular votes. Sure, I disagree with many decisions made by the board, and believe that the way things are done is broken, but board selection is not one of those things. I suggest that what we really need to do is to come to grips with the hard issues of power in the society. What is to be the role of each body, and how are these bodies to be mutually accountable? That is what is broken, and what should be first fixed. Gareth -- From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 00:16:10 1996 Return-Path: References: Conversation <960120121331_401965128@emout04.mail.aol.com> with last message <960120121331_401965128@emout04.mail.aol.com> Priority: Normal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Erik Langhans Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 00:24:33 CST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Erik Langhans Subject: Re: Alysoun: reply to Finnvarr To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <960120121331_401965128@emout04.mail.aol.com> You brought up an important point. Demo, info and info on classes is being collected. As a Deputy Kingdom Hospitaler I know what use these reports and information is put to. The info is repackaged and shared with other groups accross the same Kingdom and also shared accross the SCA ie at Pensic we had a Known World Hospitaler's meeting at which info and ideas was shared. Why? By doing these sort of demos and holding classes we not only tap a VITAL source of new blood (read members) but keep the blood invigorated with new ideas. Regardless whether or not is is required to show proof that we are "fulfilling an educational purpose". -Modius e-mail: modius@cityscope.net web page: www.cityscope.net/~modius From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 11:38:12 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 22 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 11:04:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Being on the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Gareth said, among other things: >Please do not think that the board is a chummy group who selects its friends >for the next available slot....Often, there is no one on the board who >personaly knows the new member. The selection criteria has been principally >balance, >Serving on the board is currently an awful responsibility, and has wrecked >theSCA experience for many who had previously survived great office and >royalty. All true. Those who have opposed various Board decisions may find this hard to believe, but one of the chief concerns of the Board is to have a good enough balance that the decisions taken will not prove intolerable to some segment of the membership. Obviously this does not always work, but when I was on the Board we never lost track of the necessity for care and compromise. Finnvarr -- From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 12:40:20 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 74 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 12:05:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Finnvarr: Gareth's thoughts on voting To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I am very sympathetic to much of what Gareth says (surprise!). But I can't agree totally. Gareth also raises some points that need our close attention. >I consider the embrace of consensus to be one of the brighter aspects of the >SCA's legacy. Encouraging people to work out differences rather than simply >to command a majority is consistent with the values we express, such as >tolerance, charity, civility and gentility. Consensus is good where possible. But the SCA has also seen a lot of behind-the-scenes, secretive decision-making, at various levels, justified in the name of consensus, and carried out in an autocratic manner. It is very hard to establish a real consensus when people do not know each other and have no way of hashing out their differences face-to-face. >Is it truly the case that we do not like the selection of board members? I >challenge anyone to espouse a system that would perform better over the long >haul, in selecting selfless, serving, generous and thoughtful people for the >board of directors. The current system has worked very well EXCEPT for the fact that many members don't believe in it. This is a fatal flaw when push comes to shove. >Is it the case that we do not like the decisions made by some boards? Then >let us address those decisions, or more fruitfully, examine the assumptions >and other bases for these decisions. ... If input to the board is >what we want, then let us find ways of creating effective means for providing >input to the board. Bull's eye. >Is it the case that legitimacy is the real problem, that we fear that the >populace does not believe that the board has the right to select board >members? We damned well know that this is a real problem. >Or are we to let some nominating committee (which does not even have to live >with the consequences of their actions) This is a problem with the nominating committee method that had not occurred to me. >I cannot believe that most SCA people would do anything but vote for the >person from their kingdom! >Further, I would suggest that given a universal election from a large slate >of candidates, it is unlikely that any small kingdom will see a board member >from home until and unless there is cross-kingdom electioneering, and >effective local mechanisms to get out particular votes. Proponents of universal election please comment. Are all the Board members to come from the East and Middle Kingdoms from now on? Wow, are the rest of you in for a shock! :-) >I suggest that what we really need to do is to come to grips with the hard >issues of power in the society. What is to be the role of each body, and how >are these bodies to be mutually accountable? That is what is broken, and >what should be first fixed. *What is to be the role of each body...* If the Board was perceived to have an appropriately circumscribed jurisdiction, the membership as a whole would be more tolerant of it using its powers decisively in that jurisdiction. If the division of powers were clearer, then maybe the Board and the Corporate Officers would not have to take the heat for requirements and paper work actually generated by Kingdom, Principality and regional officers. If rulings on the rules of the game were the responsibility of a separate body than the Board, the Court of Appeal that I am so tiresome about, then again, the illusion of a monolithic, irresponsible, and power-hungry center might be somewhat dispersed. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 13:49:21 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: david friedman Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 10:17:56 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: david friedman Subject: Re: Alysoun: reply to Finnvarr To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >You brought up an important point. Demo, info and info on classes is >being collected. As a Deputy Kingdom Hospitaler I know what use >these reports and information is put to. The info is repackaged and >shared with other groups accross the same Kingdom and also shared >accross the SCA ie at Pensic we had a Known World Hospitaler's >meeting at which info and ideas was shared. ... >-Modius I'm coming into the middle of this, being behind on my GC mail, but Modius seems to be talking about two different things. I certainly agree that information gets shared via Pennsic classes and the like; I have been doing so, mainly for cooking and storytelling, for many years. But that has nothing to do with the system of reports. So far as I can tell by my own experience, the official system of arts reporting plays essentially no role in the process by which people find out who is doing what, learn from each other, etc. Exempla gratia. I have been doing medieval cooking, teaching it, and publishing materials on it, for something over twenty years. I cannot recall a single case when someone came to me and said "I am looking for information on medieval cooking. The reason I am coming to you is that I asked my local MoA who was doing period cooking, she asked her regional, he asked the kingdom MoA, she checked her reports and sent back the message that according to the Grey Gargoyles MoA Cariadoc was doing it and here is how to get in touch with him." That is not, at least in my experience, how information gets disseminated in the Society. I have no experience with the Hospitallers, and do not know what kingdom Modius is in, so perhaps his experience is different than mine. David/Cariadoc From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 13:51:53 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: david friedman Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 10:18:09 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: david friedman Subject: Re: Being on the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >Those who have opposed various Board decisions may find this hard to believe, >but one of the chief concerns of the Board is to have a good enough balance >that the decisions taken will not prove intolerable to some segment of the >membership. Obviously this does not always work, but when I was on the Board >we never lost track of the necessity for care and compromise. > >Finnvarr Was there concern with the problem of a "board agenda"--a common viewpoint, possibly different from the members', due to the common experience of looking at things from the center? The obvious example is required membership. I first wrote the Board on that issue fourteen years ago, in response to an issue of the minutes in which it seemed clear that the board simply took it for granted that movements in the direction of requiring membership for more things were a good thing. My casual impression is that that bias persisted--and I am inclined to view it as due to the particular perspective of the board. David/Cariadoc From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 17:09:59 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 37 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 16:33:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Historical note: Being on the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >Was there concern with the problem of a "board agenda"--a common viewpoint, >possibly different from the members', due to the common experience of >looking at things from the center? This may be my blind spot, but I don't remember there being a lot of issues that broke down that way. >The obvious example is required membership. I first wrote the Board on that >issue fourteen years ago, in response to an issue of the minutes in which >it seemed clear that the board simply took it for granted that movements in >the direction of requiring membership for more things were a good thing. >My >casual impression is that that bias persisted--and I am inclined to view it >as due to the particular perspective of the board. There may be some justice in that, however from the discussions I've heard here and elsewhere, I don't think that support for required membership can fairly ascribed entirely to the bias of officers and Board members. Some of the general membership favors it and I think that in some areas the support is fairly strong. One reason for this support is a shared set of assumptions that there is a particular way that organizations do and should work, that come out of our ordinary experience of many other organizations. It's fair enough to say that this view is probably over-represented in the higher officers of SCA groups. In any case, required membership was not a big issue between 1984-1987. I don't recall us ever talking about it, or making any changes in policy. Other issues tended to have regional support and regional opposition. The overall thrust of the Board from an organizational point of view was to simplify operations, even to cut back on paperwork and the number of offices. There was a fair amount of resistance to that; and the Board often got dragged into issues it wanted to stay out of, despite its best efforts. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 22:55:55 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: david friedman Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 17:41:13 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: david friedman Subject: Re: Finnvarr: Gareth's thoughts on voting To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >>Is it the case that legitimacy is the real problem, that we fear that the >>populace does not believe that the board has the right to select board >>members? > >We damned well know that this is a real problem. Some of us suspect it may be a feature, not a bug. If the Board of two years ago had been elected it might well have been the same board, given general apathy, and the additional legitimacy of election would have made it harder to persuade it that it was in the wrong. That is one of the reasons I am of two minds over the desirability of elections. David/Cariadoc David Friedman Professor of Law Santa Clara University ddfr@best.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 21 22:57:23 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: david friedman Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 17:41:17 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: david friedman Subject: Re: Historical note: Being on the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Finnvair writes: >There may be some justice in that, however from the discussions I've heard >here and elsewhere, I don't think that support for required membership can >fairly ascribed entirely to the bias of officers and Board members. Some of >the general membership favors it and I think that in some areas the support >is fairly strong. Clearly true. But in other areas, the opposition is fairly strong. My impression, mostly from the 1982 minutes and the 1992-94 actions, was the only one of those positions had significant representation on the Board. When the Board asked for comment from the membership, for example, all of the questions involved possible increases in membership requirements--the option of decreasing them was simply left out. That, at least, is my memory. David/Cariadoc David Friedman Professor of Law Santa Clara University ddfr@best.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 03:51:59 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 09:26:30 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Finnvarr: Gareth's thoughts on voting To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Finnvarr in response to Gareth: >*What is to be the role of each body...* If the Board was perceived to ha= ve >an appropriately circumscribed jurisdiction, the membership as a whole wou= ld >be more tolerant of it using its powers decisively in that jurisdiction. > >If the division of powers were clearer, then maybe the Board and the >Corporate Officers would not have to take the heat for requirements and pa= per >work actually generated by Kingdom, Principality and regional officers. > >If rulings on the rules of the game were the responsibility of a separate >body than the Board, the Court of Appeal that I am so tiresome about, then >again, the illusion of a monolithic, irresponsible, and power-hungry center >might be somewhat dispersed. Amen. Problem is, changing the power structure in this way is, under the current= =20 system, up to the *Board*. They write all the rules. On their own, if they= =20 choose to.=20 As long as they are being selected and socialized into believing that they = are=20 the *only* people capable of leading the SCA with due legal and fiscal=20 responsibility (hmmm...), how do we persuade them that contemplating a diff= erent=20 model might be a good idea? /Catrin Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 05:08:39 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 10:39:35 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Finnvarr: Gareth's thoughts on voting To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >... >>Or are we to let some nominating committee (which does not even have to l= ive >>with the consequences of their actions) > >This is a problem with the nominating committee method that had not occurr= ed >to me. As long as the nominating committe are members of the society, they *do* ha= ve=20 to live with the consequences. If they make the wrong choices, the board=20 they've contributed to selecting will do a poor job. This will presumably h= ave=20 effect on the members in general. If, in addition, it's generally known who= was=20 on the nominating committee, rest assured that they'll be made to notice!=20 I was recently approched by the nominating committee for the board of=20 SKA-Nordmark (our modern-life clone), asking if I'd accept nomination for t= he=20 post of treasurer. I explained why they shouldn't trust me with handling th= e=20 group's finance, and they very sensibly desisted.=20 Why, if they're desperate to fill all the posts? Well, it's *their* money a= s=20 well. They weren't prepared to live with the consequences of letting the an= nual=20 meeting elect an inept treasurer. =20 /Catrin Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 06:25:03 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: klth-jsp@pop.lu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Janna G Spanne Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 12:31:27 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna G Spanne Subject: Re: Galleron: Election Baseline compared to Cariadoc's (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >... (nominating committee) ... > Cariadoc's committee is too big, and doesn't shift work off the Board. Agree with Galleron. > ... barring lack of decent candidates the Board or nominating >committee put up > more candidates than there are positions to be >filled. ... Agree with Galleron. > He has a 2% of membership requirement for nomination by petition. I think 1% > is plenty, and give some other ways to meet the petition hurdle. I'd like > feedback on those, by the way. Is three kings or 2% of local seneschals too > hard or too easy? The issues are legitimacy, representation and competence. In view of how kings are (and in my opinion *should* be) selected, i.e. as a part of the medieval "game", royalty should be irrelevant in this context. Seneschals should be relevant only if the system for appointing them is amended to empower the membership/participants. /Catrin Nec Aurum Nec Status From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 08:21:12 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 160 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 07:49:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Letter from the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Morgan quite rightly suggests that the GC should see this... Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 18:33:48 -0600 (CST) From: Susan Earley Please post this message to any mailing lists which may be interested. It has been posted to West, Caid, An Tir, Middle, SCA Reform and the Rialto. In early 1994, the Board of Directors became aware that the SCA, Inc.'s financial health was in distress because we did not have enough money in the bank to cover the amount of our subscription liability. One of the methods implemented to address that situation was the "non-member surcharge" (NMS). This was always meant to be a temporary means of fund raising. Although we have reversed the subscription liability situation, we have another goal to reach in order to prevent future financial distress. The Board is hereby soliciting commentary on the means to reach this goal. The Goal. The Board has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that the SCA, Inc. has available to it adequate cash reserves to meet its just financial obligations if an emergency need should arise. Current prudent and responsible practice sets this at a minimum of six month's worth of operating funds -- at present in our case, about $230,000. This amount is separate from the subscription liability, which is now fully funded, thanks in part to the NMS, and in part to overestimated budget expenses in 1995. As of the end of 1995, we have about $75,000 saved towards the reserve. This means we need to save another $155,000 before we can stop this fund-raising effort. The Current Methods. The NMS was a moderately successful means to raise funds over the last 21 months or so, and has been a source of funds to the Kingdoms through the $1 rebate per surcharge collected, but it has generated varied amounts of controversy throughout the Known World. Another Method. One suggestion was that the Board make a blanket request for donations. Therefore, we hereby make a blanket request for donations. All donations received decrease the amount that must be raised through formal means, and the time those formal means must be in place. Please send all donations to the Treasurer, Susan Earley, (address in back of this newsletter) who will keep track of and publish the current balance, and the amount and names of the donors as the donations come in and deliver them to the Corporate Office. Make checks or money orders out to 'SCA, Inc.' and include a note that it is a donation toward the Operating Reserve. Other Alternatives. We are making all reasonable efforts to cut corporate expenditures, but we also need to determine what other avenues would be acceptable to the membership to generate adequate cash reserves to protect the organization in case of emergency. The avenue chosen would also be the preferred method used for any other fund-raising efforts toward special projects in the future. Please remember that any change in our current procedures will require at least 60 days to implement. Some options which have been suggested in the past are as follows: --Collect a $1 (or other nominal amount) per person surcharge on all Kingdom-level event fees, to be sent to the corporate office until the reserve is funded. Considering four kingdom level events per year per kingdom (not counting wars or Drachenwald), with at least 500 people attending each event, this would collect $24,000 per year. --Collect a $.25 surcharge on each participant at each event until the reserve is funded. Depending on enforcement, this could collect almost $100,000 in slightly over a year. --Collect a $10 per year "assessment" on members for contributions to the cash reserve until it is fully funded. This could be accomplished in a single year. Many other organizations, such as country clubs and some religious institutions, raise funds this way. --Conduct an aggressive annual fundraising campaign (or pledge campaign) within the organization. This would require significant volunteer help and widespread member support. The Boy Scouts of America and PBS stations, among other organizations, raise funds this way. --Ask that each local branch "tithe" 1% of their annual event net income ('Net Event Related Income' on the new Exchequer report forms), to be submitted with their year-end report. This wouldn't happen for the 1995 domesday due now. Branches choosing to voluntarily do this now would have our gratitude, but no obligation to continue unless this is the method selected. --Assess each Kingdom a proportional amount (by membership) of what is needed for the reserve, and allow each Kingdom to choose its own way of raising the money. --Make a blanket request for voluntary donations. This is currently being done (see above), and can be done in conjunction with any other method, although it is usually not very reliable. --Require paid membership for all participants, with some kind of temporary or event-specific membership available at the door (sometimes called "pay-to-play"). Exact implementation would take some time to develop. --Institute an annual branch registration fee payable to the SCA, Inc., with fees set on a sliding scale depending on branch size and type. Branches would be allowed to choose their own way to raise the money for the fee. --Reinstitute the NMS until such time as the cash reserve reaches a prudent level. This requires much effort, and affects those kingdoms formerly depending on their rebate. Another Improvement. At its October 1995 meeting, the Board passed a set of fiscal policies intended to keep the SCA, Inc. in compliance with Federal and state laws (or native government laws) and commonly accepted accounting practices, and to ensure that our budget and accounts are regularly overseen and audited. This will eliminate any surprises that may surface during our normal operation. Conclusion. As you can see, the Board is actively seeking your ideas on how best to raise the funds we need and the best method to use. We want both your opinions about the possibilities listed and your suggestions for other alternatives. Please help us find a way to meet our financial responsiblities and ensure the SCA's long-term stability. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on these matters (this means everyone from Royalty on down to the newest person on the block). Please send all commentary to the Member Services Office in Milpitas by April 1, 1996 for inclusion in the materials for the April Board Meeting. Signed, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Maestra Margherita Alessia, called Ghita Member # 32315 Susan Earley Shire of Rokkehealdan [SW Chicago Suburbs] ghita@mcs.net Brookfield, IL "A shy, retiring young thing" Director, SCA, Inc. Purpure, a sword palewise or between two winged cats rampant combatant, that to dexter Argent, that to sinister Or. From: Susan Earley +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ `~-, ,-~`~-, ,-~`~-, ,-~`~-, ,-~` . | | | | | | | | From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 08:27:13 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 130 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 07:54:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Morgan on Voting - Gareth & Finnvarr To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Morgan sends this... Gareth stated his position: >> I am not a proponent of voting as a first solution. It should only be used >> when the membership is so disjointed, so divided and so oppositional that an >> agreement is not possible. Voting divides people, so that the elected * * * >> are supported by the victorious majority, while the defeated minority are >> encouraged by the structure to look for ways to become the victorious majority. >> >> >> Of course, this is not inevitable. But it is supported by the structure. >. Even the preface written by Roberts (Rules of Order) acknowledges consensus to >> be better for the body than voting. I disagree in the context of hte kind of voting we have discussion, and that I support: with a given number of votes available, corresponding to the number of positions open, to be cast among a larger number of condidates. In this case, it is harder to have a "victorious majority" because of the percentage election. As to the question of board member selection, legitimacy, etc., I would point out that the overtly secret methods for selection, where names appear on a list and persons are selected from that list without any notice to the membership and with an unclear opportunity for feedback, cause many persons in the SCA to feel that the Board is larded with cronyism and no better than some of the incestuous Curiae that rule some Kingdoms. [No offense intended to any past or current Board members or Curia participants, just summarizing an opinion.] I agree that there should be a way of addressing Board actions. However, I think that this is not the only answer. A combination of the current nominating and feedback procedure, with a more apprently-responsive election process, and more information about how the elections occur, would be more acceptable than the current methods. This would cause people to examine the actions more closely, than attacking the people, because they feel they know the Board members better. I also think it could improve the quality of Board members, because there would be two chance to voice an opinion: first, during the vetting process; and second, in the election. Right now, there is no way to show that a person is considered unqualified to serve, all persons remain on the list of candidates for a given number of years and there is no indication of what, if any, feedback has been received. Under the proposal that seems to be taking shape, with the vetting process a person would be on the list for a year, at which time they would be considered as a candidate or removed from the list. EXAMPLE: There is someone on the latest list of Board candidates whom I know many persons feel not only unqualified but dangerous. I wrote a very detailed letter describing my knowledge of the person, which includs mundane and fandom as well as SCA contacts. Yet this person has remained on the list, during which time I have discovered that many others also wrote letters. I was assured by a Board member a year ago that the volume and content of the letters would prevent the person from ever achieving the Board -- yet this person is STILL on the list of Board candidates. In the proposed vetting situation, this person would have been off the list within the first year, and we could relax. This is why I support having a vetting committee, which would review the letters and make recommendations for a slate of candidates. Each person who votes would have as many votes as slots open;they can cast only one vote per candidate. [In the Assembly election I ran in, this was answered by having boxes: You could only check or not-check the box before a candidate's name.] They do not need to cast all votes. So if you are uncomfortable voting for someone because you feel you do not know his/her qualifications well enough, you simply don't vote. I disagree that this would be "a sham." After all, the nominating committee would be SCA members as the rest of us, and would have to live with the consequences of their actions for the duration of the Director's tenure. I also disagree that the Board members will come from only one or two Kingdoms, if the candidates are sleected only from those Kingdoms which currently do not have a sitting Board member. Simple! If there's a Midrealmer on the Board, there cannot be any candidates from the Midrealm in that election. I've spoken enough. ---= Morgan |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com ===== I think that if the populace can more effectively voice its opinions as to the ACTIONS taken by the Board, they/we will feel less obliged to remove Board members. Back in the Time of Troubles, or however you wish to call it, my impression was that the Board was making so many unpopular decisions so fast and was not listening to the feedback from the populace, that they felt the only way to respond quckly was to demand the removal of the Board members. Finnvarr pointed out more eloquently than I could: >> Let me suggest, though, that defining the Board's jurisdiction -- or perhaps >> the separate jurisdictions of Board and Court of Appeal -- is a better >> approach. If the limits were clear, AND the Board more responsible to the >> membership, then the Board might be seen as legitimate in its proper sphere. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 08:50:20 1996 Return-Path: References: Conversation <3103B44C@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> with last message <3103B44C@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> Priority: Normal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Erik Langhans Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 09:10:02 CST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Erik Langhans Subject: Re: Letter from the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <3103B44C@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> I move we place a high priority on the letter from the BoD. Specifically, that we focus on the ways to raise funds. -Modius e-mail: modius@cityscope.net web page: www.cityscope.net/~modius From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 09:07:52 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: klth-jsp@pop.lu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Janna G Spanne Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 15:14:02 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna G Spanne Subject: Re: Gareth: Taking exception to a characterization of the board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L We've all heard and read all of this before, but since it's come up again,... >>To act as dairy cattle to a self-appointing, >>self-perpetuating group ... >This is the sort of characterization that gets us nowhere. This statement if >false, in that there are clear ways to influence the board, and the board's >selection of board members. Technically, maybe. True, anyone can write a letter to the Board - if you have the drive and sufficient command of the language. A group can't get together and write a letter, because then it counts as a petition and gets automatically ignored. If you do write an individual letter, more often than not it gets ignored anyway. True, anyone can comment on a Board candidate - if you know him/her, and have the drive and sufficient command of the language. The candidates have no motivation whatsoever to make themselves known to and to keep in touch with the general membership. As for the "dairy cattle" thing - the information our regular members originally got about the NMS was "the Board needs more money fast, and this is the way we've got to give it to them". When I asked the Kingdom seneschal some whys and wherefores, she quit answering e-mail, because she herself didn't know and had no sensible answers to give me. Then the original reason for the NMS was gone and the tax lived on, under a different pretext. When my governmet treats me this way, it's using me for dairy cattle. I'm not about to call it something else when the SCA board does it. Okay, I can leave the SCA a lot easier than I can leave the country - but I happen to enjoy the game. >Please do not think that the board is a chummy group who selects its friends >for the next available slot... In fact, maybe not. But there's nothing to prevent them. Nobody outside the board, least of all the regular member with no particular personal contacts, has systematic access to the selection process and the right to check on it. I get *very* suspicious of systems that rely on the leaders being nice guys, and give the governees no way to check on them. When someone tells me "I know what's best for you, trust me," I run and hide my money. Is that so strange? >... The selection criteria has been ... Interesting information. How come our Principality seneschal doesn't know? She didn't even know that the Board was self-appointing, and her ignorance wasn't due to lack of interest or experience. Nobody's ever told her that "candidate X is a non-fighting economist from AnTir and that's why she got picked rather than Sir Y, who is a computer person from the East". The information is just too little accessible and the process too opaque. That's a good way of creating an atmosphere of suspicion and a spirit of "us vs. them". >... all (or nearly all) of >the directors coming to agreement before a decision was made. Of course, you'd want someone who'd be possible to work together with. Unfortunately, it's also greatly conductive to groupthink, and it tends to exclude potential dissenters. >Serving on the board is currently an awful responsibility, and has wrecked the >SCA experience for many who had previously survived great office and royalty. In that case, the board members shouldn't be opposed to limiting the board's workload and responsibilities. They're the ones who have the power to do it. Strange, they haven't suggested it yet, as far as I know. No, I don't think that all members of the board are power-hungry, scheming ogres. I'm trying to point out what it is in the current system that creates suspicion and makes the board's work even more difficult and thankless. Create a more transparent selection system, make the board accountable to the membership, limit the board's responsiblities, and we'll get less burnout, better interaction between the board and the participants, and probably also still better quantity and quality in board candidates. /Catrin Nec Aurum Nec Status From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 09:51:46 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 09:21:23 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun: reply to Eichling To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I don't want to switch topics to kingdom size, but I do think it (and some other considerations) are relevant to the election/removal discussion. But don't be discouraged. What is happening is that the members first run with a topic (elections: how would it work?), then the models are evaluated --the stage we are in now. Essentially a number of us are voicing reservations or explaining why we will vote against the models. There should also be a rebuttal by those who support those models, hopefully addressing the criticisms, rather than saying "well, we need to pass something!" Then we vote. Unfortunately this past year the last two stages didn't develop. In the face of criticism, the topic was shelved and/or the vote was never called for. So far, then we are not losing momentum. The part I am not sure about is what happens if elections are defeated in the vote. To keep momentum we would want to stay on the bigger topic of board legitimacy and explore other means of achieving it. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 12:19:52 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Greg Rose Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 11:46:08 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Greg Rose Subject: Re: Letter from the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Hossein. In conversation with Lee Forgue last evening, she told me that the Board had decided that there was no need in the foreseeable future for extraordinary fundraising measures, since the 1994 membership fee increase had replaced the subscription liability shortfall and created a 50-70,000 dollar surplus for 1995. This was a major reason for the decision to rescind the NMS. The Board letter released just before the meeting did not reflect this analysis and was something which had simply been long in the pipeline, i.e., from before the Board's current appreciation of the rate at which surplus/reserve is being accumulated as a result of the effects of the 1994 fee increase. I see no reason for the GC to interrupt its discussions to talk about fundraising when the Board itself is sufficiently convinced of the corporation's financial health that it rescinded the NMS on Saturday. Hossein/Greg From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 13:02:04 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 14 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 10:00:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Letter to the Board, fundraising To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >I move we place a high priority on the letter from the BoD. Specifically, >that we focus on the ways to raise funds. >Modius I disagree. I think this is the Board's business. I have expressed, and will be, expressing my private opinion on this matter. But we have bigger fish to fry and will be wasting our time if we second-guess the Board (either by agreeing or criticizing) on this and other immediate matters. Our mandate is to look at structural issues. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 13:11:33 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 53 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 09:13:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Morgan to Galleron re: Proposals To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Morgan: Date: Fri, Jan 19, 1996, 16:34 RE: Morgan to Galleron re: Proposals Galleron asked: My assumption is that any of the proposed changes from the current system of selecting the Board will require changing the governing documents. My sense is that this would be feasible for all the proposals, that it might cost a few thousand dollars in legal fees, and that we can defer discussion of the details of the rewrite until we find out if the Society wants to make the change. Any comments from the legal minds reading this? As one of the true legal minds , I can tell you that the cost and effort are a minimal part of the situation, once you have the concept. The excessive cost of rewriting comes as people change their mind, or once they realize that the proposed legalese doesn't mean what they want it to say. I agree with Tibor that the Board will just table proposals that are all concept and no substance. Coming in with a proposal that says "here is what we suggest and here is the language we believe can do it" will speed things along because it will also give the Corporate attorney something to look at, rather that starting at zero and drafting from scratch. That's what would get you into the long batting back-and-forth of language, and the increased legal costs. ---= Morgan * * who in her mundane guise is a corporate lawyer who does NOT believe in soaking her clients |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 13:42:58 1996 Return-Path: X-Nupop-Charset: English Approved-By: flieg@GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 10:02:52 -0800 Reply-To: flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Flieg Hollander Subject: Re: Letter from the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In message Mon, 22 Jan 1996 09:10:02 CST, Erik Langhans writes: > I move we place a high priority on the letter from the BoD. Specifically, > that we focus on the ways to raise funds. > > -Modius > e-mail: modius@cityscope.net > web page: www.cityscope.net/~modius > I disagree violently, given that: the actual surplus last year was $161,783 (including about $43K in NMS), the budgeted surplus last year was $64,404 The budgeted surplus this year is $70,740 (without the NMS) If the various "conservative" budget items do exactly as well this year as last, then there may be another $65,000 on top of that. Even if every single budgeted expense uses _all_ its money, $70K will give us the full operating reserve in under two years. The Board Letter went out because Eddie promised he'd send out a letter asking for money and ideas. He said it a year ago, but he wanted to keep his word. The letter is poorly worded, forgets to mention that the NMS is rescinded, and doesn't mention the current budget surplus. I think that we should _ignore_ the letter. * * * Frederick of Holland, MSCA, OP, etc. *** *** *** flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu _|___|___|_ |===========| (((Flieg Hollander, Chem. Dept., U.C. Berkeley))) ================== Old Used Duke ================= [All subjects of the Crown are equal under its protection and no Corporation is going to convince me otherwise.] From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 14:38:02 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 13:59:20 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun: Board letter To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I also agree that we do not have to interrupt our discussion to take up fund-raising. However, I suggest that we keep an eye on the response to the Letter from the Board. This is the kind of thing we are striving for, isn't it? What has happened is a natural experiment. How much and what kind of response will the letter produce? How will attitudes, opinions and ideas be distributed across the Known World? And, whether needed or not, it would be very interesting to see how the broad membership accepts a plan deriving from member input. In other words, guys, you are looking at something like an election. The important thing here is the attempt to canvass the members/players. Will it work well enough for the Board to continue such efforts? From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 15:22:46 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 14:45:17 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: nomination committee To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Solveig... -- Justin >Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 13:44:09 -0500 >From: spacey@major.cei.net (Barbara Nostrand) >Subject: nomination committee Noble Cousins! First, I wish to say that I still think that the whole notion of nominating committees and general elections is inapproriate for our society. Essentially, such a proceedure continues to foster the vision of a monolithic society which is fundamentally at odds with how our society is actually constituted. General elections of any sort with nominating committees and all of that can be quite appropriate (although I am less than convinced of their effectiveness in avoiding the deliterious effects of ruling cliques) in organizations such as the American Mathematical Society which is a much more centralized organization (with an attendant large staff) than is the Society for Creative Anachronism. Second, I further believe that a small nominating committee (someone mentioned seven) is appropriate for the society. This is true only if you think of the nominating committee as a deliberative committee which actually meets in person, debates things and so on. If instead, you consider the "nominating committee" to be a recruitment board, then the small committee approach immediately appears to be inappropriate. Why? Basically, the society now has thirteen kingdoms and will soon have at least twenty. Most people localize their activities in a relatively small number of kingdoms. Consequently, a seven member committee will be ineffective in finding people to serve on a central Board of Directors. If a small "nominating committee" is really desirable, then membership in this committee should rotate among the kingdoms. Regardless, the small board approach is probably not really correct in any case. Lots of non-profit organizations (e.g., private universities) have a two-tier approach. For example. Northeastern University distinguishes between "members of the corporation" (of which there are several dozen) and the "board of trustees" (of which there are a smaller number). Essentially, the "board of trustess" is answerable to the larger "members of the corporation" who have general oversight over the Board of Directors. Taking such an approach would allow for broad based oversight for the operating board of directors in the Society for Creative Anachronism. Within the context of the society, such a "corporation" (similar to that used by some universitites) would be drawn from each of the kingdoms and possibly the major service units in the society. Thus, there might be a representative of each kingdom, a representative of the marshalate, possibly a representative of the college of heralds, and perhaps even representatives of great inter-kingdom households, etc. I still think that responsible, accountable and public decision making is much more important to our society than is "representative government" in the form of a generally elected board of directors. I know that I am arguing against a popular paradigm here, but there are other quite functional paradigms in place in other non-profits. Your Humble Servant Solveig Throndardottir Amateur Scholar ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Barbara Nostrand | 812 West 13th, Little Rock, 72202 | | Philander Smith College, Little Rock | 501-370-5331 | | DeMoivre Institute, Toronto | nostrand@mathstat.yorku.ca | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 15:26:56 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 14:46:01 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Galleron: Baseline assumptions for elections (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Michael... -- Justin >Date: Fri 19 Jan 1996 15:12 CT >From: UDSD007@DSIBM.OKLADOT.STATE.OK.US (Mike.Andrews ) >Subject: Re: Galleron: Baseline assumptions for elections (fwd) Galleron wrote (reformatted to 65 columns for readability, and parts deleted where I had no comment): > The current system of listing nominees is continued, but > renamed "Candidates for nomination", and used as a pool from > which the Board and others draw its nominees for the ballot. > > Six months before ballots are mailed the Board publishes a > description of the number of vacancies, an announcement of the > deadline for non-board nominees, a renewed plea for comments > on the "Candidates for Nomination" and a brief description of > any special abilities they are looking for. "Since director X > is leaving next year, we will have a particular need for > someone with knowledge of accounting. As always, we try to > choose directors from kingdoms not currently represented on > the Board" It is desirable for the Board to list its nominees > at this time, but not essential. > > The election will choose the directors to take office in the > coming year, plus two alternates. These will take office if a > position needs to be filled before the next election. > > Unless it is unable to find sufficient qualified candidates, > the Board will nominate at least one more candidate than the > number of vacancies plus alternates. > > Candidates may also be added to the ballot by petition. Such a > candidate would need the votes of 10% of the Crowns and > Kingdom Seneschals (that is, currently, three Crowns, > Seneschals, or any combination), or 2% of the local seneschals > with not more than half from any one kingdom, or 1% of the > membership. If suffrage is limited to part of the membership, > then 10% of the voting members would also be sufficient. Not in any SCA I belong to. I see no reason to limit candidacy to those with a big-enough bloc, whether it be from the populace at large, the seneschalate, the peers, or the nobles. We're looking at limiting suffrage already. Why in the world would you (or anyone) want to limit candidacy as well? I do think that having some spares ready to install in case of a failure?H?H?H?H?H?H?H?H?H an early resignation is a good idea, but that is in other proposals I like better. > The ballot will include a brief description of each candidate. > The Board or its delegates will be responsible for those it > nominates, candidates nominated by petition are responsible > for their own, subject to reasonable restrictions on length > and inflammatory/defammatory language. The board may also > include a brief statement of its special needs. "Candidate Y > is an accountant, and we really need one on the Board right > now" Better yet, make each candidate responsible for what he or she says, period. Descriptive text should be _separate_ from the ballots. It is, after all, not properly part of a ballot: a ballot should (IMHO) show the names of the candidates and any special instructions ("Two from Column 'A', one from Column 'B'". Nor should the board have any special needs statements on the ballot. Their special needs are not properly part of a ballot, either, and should be located with the candidates' statements. For my own part, if the board needs an accountant, and X is a candidate with an accounting background, I may or may not vote for him: it depends on how much his accounting expertise outweighs any flaws I know he possesses which would interfere with his doing a good job on the board. I might vote for a non-accountant with management experience, and tell the board to _hire_ an accountant. The board should not be micro-managing. > Comments please. You got 'em. -- udsd007@dsibm.okladot.state.ok.us Michael Fenwick of Fotheringhay, O.L. (Mike Andrews) Namron, Ansteorra Pray, I beseech you, for the repose of the soul of Kathleen Anna Young Lister, once known as Baroness Caitlin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 16:49:24 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 448 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 16:00:28 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Letter from the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601221646.LAA29979@bronze.lcs.mit.edu> from "Greg Rose" at Jan 22, 96 11:46:08 am Greetings from Tibor. In addition to Hossein's points. (I also talked to Lee, as she used me to get Hossein's current phone number...) Fund raising in a non-profit is well understood. If the Board wants to start a committee that handles fund-raising (also a common means) it should. Our goal is not day-to-day management of the non-profit: but helping to plan it's future directions. Fund raising is a daily activity for non-profits. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 16:51:51 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 108 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 15:52:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Morgan Back to Tibor re: Elections To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L A lost message resubmitted for Morgan. Finnvarr ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, Jan 19, 1996, 11:34 RE: Morgan Back to Tibor re: Elections Thanks, Tibor for the feedback. I see the problem -- I see an additional step in here, but it was apparently not clear from my posting. STEP 1 = Nomination. People are listed for about a year, or some other appropriate time period. This gives the general populace time to comment, pro or con. Comments are mailed to the Corporate Office and passed on to the Nominating Committee for their review on a routine basis. STEP 2 = Balloting. The Nominating Committee (however constituted) sorts through the candidates eligible by time for placement on the ballot. They choose X and call them to say, "we would like to place you on the ballot for the upcoming election, are you willing to serve if elected?" If the answer is 'yes,' they are placed on the ballot. If the answer is 'no,' they get a pass, or are pulled from the pool if they say "Life looks like it will be bad for more than the next year." I would give people passes for up to one year, because sometimes you have minor life crises like buying and moving into a new home, job relocation, or whatever, and life could be calmer in six months or so. STEP 3 = Election. I agree with Catrin and Tibor that the Nominating Committee should be independent of the Board. Could it be a subcommittee of the GC? As for the buying and selling of elections -- oh, please. Not pointing at Tibor; MANY GC members have raised and hashed this. I live and vote in Chicago, the town where even the dead can cast a ballot -- and please, "early and often!" Do we have bought elections? I am quite sure of it. Does it matter? Not a whole lot. Either the bought person is counterbalanced by others on the Council, or in the legislature, or they are bought out at the next election or so. People have continued success on the basis of political alliances, not deep pockets. In this, I concur with Justin and Katerine-formerly-Angharad and the others, that the possibility, while real, is very remote. No system is going to be 100% clean no matter what you do to calculate the elements. If you know the problem exists so that you can recognize it when it occurs, you may not need to prevent it prophylactically if the chance of it occurring it insignificant. And if it becomes significant, you change the system. This is not writ in stone. I mostly like Galleron's suggestion for elections. A few items should be analyzed, such as the 10% of Crowns/Seneschals for addition to the ballot -- this means that the King, Queen, and Seneschal of a given Kingdom can simply nominate someone? While we avoid the cronyism of straight appointment, it makes me uncomfortable. Would the "no more than half from a given Kingdom" apply here? I don't think we should have commentary rfom the Board about special needs. I have never seen it in such elections, and I think the electorate might not like that kind of pressure. It could look like unofficial annointment of a candidate. I would suggest that the ballots get mailed back to the Nominating Committee, and not to the Board. One last suggestion? Separate the key officers from the Board. Have an independent Treasurer at the very least, and preferably a President or Executive Director who is NOT also Chairman of the Board. Why? These people can be (a) hired employees, therefore not subject to the vagaries of elections, and (b) can concentrate on the business of running the Corporation, instead of also having to monitor the various Societal offices. There will be some overlap, especially with the Treasurer, but now the same Board member who is Treasurer also looks after (unless I misrecollect) a few Kingdoms and other offices. This could combine the office of Society Exchequer with Treasurer, I realize, and may be beyond the scope of the discussion on elections. But I think it is something to consider for a future discussion on posible restructuring, and since I just thought of it, figured I should send it out before I forget. ---= Morgan |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 17:07:22 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 638 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 16:23:04 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Historical note: Being on the Board (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 12:25:44 -0500 Subject: Re: Historical note: Being on the Board Please forward to GC Cariadoc writes: >When the Board asked for comment from the membership, for example, all of >the questions involved possible increases in membership requirements--the >option of decreasing them was simply left out. That, at least, is my >memory. > No. The 1992 poll asked about current requirements as well. And the decisions of the Board at that time were entirely consistant with the poll response. Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 17:10:52 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2595 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 16:22:32 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Galleron: Elections (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 12:25:43 -0500 Subject: Galleron: Elections Please forward to GC Cariadoc writes: > If the Board of two >years ago had been elected it might well have been the same board, given >general apathy, and the additional legitimacy of election would have made >it harder to persuade it that it was in the wrong. Then again, it might have been persuaded more easily if it hadn't been demonized so readily by the opposition. And the un-elected nature of the Board made it easy to paint them as a bunch of autocratic oligarchs. I think it got their backs up. The whole thing just might have been resolved with a bit less ill-feeling with an elected Board. Gareth writes "I could see a situation in which a Crown could easily use the kingdom newsletter, pronouncements in court, etc. to call the people of the kingdom to be sure and vote. I cannot believe that most SCA people would do anything but vote for the person from their kingdom!" Don't think so. I'm from the East, and there are several current and recent Board candidates from other Kingdoms that I would vote for in preference to some candidates from my own kingdom. And a lot of easterners are thoroughly unimpressed by royal pronouncements. (Your Kingdom may vary) If you wanted to, you could prohibit endorsements of specific candidates in court. In fact, I recommend that you do so as an intrusion of the selection of our mundane corporation into the game. Remember also that there would be several positions to be filled in each annual election, and in some elections none would be from the East or the Middle. In most years the slate would be only slightly larger than the number of positions to be filled. Remember that under the election baseline I have proposed, as in Cariadoc's, the slate of candidates would be very much like what the Board would appoint under the current system- unless the Society was unhappy, in which case you would both want, and have, a way to get different people on to the Board. I don't expect miraculous changes from electing the Board, but I think it would produce benefits that would not be insignificant. If nothing else, it would make a lot of people happier about the process, even if they didn't deel better about the outcome of that process. As Finvarr points out, the current selection system works pretty well, except that many people hate it. Which matters. Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 17:20:40 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1723 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 16:23:42 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Galleron: Nominating Committee (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 12:25:45 -0500 Subject: Galleron: Nominating Committee Please forward to GC I'm starting to warm to Caitrin's idea of an independent nominating committee. Some more benefits: Since the committee could do its work by correspondence, Kingdoms that would have a hard time sending a director to four Board meetings a year, such as those outside North America, could still have a voice on the nominating committee. You could make it policy that when possible candidates for the committee be drawn from Kingdoms not currently represented on the committee or the Board. Known gadflies who would just be sand in the gears of a working Board like ours could still fill a useful role on the committee If we did retain the current system, an independent committee, appointed by the Board, might be a useful marginal improvement. In that case the committee would provide a short list of suggested candidates to the Board. Publishing the short list in advance of Board deliberations would be nice. Fiacha suggests an outside body to supervise elections and verify objective qualifications, count and publish vote, etc. Might be a reasonable idea, do other non-profits do this? If so, who do they use? However, selecting the Board or nominating committee slate is not really primarily something you can do by objective qualifications. I can think of lots of candidates that would sound real good on paper and be a disaster on the Board. So you then need both body or individual for supervising and verifying elections *and* nominating committee. Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 18:10:58 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 17:33:22 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Morgan Back to Tibor re: Elections To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <3104267C@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> (message from Steve Muhlberger on Mon, 22 Jan 1996 15:52:00 PST) Morgan suggests: >I agree with Catrin and Tibor that the Nominating Committee should be >independent of the Board. Could it be a subcommittee of the GC? I'd say preferably not. While I'm not as sure as I'd like to be that we'll be able to phase out the GC on schedule, I *do* still regard this as a limited-lifetime body, not a long-term one. The GC was created to fix the Corp's major structural problems; when and if we manage that, the Council should be disbanded. Or, if we decide that a long-term body for analysis is needed, separate from the Board, the GC should be *heavily* restructured. (There are major design flaws in the Council, if it is to exist over a long span -- that just wasn't the intent when we were setting it up.) So, either way -- it really shouldn't be a subcommittee of the GC as we know it... -- Justin Who regards the two-year lifespan of the GC as a very real constraint... Random Quote du Jour: "If it moves, kill it and drain it into the punch." -- davidbe From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 22 19:43:43 1996 Return-Path: References: Conversation <9601221945.AA22367@dsd.camb.inmet.com> with last message <9601221945.AA22367@dsd.camb.inmet.com> Priority: Normal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Erik Langhans Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 19:47:16 CST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Erik Langhans Subject: Re: Solveig Throndardottir To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9601221945.AA22367@dsd.camb.inmet.com> Solveig writes: I wish to say that I still think that the whole notion of nominating committees and general elections is inapproriate for our society. Yes! I agree. -Modius e-mail: modius@cityscope.net web page: www.cityscope.net/~modius From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 07:38:41 1996 Return-Path: Priority: normal X-Mailer: ExpressNet/SMTP v1.1.5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Roy Gathercoal Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 04:05:08 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Roy Gathercoal Organization: George Fox College Subject: Demos To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Several have mentioned demos in conjunction with educational purpose. When I was part of the loop, at least, it was clearly stated that demos had nothing to do with our educational purpose--demos were a recruitment and public service medium. Our educational purpose comes from educating ourselves--much like any private school is devoted to serving its clientelle, and often makes no effort to provide free educational services to the general public. My understanding is that the rulings concerning the public good test of various not-for-profit does not specifically exclude membership from public. No organization is required to serve all of the public. Someone please correct me if this has changed, but it seems to keep coming up and could affect many of the questions with which we are dealing. Gareth -- From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 09:45:30 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1927 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 08:50:07 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Galleron: Election Baseline compared to Cariadoc's (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 14:25:39 -0500 Subject: Re: Galleron: Election Baseline compared to Cariadoc's (fwd) Please forward to GC Referring to my option of allowing a petition by sufficient monarchs or kingdom seneschals to get a candidate on to, the ballot, Catrin writes: >The issues are legitimacy, representation and competence. >In view of how kings are (and in my opinion *should* be) selected, i.e. as >a part of the medieval "game", royalty should be irrelevant in this >context. >Seneschals should be relevant only if the system for appointing them is >amended to empower the membership/participants. Well, true, we don't elect monarchs or kingdom seneschals. On the other hand a petition from several of them might be a decent measure of broad potential support for a candidate. The petition would just get the candidate on the ballot, not insure election. And it would give an alternative to a membership petition, which can be clumsy. I can be persuaded either way on this option. Feedback from others? Again, if the concept is OK, are the specific percentages I listed (10% of current total of Monarchs and kingdom seneschals, in any combination, or 2% of local senechals) the right ones? Or we could do ten percent of total of monarchs, kingdom seneschals, and IAC, which would dilute the potential influence of the monarchs a bit. Do we still have 13 members of the IAC operational? Also, do people like or dislike the separate nominating/vetting committee? Barring strong negative feedback, I would like to include it in my baseline election proposal. I think we are pretty close to being ready to do the straw poll on selection methods. When Fiacha gives the go-ahead I would like to submit another draft of my review of selection methods. Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 09:45:47 1996 Return-Path: Priority: normal X-Mailer: ExpressNet/SMTP v1.1.5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Roy Gathercoal Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 05:55:42 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Roy Gathercoal Organization: George Fox College Subject: Fwd: Re: Taking exception to a characterization of the board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Roy, please forward to the list. On Jan 20, 7:35pm, Roy Gathercoal wrote: > Janna wrote: > >To act as dairy cattle to a self-appointing, > >self-perpetuating group that you have no real way to > >influence, as we do under the current system, may be more > >idealistic, but not really my idea of fun. It distinctly > >spoils the game. > This is the sort of characterization that gets us nowhere. This statement if > false, in that there are clear ways to influence the board, and the board's > selection of board members. No, it is true. The fact that you can write them doesn't change the fact that they are self-appointing and self-perpetuating under the current mode of operation. They are under no legal obligation to even read your attempts to influence them, let alone take them to heart. In addition, from personal experience, letters to the board do no good; I've recieved a reply to exactly 1 of the 4-5 letters I've written to the Board in the last 5 years. Not something to instill warm fuzzies as far as our ability to influence the Board, now is it? > For heaven's sakes. The list of nominees is published so often as to be > tedious, and letters of comment are begged. Yet few write, and those seem to > be principally the same commenters time after time. Cause and effect here. If you don't see that writting gets any response, why bother to write? If it doesn't do any good, why waste your time? And that is an accurate expression of the opinions I've heard with relation to interacting with the Board. Kwellend-Njal -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= RFC822 Headers Follow =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- X-ENSMTPTo: rgathercoal X-ENSMTPSubnet: foxmail Received: from postman.ops.aol.com (152.163.7.42) by gateway.gfc.edu with SMTP (Apple Internet Mail Server 1.0); Mon, 22 Jan 1996 09:07:08 -0800 Received: from zelazny.ops.aol.com (zelazny.ops.aol.com [152.163.61.155]) by postman.ops.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA22084 for <@postman.ops.aol.com:rgathercoal@foxmail.gfc.edu>; Mon, 22 Jan 1996 12:04:51 -0500 Received: by zelazny.ops.aol.com (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI.AUTO) for rgathercoal@foxmail.gfc.edu id MAA28481; Mon, 22 Jan 1996 12:04:18 -0500 From: "David W. James" Message-Id: <9601221204.ZM28479@zelazny.ops.aol.com> Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 12:04:15 -0500 In-Reply-To: Roy Gathercoal "Taking exception to a characterization of the board" (Jan 20, 7:35pm) References: <1111881.ensmtp@foxmail.gfc.edu> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.0 26oct94 MediaMail) To: rgathercoal@foxmail.gfc.edu Subject: Re: Taking exception to a characterization of the board Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii -- From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 10:52:26 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1435 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 10:08:52 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Morgan Back to Tibor re: Elections (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 17:23:32 -0500 Subject: Re: Morgan Back to Tibor re: Elections Please forward to GC Morgan writes: >I agree with Catrin and Tibor that the Nominating Committee should be >independent of the Board. Could it be a subcommittee of the GC? > Not if the Council is scheduled to self-destruct in a year. Could conduct its business in the same way, although you'd pay some price in the frankness of comments: negative comments during the GC selection were noticeably restrained. Morgan writes: "I mostly like Galleron's suggestion for elections. A few items should be analyzed, such as the 10% of Crowns/Seneschals for addition to the ballot -- this means that the King, Queen, and Seneschal of a given Kingdom can simply nominate someone? While we avoid the cronyism of straight appointment, it makes me uncomfortable. Would the "no more than half from a given Kingdom" apply here?" Whatever. My intent was that "King and Queen" counted as one crown. So you'd need Crown, Seneschal, and somebody else for your 2.6 votes. I'm not absolutely wedded to this part. Could be 20%, could be 10% of Seneschals, Crowns, and IAC, any combo- so you'd need four, soon to be more. Feedback is good. Idea is to have alternative to slow, burdensome general petition.. Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 10:58:24 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: klth-jsp@pop.lu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Janna G Spanne Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 16:32:48 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna G Spanne Subject: Re: Galleron: Election Baseline compared to Cariadoc's (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >... > Well, true, we don't elect monarchs or kingdom seneschals. On the other hand > a petition from several of them might be a decent measure of broad potential > support for a candidate. Why? How? Where's the connection? All we positively know about any SCA monarch is that (s)he is more than passing good at rattan combat, or at least fairly friendly with someone who is (in the case of consorts). I can't infer anything from this about the degree of support the person's opinions receive in his/her home kingdom, other than that people tend to rally around a monarch unless (s)he is a serious d...head. And, for that matter, I can infer even less about a monarch's competence to propose candidates suitable to run the corp. Also, involving royalty in the Board selection process would create yet another formal connection between the medieval game and the modern corp. Some may find it good; I don't. As for seneschals, the way they are selected and appointed could and should be modified so that a seneschal indeed had broad support in his/her group, and in that case a petition by seneschals would be a good way to get board candidates. /Catrin 'nec aurum nec status' From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 11:38:10 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 10:51:08 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: Selection/Removal of BoD: 100% Agree. Comments: To: Eichling Von Amrun To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <960120184102_122467154@mail04.mail.aol.com> that pretty much said it... ___________________________________+__________________________________ "Romance is the Art of Expressing the truth beautifully"--Me. "Any Mildly gothic, renn/SCA types with RPG tendencies in the central NJ area want to come out and play?" arthur@cnj.digex.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 11:50:50 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 11:00:44 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: Board whining Comments: To: Roy Gathercoal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <1111830.ensmtp@foxmail.gfc.edu> I agree AND disagree.. what voting does is give some legitmate power of action to those who might give a damn enough to do something... like secede, or revolt, or sue...The whiners will always be there agreed. ___________________________________+__________________________________ "Romance is the Art of Expressing the truth beautifully"--Me. "Any Mildly gothic, renn/SCA types with RPG tendencies in the central NJ area want to come out and play?" arthur@cnj.digex.com On Sat, 20 Jan 1996, Roy Gathercoal wrote: > Afraid I agree with Alysoun on the board whining thing. The board is remote, > and that is all it takes. People whine about the stuff the boards of > directors do at GM, and the American Heart Association, and the Roman Catholic > Church (in spite of the ramifications. . .) People whine about the curia and > great officers and royalty, especially of the larger kingdoms, and especially > if the whiners don't know anyone personally who is currently serving. When I > joined the SCA a long time before any of the last few rounds started, people > were whining about which copy machine was being purchased by "those > Californians." > > Shoot, now even the people running for office in the Congress of the US are > whining about the Congress of the US--about the people who were elected > because they were effective whiners two, four and six years ago. > > We should not deceive ourselves into thinking that any election scheme, > removal scheme, or governance scheme will do a thing to even reduce the amount > or intensity of whining. As long as people care about the organization, they > will whine. > > This does not mean, however, that we should not address legitimate problems in > order to make things better. Let's just not start reacting to whining. It's > more a themometer of the health of the whiner, than of the whinee. > > Gareth > > > -- > From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 11:51:28 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 10:56:28 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Combinig Alyouns concerns with vote systems... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <960120184102_122467154@mail04.mail.aol.com> If we allow a "Not In Our Kingdom" clause permitting monarch with x% of the populaces signatures, or x percentage of the locally elected officers, or basicly x% of SOME group of people he/she didnt pick.... to say "that rule doesnt apply here!" and then have a procedre for double checking that decision at BOD level with a serious 'gee somebody REALLY objects' clsue that says the BOD now needs a unanimous (or 2/3 or whatever) vote to make it stick... would that satisfy your concerns about smaller regions alysoun? ___________________________________+__________________________________ "Romance is the Art of Expressing the truth beautifully"--Me. "Any Mildly gothic, renn/SCA types with RPG tendencies in the central NJ area want to come out and play?" arthur@cnj.digex.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 11:54:29 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1774 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 11:01:25 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Galleron: Baseline assumptions for elections (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 10:34:37 -0500 Subject: Re: Galleron: Baseline assumptions for elections (fwd) Please forward to GC In a message dated 96-01-23 02:44:43 EST, Mike Andrews writes: >I see no reason to limit candidacy >to those with a big-enough bloc, whether it be from the populace >at large, the seneschalate, the peers, or the nobles. We're >looking at limiting suffrage already. Why in the world would you >(or anyone) want to limit candidacy as well? You don't need a bloc to get on the ballot. You can just write in and convince the Board or Nominating committee that you're the person for the job. The candidate by petition option is to let you get on the ballot even if the nominating committee thinks you're a jerk. If they do think you're unqualified, then you probably should meet some reasonable hurdle. After all, if you can't get a few hundred people, or a dozen local seneschals, to sign a petition, you probably won't get elected anyway. I am open to persuasion that the specific numbers I have proposed for addittion to ballot by petition are too high or low, or that petition by royalty or officers is a bad idea. He writes: " Descriptive text should be _separate_ from the ballots." If you want to be technical, I suppose. But why? I am imagining a one page self-mailer for the Ballot and statements. You could put the "Ballot" proper at the bottom, I suppose. But I don't see any reason why you couldn't run the candidate statement beside the appropriate check box, if the staments are of reasonable length. As far as I'm concerned you could do it either way. Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 14:28:17 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 102 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 13:09:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: More from Morgan on Elections, Etc. To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Date: 23 Jan 96 12:50:47 EST From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <72672.2312@compuserve.com> Modius agrees with Solveig that "the whole notion of nominating committees and general elections is inapproriate for our society." I disagree. While it may not work for SOCIETY matters, the BOARD is a mundane entity and therefore can and should be constituted in a manner appropriate to the need, not necessarily one solely appropriate to the Society. If you want to do something appropriate within the Society structure for selecting Board members, then just have the Royals appoint them and be done with the discussion. Galleron suggested "If we did retain the current system, an independent committee, appointed by the Board, might be a useful marginal improvement. In that case the committee would provide a short list of suggested candidates to the Board. Publishing the short list in advance of Board deliberations would be nice." Agreed on all points. Since the current system is so heavily disfavoured by the general populace, if we cannot go to general election in some format this could provide an intermediary method. If they are worried about the imposition of mundanity over The Game/Dream, then Galleron is right, simply forbid electioneering in court etc. Most royals I have known do NOT want such things interfering with courts, anyway. Justin may be correct that the nominating Committee is beyong the current scope of the GC. Could it be started with the GC, and spun off? Galleron has good points about the voice that Kingdoms and gadflies could have on the nominating committee, but be careful that it does not get to be too large and unwieldy, or broken into its own power struggles. Catrin noted that "Nobody's ever told [our principality seneschale] that 'candidate X is a non-fighting economist from AnTir and that's why she got picked rather than Sir Y, who is a computer person from the East'." As far as I can remember, nobody ever tells why person A gets choen and person B does not. But the information on the Board being self-appointing, I have known this for years, I think even before the Troubles. I was going to Board meetings years ago and may have learned it somewhere along the way. Is it in some of the widely available documents? (I am at the office, and they are not, so I can't check.) Catrin also stated: "True, anyone can comment on a Board candidate - if you know him/her, and have the drive and sufficient command of the language. The candidates have no motivation whatsoever to make themselves known to and to keep in touch with the general membership." I think that putting the burden of comment on the individuals is not wrong; if they feel strongly enough that they want to have a voice, they will use it. I have, repeatedly. As for the candidates not keeping in touch with the populace, others have complained about possible electioneering; how do you propose to reconcise the two? Kwelland-Njal said that there is no use to write when you have no idea if the letters are read or considered. I point out, again, that there is not time to write for some of the candidates, even if the list is, as Gareth (??) said, repeatedly published and responses begged. Look again at my example of Maestra Ghita, who was not on a Spring list (none in TI in the Spring issue), was on the Summer list, and by the time the Fall list arrived had been elected to the Board and was at her first meeting. I think part of the problem is having people on the list for three years; we need a shorter timeframe, and some indication that the letters are being read by somebody. I think that the Board should not be reading the letters on top of everything else they do; this should be left to a nominating Committee, who then proposed a slate of candidates to whomever the electing/electing body may be, whether Board, populace, or which?? MISCELLANEA: Gareth is at least partly right about the demo/educational dichotomy. However, in all the groups in which I have actively participated, we have done school demos and other demos which are not recruitment, but primarily educational. I offer this to counter those to whom he referred who claim that demos are not educational and can't be counted towards our purpose. Arthur's proposal for the review of Board edicts, while rough, has possibilities. It appears to be very like the veto that the President or Governor (of my state) holds, where the legislature must then override the veto with a higher vote than it had to merely land the bill on his desk. ---= Morgan |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 15:01:53 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 39 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 14:07:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Alternatives to Elections? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L This is something of an answer to a question someone raised about what happens if an election process is voted down by the GC. But first, >Modius agrees with Solveig that "the whole notion of nominating committees >and general elections is inapproriate for our society." As a theoretical matter, I always wonder about such sentiments. After all, nominating committees and elections are perfectly medieval, much more so, say, than white belts and chains on knights (:-)) or selecting rulers by tournament, or even hitting people with pieces of rattan :-) :-). And in fact there are elections of one sort or another in many, many local groups within the Society. But, forcing myself to be practical, I really think we have only three options on Board selection. 1. Keep what we have, with some minor improvements to make the whole process more transparent and improve communication. There certainly are improvements to be made, but I don't think people who are alienated will be impressed by any of them. There is only so much you can tell people about what the letters of recommendation say, or especially what the letters of DISrecommendation say, to take just one instance. And we will still end up with a self-appointed Board, with all the opprobrium attached to that. 2. Election by Kingdom establishments: either the Crown, the Curia, or some combination. Unless these people were elected, that last election applies very strongly. Notice that some of us who live in Principalities of big Kingdoms really hate this idea? :-) Seriously, the ability to the Corp to mediate between Kingdoms and Principalities striving for independence has been a very important positive force. 3. Some kind general election scheme of the sort we are now hashing out. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 15:03:53 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 8 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 14:14:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Alternatives to Elections?--correction To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Unless these people were elected, that last election applies very strongly. ^^^^^^^^ Should be, "objection." F. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 15:33:47 1996 Return-Path: X-Nupop-Charset: English Approved-By: flieg@GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 10:45:13 -0800 Reply-To: flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Flieg Hollander Subject: Re: Galleron: Baseline assumptions for elections (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Flieg here -- In message Tue, 23 Jan 1996 11:01:25 -0500, Mark Schuldenfrei writes: > Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. > [..trim...] > > You don't need a bloc to get on the ballot. You can just write in and > convince the Board or Nominating committee that you're the person for > the job. The candidate by petition option is to let you get on the > ballot even if the nominating committee thinks you're a jerk. I would like to point out that at the current time you can be put on the list by a bloc of one person, yourself. Self-nomination is allowed, and there is no filter mechanism other than submission (not approval) of your SCA and 20th C. resume. That's about as open a nominating process as there can be and there are still only 25 nominees out of 25,000 SCA members. > Let me attempt to be challenging here. _Why_ do people want to elect the Board Members? How are elections going to ensure better Board members, people more willing to let other people be, people who will look out for the mundane side and not interfere overly much in the Kingdom side? How will elections ensure diversity of opinion and areas of expertise? I have seen elections in everyday life. They select for "politicians". I don't like "politicians" as a general class. They also lead to claims that support of 51% of those voting is a "mandate". My personal view is that I don't care who selects the Board members. I want the field to be open, and I want a good solid choke chain on the guard-dog which we call the Board, so that if it turns on us we can keep it >from doing harm. I think the current method of Board nomination is open, fair, and under-publicized. Certainly there are not very many people writing letters of comment. One thing which would help would be a regular statement about what is wanted in new Board Members. Perhaps the proposed half-page BoD Talk in the Kingdom newsletters will be of assistance there. Another is getting people off their ass to comment on the nominees. (And that includes me; I haven't done it either. "Too busy" isn't actually a good excuse.) So: as far as I'm concerned none of the proposed methods of selection of new Directors shows any real improvement over the current method, and all involve increased costs. As for recall, the more different methods we have, the better. To comment on some of the things I've noted going by, the reason that I want to have something like "a majority of Royalty plus Seneschales" is that such a small collection _is_ in a statistical sense, a cross-section of the SCA, and one that is more or less guaranteed _not_ to be in each other's pockets. If anything can get half of thirteen couples and thirteen seneschals to agree that a Director should be removed, then it is probably pretty serious. If we add to that method some method of removal/impeachment which involves a small but wide-spread percentage of the populace, that sounds good to me. The problem is putting teeth in it, establishing grounds for impeachment and allowing for defence on the part of the impeached. Likewise, a similar measure to call into question changes of policy by the Board and to at least hold them hostage if not remove them. The problem with both of these is that the SCA is not a membership corporation. There are major legal advantages to this status. The question is how to bind the Board. I feel that it can be done, but that the Board at some point will have to ask a lawyer how to do it. Enuf for now. * * * Frederick of Holland, MSCA, OP, etc. *** *** *** flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu _|___|___|_ |===========| (((Flieg Hollander, Chem. Dept., U.C. Berkeley))) ================== Old Used Duke ================= [All subjects of the Crown are equal under its protection and no Corporation is going to convince me otherwise.] From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 15:50:12 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 15:08:01 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: More from Morgan on Elections, Etc. To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <31055146@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> (message from Steve Muhlberger on Tue, 23 Jan 1996 13:09:00 PST) Morgan writes: >Justin may be correct that the nominating Committee is beyong the >current scope of the GC. Could it be started with the GC, and spun >off? Possible, but it isn't clear to me that it has real value in the long run. In this model, the populace needs some faith that the nominating committee really *is* somewhat independent of the Board, and I'm not sure the GC qualifies there. The committee would need to be long-lived, or at least frequently reconstituted, which doesn't match the GC. And, frankly, it has a specific purpose, which isn't one of the purposes the GC was created for. So while yes, it *could* start out as a GC subcommittee and spin off, it just doesn't seem like the right way to go about it. I think it makes more sense to examine what the real needs of such a nominating committee are, and constitute it separately as seems appropriate, rather than picking up the baggage of an existing (and only partly functional) body... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls." -- M. Cartmill From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 15:52:59 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: maghnuis@cp.duluth.mn.us X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: "James D. McManus" Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 13:59:09 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Leave this part alone? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L At 07:47 PM 1/22/96 CST, you wrote: >Solveig writes: > >I wish to say that I still think that the whole notion of nominating >committees and general elections is inapproriate for our society. > >Yes! I agree. > > > >-Modius I am afraid I agree too. I personally think that way too much effort is being spent on details of reinventing a nominating/electing machine. I am even more convinced that the current method of election, along with some failsafe mechanism to remove a problematic BoD (Heaven help us that this will not be needed.), is sufficient. Are there others here beside the above that believe so? Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 15:54:05 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: maghnuis@cp.duluth.mn.us X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: "James D. McManus" Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 13:59:12 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: A few thoughts on voting To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >Sure, I disagree with many decisions made by the board, and believe that the >way things are done is broken, but board selection is not one of those things. > >I suggest that what we really need to do is to come to grips with the hard >issues of power in the society. What is to be the role of each body, and how >are these bodies to be mutually accountable? That is what is broken, and what >should be first fixed. > >Gareth > I agree with you Gareth. Should we make some movement toward resolving the election issue? Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 18:29:50 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: david friedman Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 14:33:45 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: david friedman Subject: Re: Demos To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >My >understanding is that the rulings concerning the public good test of various >not-for-profit does not specifically exclude membership from public. No >organization is required to serve all of the public. > >Someone please correct me if this has changed, but it seems to keep coming up >and could affect many of the questions with which we are dealing. > >Gareth My conclusion when I looked into the question of educational tax status about two years ago was that there was no requirement that you educate the general public, but that doing so probably counted as a plus. The definition of what is or is not an educational organization seems to be pretty hazy, so the more pluses you have the better the odds. Our real problem, in my view, is not the question of whether we do education but of whether a lot of what we do is aimed at other objectives. The formal requirement is that essentially all of your activities are educational, and the practical interpretation seems to be "most." David/Cariadoc David Friedman School of Law Santa Clara University From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 18:43:14 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: david friedman Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 14:33:47 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: david friedman Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Taking exception to a characterization of the board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L One further point, appropos of Kwellend-Njal's comments. During the controversy of two years ago, one of the issues was the relation between the decision to impose compulsory membership and the results of the request for comments on that (and other) issues a year and a half earlier. A fair number of people, including, as I recall, at least one member of the Board I spoke with, argued that, since only a small fraction of the membership had responded to the request, the fact that of that small fraction an overwhelming majority imposed compulsory membership didn't really mean very much. In that context, the incentive to write one more letter for or against something is not very great--especially for the random member, who knows that the Board members don't know him from Adam. David/Cariadoc From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 19:30:49 1996 Return-Path: References: Conversation with last message Priority: Normal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Erik Langhans Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 19:22:31 CST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Erik Langhans Subject: MONARCHY To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: Heh people! Wake up!! The entire SCA is based on MONARCHY. It was said recently: .... All we positively know about any SCA monarch is that (s)he is more than passing good at rattan combat, or at least fairly friendly with someone who is (in the case of consorts). I can't infer anything from this about the degree of support the person's opinions receive in his/her home kingdom, other than that people tend to rally around a monarch unless (s)he is a serious d...head. And, for that matter, I can infer even less about a monarch's competence to propose candidates suitable to run the corp. The Royal Family a loose knit organization made up of past crowns does talk to one another. They are not just a bunch of jocks that smack each other with sticks. If you are unhappy that the SCA is a monarchy, either start your own group where the masses elect the king, or submit a proposal to the gc to vote on stating that the entire system be scrapped (which I DO NOT THINK IS THE CASE). Popular vote is ok but look at the apathy in our mundane elections. You think the masses actually turn out and vote in mass. If you believe that I have swamp property in Alaska to sell you. -Modius e-mail: modius@cityscope.net web page: www.cityscope.net/~modius From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 19:36:08 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 11 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 18:43:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Nominating Committee To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L > the populace needs some faith that the nominating committee really *is* >somewhat independent of the Board, and I'm not sure the GC qualifies there. The question that this raises in my mind, is this possible with any conceivable nominating committee? Or is it doomed to become another self-appointed, or obscurely constitued body that the average member, even the average member reasonably active in his/her area, feels no connection with at all. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 20:36:29 1996 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: IN%"SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 19:18:25 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: Demos To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L gareth said: >When I was part of the loop, at least, it was clearly stated that demos had nothing >to do with our educational purpose--demos were a recruitment and public >service medium. i think this might be an inter-kingdom anthropolgy issue. here in calontir, demos serve either and both purposes: some are specifically for recruitment, some are demos (such as ones at local schools), and some serve both purposes (we educate the crowd, and hope some will sign up). i _personally_ don't think demos really matter, one way or the other. they sort of help, but as long as we can prove we're educating ourselves, we can leave demos out of the loop. alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 21:18:58 1996 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: IN%"SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 19:21:46 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: Galleron: Election Baseline compared to Cariadoc's (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L galleron suggests >Well, true, we don't elect monarchs or kingdom seneschals. On the other hand > a petition from several of them might be a decent measure of broad potential > support for a candidate. what? a petition from, oh 10 seneschals and 16 crown, totalling 26 people out of a paid membership base of 25,000+ is "broad political support"? right. alban, tongue in cheek From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 21:22:35 1996 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: IN%"SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 19:46:20 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: Nominating Committee To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L i still don't understand this whole nominating committee thang. could somoene please explain to me, in words of one syllable, why a special nominating committee needs to be set up, when the process we have now (in effect, everyone, members _and_ participants) means the entire sca is a nominating committee? note, please, i am in favor of a new election process; what i don't see is why we need to change the nominations process. alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 23 21:38:47 1996 Return-Path: X-Nupop-Charset: English Approved-By: flieg@GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 17:54:41 -0800 Reply-To: flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Flieg Hollander Subject: Fw: BoD elections -- a comment from outside. To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Flieg here -- I received this just a little while ago, and got permission to post it here. The attitudes expressed therein are part of why I feel that general elections are not the way to go. Note that this fellow is in fact interested enough to subscribe to SCA-GC; implying that he is more interested in the Board than the average electronically ept SCA member. --F. ------------------------------ begin included message --------------- From: gwydion@afonlyn.midrealm.org Tue, 23 Jan 1996 20:23:03 -0500 (EST) To: flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: BoD elections Master Frederick, I have recently subscribed to the Grand Council List and have been reading some of the discussions concerning BoD elections. First off, I am "one of the masses", having been in the SCA for only five years or so. I have held the office of local seneschal, received an AoA and a minor service award, and am somewhat active in combat, archery, and various living-history arts. Average Joe, you might say. I would like to echo your thoughts: > My personal view is that I don't care who selects the Board members. I >want the field to be open, and I want a good solid choke chain on the >guard-dog which we call the Board, so that if it turns on us we can keep it >from doing harm. I think the current method of Board nomination is open, >fair, and under-publicized. Certainly there are not very many people writing >letters of comment. You're right... I don't care who selects the Board members or how they are selected. And that's why you'll most likely never get a letter of comment >from me. I'm pretty much willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt at least once; especially if they live six Kingdoms away. Rather than focusing on the directors themselves, I'd rather focus on the changes of policy. I didn't care *who* came up with the NMS, for example, I just wanted it gone. Removing a director is certainly not cost-effective and doesn't garauntee results. I would like to see more being done to implement a checks and balances than a new system of elections (which would not have fixed any of the problems of the recent past). Thank you for your time. In Service, Gwydion ap Myrddin Arglwydd -- Matt Stum Ball State University gwydion@afonlyn.midrealm.org Muncie, IN USA =================end included message============= * * * Frederick of Holland, MSCA, OP, etc. *** *** *** flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu _|___|___|_ |===========| (((Flieg Hollander, Chem. Dept., U.C. Berkeley))) ================== Old Used Duke ================= [All subjects of the Crown are equal under its protection and no Corporation is going to convince me otherwise.] From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 07:38:22 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: klth-jsp@pop.lu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Janna G Spanne Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 11:03:08 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna G Spanne Subject: Re: Galleron: Election Baseline compared to Cariadoc's (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Alban: >what? a petition from, oh 10 seneschals and 16 crown, totalling 26 >people out of a paid membership base of 25,000+ is "broad >political support"? >right. Even if it's "potential", not "political" (remember, "political" is a Bad Word (TM) to some people), your point holds. /Catrin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 07:38:34 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: klth-jsp@pop.lu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Janna G Spanne Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 10:59:07 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna G Spanne Subject: Re: Nominating Committee To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >... >the process we have now (in effect, everyone, members >_and_ participants) means the entire sca is a nominating >committee? Not quite. A nominating committee decides who gets on the official list of candidates. Thus, at present, the Board is the nominating committee. Anyone can send in a nomination for anyone else, or him/herself. If the Board thinks it's appropriate, they'll list the nominee as a candidate; otherwise, they won't. They are under no obligation to tell anyone what nominations they've received, or on what grounds they've made their choice. That's why I, for one, favor a nominating committee separate from the Board. /Catrin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 09:47:59 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2911 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 09:19:13 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Leave this part alone? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601231959.NAA06842@CP.Duluth.MN.US> from "James D. McManus" at Jan 23, 96 01:59:09 pm Greetings from Tibor. Magnus, agreeing with Modius, wrote: I am afraid I agree too. I personally think that way too much effort is being spent on details of reinventing a nominating/electing machine. I am even more convinced that the current method of election, along with some failsafe mechanism to remove a problematic BoD (Heaven help us that this will not be needed.), is sufficient. Suspenders and belt. I disagree. Regardless of the means of appointment, we will ALSO need a means of feedback and removal: either of specific votes and policies, individual directors, or perhaps even forcing replacement of an entire Board. (Not that I find the last all that likely.) As I've mentioned before, we need to be able to distinguish a bad idea not just a bad Director, or all feedback could become excessively personal. Analogically, we cannot merely punish our children for bad behavior: we must have ways of increasing good behavior, or all is lost. I believe an electoral system of some kind, or at least *some* form of externally driven or monitored form of appointment is required. It will, I am confident, increase the good behavior. In our modern world (and face it, Boards are modern) the traditional form of representation of communal will is electoral. I sympathize with Gareth's contention that consensus is superior: but I fail to see how a wide-flung group such as ours can reach consensus. Surely, we could thereby have some kind of electoral system, and force the electors to consensus. But, it is no harder to have an elections system that votes for Directors, than an electoral system which selects electors. "Keep It Simple, Silly". The current means of appointment (I shudder to call it election, as Modius did, since the body voting is small, and the result requires complete consensus) suffers poorly. The process is unsatisfactory to the Directors. Note the frequent complaints of an insufficient number of nominees, and insufficient feedback. And the observers/members/participants are disatisfied as well, in the general case. Note the frequent complaints and comments, among those informed of the real status. Note also the predominance of elected Boards among standard and non-profit corporations. It seems to be a general idea in the conventional cases: I'd like to see a convincing argument as to why our case is different, and how it is different, before I am prepared to believe that the conventional approach won't apply here. Well, Magnus, you asked for feedback, and you have it. Could you, please, instead of stating your opinion, perhaps provide a counter-argument which supports it? With respect, all I know is how you feel: I do not know why, and therefore discussion and an approach to GC consensus becomes harder to reach. If I knew *why* you hold your opinions, the process of swaying each others positions becomes more likely. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 10:18:40 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 354 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 09:44:33 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Nominating Committee To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <31059FD3@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> from "Steve Muhlberger" at Jan 23, 96 06:43:00 pm The question that this raises in my mind, is this possible with any conceivable nominating committee? Or is it doomed to become another self-appointed, or obscurely constitued body that the average member, even the average member reasonably active in his/her area, feels no connection with at all. So, elect the nominating committee? Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 10:24:04 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 09:49:37 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun: reply to Arthur To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L This suggestion: If we allow a "Not In Our Kingdom" clause permitting monarch with x% of the populaces signatures, or x percentage of the locally elected officers, or basicly x% of SOME group of people he/she didnt pick... doesn't quite do it for me. I am after something that places disagreements on a rational footing so compromises can be reached. The board has to say WHY they want some such thing, the kingdom has to say WHY it is a bad idea in their area, and then there should be negotiations to come up with a way that respects the needs and interests on both sides. Petitions from the populace aren't necessary--the objection could come from the kingdom seneschal before the thing ever got to the populace (keeping down the number of petitions that have to circulate). I don't understand why this is so difficult, outside of bad habit. The number of things that have to be done for the corporation *in a specific way* would seem to be relatively small, and primarily related to financial bookkeeping. The same principle should also work within a kingdom. We have sufficient variation between regions and local groups (at least in the large kingdoms) that policies need to be negotiated to be effective. The focus is on objective--the WHY behind the policy. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 10:37:11 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: klth-jsp@pop.lu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Janna G Spanne Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 16:35:32 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna G Spanne Subject: Re: Nominating Committee To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >So, elect the nominating committee? > > Tibor Maybe you're being ironical, but that's exactly what we do in my part of the woods: we elect next year's nominating committee at the same time as the Board. What's normal procedure for US non-profits? Or is there any such beast? /Catrin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 10:47:58 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: klth-jsp@pop.lu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Janna G Spanne Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 16:45:30 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna G Spanne Subject: Re: MONARCHY To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >Heh people! Wake up!! The entire SCA is based on MONARCHY. Not the Inc. That sort of thing was, I think, called an oligarchy when I last read political philosophy, which admittedly wasn't yesterday. >It was said recently: >>.... All we positively know about any SCA >>monarch is that (s)he is more than passing good at rattan combat, ... Yes. I'm the one who said it. And it still holds. >The Royal Family a loose knit organization made up of past crowns >does talk to one another. They are not just a bunch of jocks that >smack each other with sticks. Nobody said that ex-royalty didn't talk to each other. Nobody said that all of them were exclusively stick-jocks, or even that some of them necessarily were. What I did say was that all you can *positively* know about any given monarch in his/her own right, from the fact that they are monarchs, is that they are good fighters - that's how they became monarchs. I'm sure that *some* present or past royalty are competent in financial and/or administrative matters, and well capable of making informed decisions about how to run a non-profit. I'm sure that *some* of them are generally known and liked and make an effort to represent the will of the populace. But that *isn't* what got them the throne; thus, royal status doesn't imply such competence or popular support. >If you are unhappy that the SCA is a monarchy, ... I'm not. I'm unhappy that the Inc is an oligarchy with its oligarchs appointed through a self-perpetuating and overly opaque system. Lady Morgan said it a while back: >... "the whole notion of nominating committees and general elections is >>inapproriate for our society." I disagree. While it may not work for >>SOCIETY matters, the BOARD is a mundane entity and therefore can and >>should be constituted in a manner appropriate to the need, not >necessarily >one solely appropriate to the Society. ... That just about covers it. Running the corporation in a legally and economically sound manner requires competence. Accountability presupposes some sort of representation - you're accountable to those who gave you a certain power, or who can remove you from it. Thus, giving royalty a say in appointing directors would require royalty to be competent and/or representative. *This*, in my book, would be spoiling the concept of SCA monarchy. (Note, I'm all for letting royalty propose or appoint members of the IAC, as the top coordinating organ for the "game".) As it is, anyone willing to make the effort can aspire to become a monarch, regardless of mundane qualifications or SCA administrative experience. That's one of the good things about our monarchy. Nobody cares if Her Majesty is mundanely a short-order cook, or if His Majesty loads baggage at Newark. They can still be examples of courtesy and chivalry, hold brilliant courts, give awards to deserving gentles, pass laws that make our medieval life more enjoyable, and all that. If they don't, fine, we'll have new royalty in six months. But let them have a say in deciding who should run the Corp, and people will expect and require them to have adequate competence. I don't really think it's fair toward the royalty. So, yes, I'm a monarchist in the SCA. I even think we should select monarchs by means of tournaments. I also think that this aspect of what we do should be kept separate from running the mundane Corp. >... >You think the masses actually turn out and vote in mass. Huh... do I? Quite possibly more people believe in Santa than in the concept of democratic duty. Fine. That's their decision - they probably have their reasons. I like Tibor's proposal because it gives vote to those who want it, and keeps politics out of the way of those who don't care. That, I think, is a good idea. And I still believe in keeping royalty out of it. /Catrin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 10:49:38 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: klth-jsp@pop.lu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Janna G Spanne Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 16:40:04 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna G Spanne Subject: Re: Alysoun: reply to Arthur To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >... The board has to say WHY >they want some such thing, the kingdom has to say WHY it is a bad idea in >their area, and then there should be negotiations to come up with a way that >respects the needs and interests on both sides. ... Looking at it from Drachenwald, this makes eminent sense. Such practice would have saved lots of suspicion and bad blood over here in the past, and possibly avoided the Nordmark crisis altogether. /Catrin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 11:32:13 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 11:01:14 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Leave this part alone? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Falada (slightly edited for space); small kibitz at the end... -- Justin From: LLUTHERFULTO@msuvx2.memphis.edu Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 05:38:40 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Leave this part alone? >At 07:47 PM 1/22/96 CST, you wrote: >I am afraid I agree too. I personally think that way too much effort is >being spent on details of reinventing a nominating/electing machine. I am >even more convinced that the current method of election, along with some >failsafe mechanism to remove a problematic BoD (Heaven help us that this >will not be needed.), is sufficient. > >Are there others here beside the above that believe so? > >Magnus To Whom It May Concern: My name is Countess Jane Falada of Englewood (mka Leslie Luther-Fulton) Please forward this to the Grand Council for me. This is the first time I have responded to a posting for the Grand Council. Thanks! After having tried to poll the western region of our Kingdom just to get a name and devise to submit, I could not imagine setting up voting for board members. Most people recommended to the board are only known well within their own areas. In order for the Known World to make a rational decision, resumes would have to be printed for all to peruse, or some other method would have to be created so that people could make informed decisions. Could you imagine the cost of that? Being on the BOD is a very stressful situation, not only for the participant, but also for his or her family. Very often people may find that they are unable to complete their term, and drop out early. That would be a large number of special elections, or reserve members. Talk about nightmares! Falada ------------------------------------------------ Comment by Justin -- one of the things about the SCA that is notably broken is the workload of the Board; I don't know *any* other clubs that dump so much work all the way up to the top. This is clearly one of the things that we will need to address over the next year: ways to delegate some of the Board's responsibilities out. If we get it right, the Board workload *shouldn't* be anywhere near what it now is, which in turn will hopefully lead to much less burnout. The past couple of years have seen a *ridiculous* number of burned out Board members -- we clearly need to fix this... -- Justin Who will point out to all that Falada knows whereof she speaks here... From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 11:46:36 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 11:09:09 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Leave this part alone? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Bearkiller (again, slightly edited for space). BTW, while I'm not deeply opposed to elections, I do concur with him about priorities here -- figuring out how to deal with Board Mistakes when they arise is more important than trying to find the (probably mythical) ideal way to select the Board... -- Justin >From: LLUTHERFULTO@msuvx2.memphis.edu >Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 07:35:07 -0600 (CST) >Subject: Re: Leave this part alone? >I am afraid I agree too. I personally think that way too much effort is >being spent on details of reinventing a nominating/electing machine. I am >even more convinced that the current method of election, along with some >failsafe mechanism to remove a problematic BoD (Heaven help us that this >will not be needed.), is sufficient. > >Are there others here beside the above that believe so? > >Magnus Me. I think the GC should first consider ways to reign in, or remove, the Board when problems arise. That has been the primary need. The whole issue of changing the way the Board is elected will take a great deal of time, once you factor in the commenting stage by the membership. The election question is so broad (once you include costs, time frame, the more than many different type of systems that will be brought up) that it might be better to focus now on what can be done in the immediate future to improve the way the Society is governed. Thanks and Good Luck, John the Bearkiller From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 12:01:36 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 730 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 11:23:12 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Recall votes... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Tibor. I've been thinking again... always dangerous. As one of the many sidelines in our nominations and removals discussion, we've tried to figure out how many votes it would take to remove a director. Now, as a Software Quality person, I spend a lot of time with metrics, and we use a tremendous amount of empirical data. Why not apply the same means to this? As a proposal, let's say that if an elected Director gets X votes, than one tenth that number of signatures is an impeachment request, and one fifth that number is an impeachment demand? Comments or suggestions? (I think of this as a launch point for ideas, not a final product. After all, I thought it up two minutes before typing it.) Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 12:06:17 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 11:21:12 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Leave this part alone? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601241419.JAA24339@abel.math.harvard.edu> (message from Mark Schuldenfrei on Wed, 24 Jan 1996 09:19:13 -0500) Just one point about elections. Tibor writes: >The process is unsatisfactory to the Directors. Note the frequent >complaints of an insufficient number of nominees, and insufficient feedback. Which, I believe, is due to the fact that most of the Society feels the Board to be quite remote, and that the average member-in-the-street has little or no real say in it. There is no sense of *connection* between the membership and the Board. I suspect that general elections would increase that connection, at least to some degree -- people would feel that they have input. (Certainly in the other clubs I play with, the sense of distance isn't *so* bad, apparently due to elections.) Now, you can argue whether or not an improved sense of involvement for the membership in the Corporation is a good thing -- as someone who wants the Corporation kept small and lightweight, I'm not sure I do. But YMMV... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: Re: Spamming "There will be some people annoyed, it's true. But the net has at least 10 million people on it, and you'll probably only *really* annoy perhaps 3 to 4 million of them -- a minority!" -- Emily Postnews From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 12:20:24 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 34 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 11:23:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Finnvarr: Catrin on Monarchy To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Catrin said: >As it is, anyone willing to make the effort can aspire to become a monarch, >regardless of mundane qualifications or SCA administrative experience. >That's one of the good things about our monarchy. Nobody cares if Her >Majesty is mundanely a short-order cook, or if His Majesty loads baggage at >Newark. They can still be examples of courtesy and chivalry, hold brilliant >courts, give awards to deserving gentles, pass laws that make our medieval >life more enjoyable, and all that. If they don't, fine, we'll have new >royalty in six months. >But let them have a say in deciding who should run the Corp, and people >will expect and require them to have adequate competence. I don't really >think it's fair toward the royalty. Very well said. Though I might add, that it wouldn't be fair to anyone else, either. >So, yes, I'm a monarchist in the SCA. I even think we should select >monarchs by means of tournaments. I also think that this aspect of what we >do should be kept separate from running the mundane Corp. No one group in the SCA should have all the clout. Not the Board; not administrative officers, whether of the Kingdoms or of the Corp.; not royalty. Proper balance is all. >I like Tibor's proposal because it gives vote to those who want it, and >keeps politics out of the way of those who don't care. That, I think, is a >good idea. This is the whole case for elections in a nutshell. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 12:45:55 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 37 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 11:44:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Finnvarr: Workload To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L The workload of the Board is not an insoluble problem, though I don't think we will get down to a one-meeting-a-year system anytime soon. Two easily defined moves would tend to simplify things. 1. Give Kingdoms a great deal more power to decide how to administer their own local and regional groups. I think that if the Board and its officers dealt only with Kingdoms and Principalities on a normal basis, things would be much more reasonable (since principalities are usually kingdoms in the process, the Corp should have the right and duty to supervise the creation, progress and promotion of principalities.) Financial oversight is a different matter. Now the Board could mandate this until it is blue in the face but it wouldn't work unless it was well explained. Especially it should be well explained what precise paperwork and regulation the Board and its officers were responsible for, so that if people got hacked off about the rest, they would know who to complain to! Let Kingdoms take the rap for their own weird rules and regulations, and their own piles of paper! 2. Peel off the game appeals process -- appeals against decisions taken by monarchs and other leaders within the game -- and give it to somebody else. Not a group dominated by monarchs and ex-monarchs! This will cost money and require some kind of recruiting, but I think it is unavoidable. This would leave the Board with primarily: insurance; financial oversight, (mainly within the USA); publications; other educational initiatives of benefit to the members; and emergency intervention if a Kingdom gets into serious trouble. The one hole in this is, what about changes in game rules? You know, the Peerage for Combat Tatting? I don't know. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 13:37:01 1996 Return-Path: X-Nupop-Charset: English Approved-By: flieg@GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 09:41:27 -0800 Reply-To: flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Flieg Hollander Subject: Re: Nominating Committee To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In message Wed, 24 Jan 1996 10:59:07 +0100, Janna G Spanne writes: > >>... >> the process we have now (in effect, everyone, members >> _and_ participants) means the entire sca is a nominating >> committee? >> > > Not quite. A nominating committee decides who gets on the official list of > candidates. Thus, at present, the Board is the nominating committee. > Anyone can send in a nomination for anyone else, or him/herself. If the > Board thinks it's appropriate, they'll list the nominee as a candidate; > otherwise, they won't. They are under no obligation to tell anyone what > nominations they've received, or on what grounds they've made their > choice. That's why I, for one, favor a nominating committee separate from > the Board. Well, right now, LJane is so desperate that she won't turn _anybody_ down, or that's what she told me. All we havet to do in any case is put in the rules that the "committee" can't refuse to list anyone who applies and that takes care of it without fancy committees. * * * Frederick of Holland, MSCA, OP, etc. *** *** *** flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu _|___|___|_ |===========| (((Flieg Hollander, Chemistry Dept., U.C. Berkeley))) ====================== Old Used Duke ===================== [All subjects of the Crown are equal under its protection.] From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 13:39:44 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 3913 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 12:44:49 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: BOD and Nominating Committe Suggestion (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Rosalyn MacGregor, by Tibor. [Slightly reformatted] Forwarded message: From: CONNECT@aol.com Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 12:22:26 -0500 Subject: BOD and Nominating Committe Suggestion If I may be so bold as to interject in this fine dicussion? Good My lady Catrin wrote: I'm unhappy that the Inc is an oligarchy with its oligarchs appointed through a self-perpetuating and overly opaque system. Good My Lord Gwydion wrote: You're right... I don't care who selects the Board members or how they are selected. And that's why you'll most likely never get a letter of comment from me. I'm pretty much willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt at least once; especially if they live six Kingdoms away. Rather than focusing on the directors themselves, I'd rather focus on the changes of policy. And Good My Lady Alysoun wrote: This suggestion: If we allow a "Not In Our Kingdom" clause permitting monarch with x% of the populaces signatures, or x percentage of the locally elected officers, or basicly x% of SOME group of people he/she didnt pick... doesn't quite do it for me. I am after something that places disagreements on a rational footing so compromises can be reached. If I may humbly suggest a few thoughts that popped into my head after reading this thread. If we assume the people serving on the board are "good" folks, (and considering how vilified the BOD has become, it takes someone special to want to do that particular job) then it's OK for them to pick who is next to sit on the BOD. The process that is most upsetting seems to be the "nominations in the dark" currently used by the BOD. A nominating committee that keeps all transactions in the open would solve this discomfort. So, perhaps Good My Lord Tibor's suggestion of electing the nominating committee is a better way to approach the matter. My reasoning is thus: if the nominating committee thouroughly vets candidates, making sure the Board has a good variety of quality folks to choose from, then the Board can decide who it needs, based on what topics are being discussed this term. For example, if new computers are needed, the Board may wish to pick from the candidates who have extensive computer experience, etc. Therefore, perhaps the Board can continue to pick its own members, but the list of candidates is now dictated by another entity. This nominating committee would then itself be elected (vote) by any means you like. The general populace would be the check on the nominating committee, and the nominating committee is the check on who sits on the BOD. Policy, however, is another kettle of fish. I second Gwydion's comments that the people probably aren't the problem, it's the decisions that matter. Alysoun and another gentle have talked briefly about this in the thread, but I'd like to see more focus on this particular aspect. Again, who sits on the BOD is immaterial to the objections of either the society, or a kingdom, of a policy that has been decided by the BOD. I would favor some mechanism being put in place that allows for a "veto" of policies that are either unpopular in general or not applicable to a certain kingdom (say outside the US). Perhaps this is the Supreme Court idea. The main comment I'd like to suggest is that perhaps time would be better spent talking about the nominating committee's relation to the BOD, and how to reverse BOD policy, rather than if the BOD itself should be elected. There seems to be resistance to electing the BOD, but there may not be to electing the nominating committee. I welcome any constructive thoughts on this message, and I beg the council members' forgiveness for taking up their time. Your Humble Servant, Rosalyn MacGregor Pattie Rayl From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 14:06:48 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 12:59:42 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Finnvarr: Workload To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <31068E65@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> (message from Steve Muhlberger on Wed, 24 Jan 1996 11:44:00 PST) Finnvarr asks (with respect to spinning off Board responsibilities): >The one hole in this is, what about changes in game rules? You know, the >Peerage for Combat Tatting? I don't know. This is part of the general issue of Corpora Legislation. I *think* the right approach is to create a better distinction between the game legislation (Corpora) and the mundane legislation (Bylaws), then hand the Corpora off to another body. (The IAC would probably be the right group if it were functioning more smoothly, since changes to the top level rules should be done by rough consensus of the Kingdoms.) This probably should *not* be the same body that is adjudicating appeals, if we can avoid it. (And yes, I understand that you probably can't create a completely clean division between mundane and game. We could do considerably better than we do now, though. And this gets lots of side-arguments about the running of the game out of the Board's hair.) -- Justin Who sincerely believes that the Board should have very few day-to-day responsibilities, so it can deal better with crises when they arise... Random Quote du Jour: "we're looking for a few good sentient beings" -- mister x From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 14:12:41 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 12:45:19 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Galleron: Election Baseline compared to Cariadoc's (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <01I0D02G298C9C1TPV@delphi.com> (ALBAN@DELPHI.COM) Alban writes (tongue in cheek): >what? a petition from, oh 10 seneschals and 16 crown, totalling 26 >people out of a paid membership base of 25,000+ is "broad >political support"? In all seriousness -- yes and no. In one important sense, it is: it indicates that this petition has broad *geographic* support. Given the degree to which SCA culture varies from Kingdom to Kingdom, this is quite significant -- it means that this isn't one particular Kingdom's hobby-horse. But in another important sense it isn't, because "Kingdom Seneschals" and "Crowns" are both fairly narrow categories, prone to specific biases. (Thus, Kingdom Seneschals *tend* to have moderately pro-bureaucratic tendencies, and Royalty *tend* to have very strong feelings about SCA combat. In neither case is this universal, but in both it's statistically significant.) There are pros and cons, as with everything. But it's not a crazy idea, just one with some distinct weaknesses... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "In many respects the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the American Dream are, in their hour of triumph, as strong as ever. But in one way they are weaker: the collapse of communism has robbed them of an evil against which they have been explicitly contrasted for more than half a century. For Manichaeans, which means for many Americans, the world has been black and white; with the blackness gone, the whiteness now shines less brightly." -- from The Economist From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 14:23:49 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 165 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 13:45:54 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Tibor: Focus, please To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Tibor. May I suggest that people consider remaining a tad more focussed? We are supposed to be working on appointment and removal issues... Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 14:46:17 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:15:52 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun: Time to vote? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L My reading of the threads at this time indicates a sort of juncture: We have a number of members who support an elective system and are interested in debating finer points (how nominations would go, percentages, etc.); we have a number of members who do not support an elective system for various reasons. Isn't it time to count noses to see if we should go forward with the election discussion? If there is sufficient strength for elections, then we can focus on the how to and refrain from general objections. If there is not sufficient strength, then we drop the particulars and focus on the problem of legitimacy. The former would not preclude the development of other means of addressing legitimacy in addition to an elected board and the latter would not mean that elections were ruled out--especially if we can't come up with other viable means of effecting legitimacy. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 14:55:37 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1687 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:07:11 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Galleron: Election Baseline compared to Cariadoc's (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:04:55 -0500 Subject: Re: Galleron: Election Baseline compared to Cariadoc's (fwd) Please forward to GC Alban and Catrin write (arguing against petition by percentage of Crowns or seneschals as an alternative way onto the ballot, but the same argument could apply to some proposals for impeachment): >Alban: >>what? a petition from, oh 10 seneschals and 16 crown, totalling 26 >>people out of a paid membership base of 25,000+ is "broad >>political support"? >>right. > >Even if it's "potential", not "political" (remember, "political" is a Bad >Word (TM) to some people), your point holds. > >/Catrin Let me play devil's advocate on this one. Let us suppose that Kings and Queens are no wiser than any average member of the Society. Certainly nothing in the selection process insures that they will be. Suppose you randomly selected a couple from each kingdom. If enough of them thought that a certain candidate was a decent one, might that not be sufficient reason for him to be on the ballot? If more than half of them thought a Director should be impeached, might that not be sufficient reason to put the matter to a general vote? Flieg has put forward a similar argument, although he speaks with greater assurance than I feel. Of course, you might argue that Crowns and Seneschals, because of their selection process, have a narrower range of views than the average Scadian. As I said, just playing devil's advocate here. I don't argue the proposition with any passionate intensity. Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 15:02:21 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2022 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:08:01 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Galleron: To Those Who Want to Leave Board Selection Alone (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:05:08 -0500 Subject: Galleron: To Those Who Want to Leave Board Selection Alone Plese forward to GC Magnus writes, agreeing with Solveig and Modius: > I personally think that way too much effort is >being spent on details of reinventing a nominating/electing machine. I am >even more convinced that the current method of election, along with some >failsafe mechanism to remove a problematic BoD (Heaven help us that this >will not be needed.), is sufficient. > >Are there others here beside the above that believe so? > >Magnus Yes,of course there are. There are also several who think elections might be an improvement, but want to know in some detail what is being proposed. Details matter. When I was considering elections as a general notion, I thought that would be too slow and cumbersome to meet the needs of the Society, especially if we are unable to reduce the rate at which we burn out the Directors. (Yes, we should work on that, but we can't count on being able to eliminate the problem) As the proposal was developed in greater detail, I became convinced that with annual elections, elected alternates, and especially if suffrage was limited to those that took the trouble to ask for it, general elections could well be our best option. I do think that the proposals have now been discussed in sufficient detail for the Council to run a straw poll on methods of selection, on the format I proposed earlier, with Councilors voting for every method they liked and against every method they didn't. When I get the go-ahead I will bring back another draft of my "Review of Selecting the Board" for your vote. After the vote, the Report can be revised to reflect the sense ot the Council. Once that is done the Councilors get one more chance to change their vote. Is the Council ready to do this? Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 15:10:40 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1001 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:28:07 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: BOD and Nominating Committe Suggestion (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601241744.MAA04620@abel.math.harvard.edu> from "Mark Schuldenfrei" at Jan 24, 96 12:44:49 pm Greetings from Tibor. Rosalyn suggested, perhaps, an elected nominating committee interposing itself between the current process as we have it now. At first, I thought: "Well, not bad at all." On further reflection, I find it less compelling. Consider: we have all the expense and hassle of elections anyway. What would be the payoff? Well, the vetted candidates would match the biases of the nominations committee. That could be for good or ill: I know not which we would get. But, the Board is not guaranteed only sterling candidates this way: merely those candidates that failed to be eliminated. If there is any intrinsic problem with the Board's methods now, this process would not correct it. Just insert a "flapper system" with it's own headaches and bias. And, it doesn't address the public relations issue of disconnection and remoteness at all. So, I don't find the merit in it I wish I did. (Sorry, Rosalyn.) What did I miss? Tibor (Rosalyn, please post again, if you like.) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 15:47:13 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: CORWYN@AOL.COM Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 15:12:04 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Corwyn da Costa Subject: Corwyn Offline for a while To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Well, the header fiarly well explains the situation- I'll be in LA for about a week, starting thursday. It's a series of mandatory classes for licensing all taken at one feel swoop. Or, as I like to say, "traffic school for psychologists" By the bye. for what it's worth, I have been extremely encouraged by the turn the GC has taken to organized and productive discussion since our last election. I was pretty much ready tp write the GC off as a useful body. I am absolutely delighted to have been wrong. keep it up ! Corwyn From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 15:52:20 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 15:18:11 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Galleron: To Those Who Want to Leave Board Selection Alone (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601241908.OAA08058@abel.math.harvard.edu> (message from Mark Schuldenfrei on Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:08:01 -0500) Galleron writes, with respect to the election straw poll: > Is the Council ready to do this? Looking like it to me -- most of the discussion seems to be getting redundant. Anyone have any particularly new and different points to make? If not, then it's probably time to get a "sense of the Council"... -- Justin Not in a desperate rush, but generally of the opinion that we should vote when we start running out of new things to say... Random Quote du Jour: >From "101 Spells Not Worth Memorizing": "6.5 Charm Dead 6.6 Charm Friends 6.7 Charm Potted Plants 7. Charm Self" From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 16:08:08 1996 Return-Path: Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:14:00 CT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Mike.Andrews" Subject: Re: Galleron: To Those Who Want to Leave Board Selection Alo ne (fw To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L > Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. > > Forwarded message: > From: WMclean290@aol.com > Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:05:08 -0500 > Subject: Galleron: To Those Who Want to Leave Board Selection Alone > > Plese forward to GC {deletia} > I do think that the proposals have now been discussed in sufficient detail > for the Council to run a straw poll on methods of selection, on the format > proposed earlier, with Councilors voting for every method they liked and > against every method they didn't. When I get the go-ahead I will bring bac > another draft of my "Review of Selecting the Board" for your vote. > > After the vote, the Report can be revised to reflect the sense ot the > Council. Once that is done the Councilors get one more chance to change th > vote. > > Is the Council ready to do this? > > Galleron I am. -- udsd007@dsibm.okladot.state.ok.us Michael Fenwick of Fotheringhay, O.L. (Mike Andrews) Namron, Ansteorra Pray, I beseech you, for the repose of the soul of Kathleen Anna Young Lister, once known as Baroness Caitlin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 16:19:19 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1668 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 15:41:54 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Galleron: Re: Nominating Committee (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwareded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 15:02:00 -0500 Subject: Galleron: Re: Nominating Committee Please forward to GC Catrin, responding to Alban, writes: >>the process we have now (in effect, everyone, members >>_and_ participants) means the entire sca is a nominating >>committee? > >Not quite. A nominating committee decides who gets on the official list of >candidates. Thus, at present, the Board is the nominating committee. Anyone >can send in a nomination for anyone else, or him/herself. If the Board >thinks it's appropriate, they'll list the nominee as a candidate; >otherwise, they won't. They are under no obligation to tell anyone what >nominations they've received, or on what grounds they've made their choice. >That's why I, for one, favor a nominating committee separate from the >Board. > >/Catrin > > Exactly. Selecting the Board involves the following steps: 1)somebody suggests possible candidates 2)somebody reads lots of comment letters 3)somebody winnows down the field to a short list to take seriously 4)somebody chooses who actually serves. Under the current system, anyone can do 1) and the Board does everything else. Under the the system I prefer, 1) remains the same, the elected, seven person nominating committee does 2) and 3), with entry onto the ballot also possible by petition, and the electorate does 4). Advantages: less workload for Board, more independence in nominating process, with voice for overseas kingdoms and gadflies that they might not have on the Board. Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 16:30:40 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 30 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 12:47:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Finnvarr: cutting down on bad decisions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Gee, I almost sent this message to Newt Gingrich! :-) > The board has to say WHY they want some such thing, the kingdom has to say >WHY it is a bad idea in their area, and then there should be negotiations to >come up with a way that respects the needs and interests on both sides. Good point. How about consultation with Kingdom and Principality seneschals *before* the decision is taken? Not for every decision, of course, but for the more major ones. The Board could issue a proposed change of policy for comment a meeting before a decision would be taken. One drawback: these things would infallibly be broadcast on the Rialto and other electronic fora, and the feedback would be almost entirely negative. Most people who would bother to respond would be against the new policy, and many of them would be intemperate in the way they expressed themselves. If the Board then went ahead (presumably after getting support from the Kingdoms), these people's perception that "the Board never listens" would be re-inforced. There are ways around this, mainly by having the Board explain itself clearly at every step -- not a bad thing, especially for major matters -- but the amount of friction would be considerable, and maybe greater than at most times in the past. > The focus is on objective--the WHY behind the policy. I've always felt that this should govern the way commands are given at Pennsic too. Can we work on that next? :-) Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 17:34:11 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 15:51:19 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Alysoun: Time to vote? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Terras... -- Justin >From: Joseph Heck >Subject: Re: Alysoun: Time to vote? >Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:43:39 -0600 (CST) >In-Reply-To: <960124141550_303227568@emout04.mail.aol.com> from "Carole C. > Roos" at Jan 24, 96 02:15:52 pm Carole C. Roos said: > My reading of the threads at this time indicates a sort of juncture: We have > a number of members who support an elective system and are interested in > debating finer points (how nominations would go, percentages, etc.); we have > a number of members who do not support an elective system for various > reasons. Isn't it time to count noses to see if we should go forward with the > election discussion? I would greatly like to see this myself. The form of thought that the current process is taking is interesting, but won't end up helping us (in my opinion). As I've said before, if you want to go this route - and keep the Board of Directors more "in tune" with the populace across our incredibly diverse organization, then perhaps you really SHOULD consider having one director >from each kingdom - elect within Kingdoms or appoint, that doesn't matter to me. Yes, I know (I can hear Finnvar breathing down my back on this one) that there are maniac crontrol groups monitoring our every move in the kingdoms, but frankly it's just a distribution of responsibility down to the Kingdom level that I'm seeing in my proposal. Electing across the entire SCA is rediculous in my mind. Terras (quiet up till now) Shire of the Standing Stones Calontir -- joe (573) 882-2000 ccjoe@showme.missouri.edu http://www.missouri.edu/~ccjoe "with a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and imprenetrable fog!" -- Calvin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 18:08:21 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: KINCORA1@AOL.COM Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 17:34:28 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Rolland Smith Subject: thinking of resigning To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Kyle (the lost) No I'm not dead, but the energy that I can put into these discussions is very low and I have given a great deal of thought to resigning. However I do not take my membership here lightly and as a crown appointee can not simply walk away. My feeling is that my replacement should be another crown appointment and in that vain I have already spoken with my crown and a possible replacement. Truth be known, the person I have in mind is FAR more qualifed than I could ever hope to be, they have been keeping up with the discussions >from very early on, so getting them up to speed would entail nothing more than a formal introduction and changing a couple of addresses on the mailing list. There was some discussion on this late last year but as it wasn't a major issue it just stopped. I think the person I have in mind will be invaluable in the discussions here.... Does anyone have an objection to my proceeding in this manor?? Kyle From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 18:08:21 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: KINCORA1@AOL.COM Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 17:34:28 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Rolland Smith Subject: thinking of resigning To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Kyle (the lost) No I'm not dead, but the energy that I can put into these discussions is very low and I have given a great deal of thought to resigning. However I do not take my membership here lightly and as a crown appointee can not simply walk away. My feeling is that my replacement should be another crown appointment and in that vain I have already spoken with my crown and a possible replacement. Truth be known, the person I have in mind is FAR more qualifed than I could ever hope to be, they have been keeping up with the discussions >from very early on, so getting them up to speed would entail nothing more than a formal introduction and changing a couple of addresses on the mailing list. There was some discussion on this late last year but as it wasn't a major issue it just stopped. I think the person I have in mind will be invaluable in the discussions here.... Does anyone have an objection to my proceeding in this manor?? Kyle From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 19:25:01 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 18:41:42 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: thinking of resigning To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <960124170630_205741249@mail04.mail.aol.com> (message from Rolland Smith on Wed, 24 Jan 1996 17:34:28 -0500) Kyle mentions that he would like to resign, and be replaced by a new Crown appointee, and asks: >Does anyone have an objection to my >proceeding in this manor?? I don't -- for Crown appointees, this seems the right way to go, so long as the outgoing and incoming members, and the Crown, all agree. It's ultimately up to the Board, though, so I'd advise writing to Eddie and asking him... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "BAGEL: A round, hard, doughnut-shaped bakery product introduced to America by Jewish immigrants. The derivation of the Yiddish word is uncertain. Some possible sources are: `beygul' (an encounter with the devil early in the morning); `baygal' (to feel like one has a weasel in his stomach); `beykil' (a mouthful of flannel); `bikkel' (to eat one's luggage); and `bakul' (a brick with a hole in it)." -- Henry Beard From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 20:15:18 1996 Return-Path: References: Conversation <31068E65@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> with last message <31068E65@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> Priority: Normal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Erik Langhans Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 20:18:29 CST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Erik Langhans Subject: Re: Finnvarr: Workload To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <31068E65@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> It was said .... 2. Peel off the game appeals process -- appeals against decisions taken by monarchs and other leaders within the game -- and give it to somebody else. Well as I said a LONG time ago....lets have the BoD delegate this to the IKAC. -Modius e-mail: modius@cityscope.net web page: www.cityscope.net/~modius From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 20:24:13 1996 Return-Path: References: Conversation <31069D12@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> with last message <31069D12@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> Priority: Normal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Erik Langhans Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 20:14:06 CST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Erik Langhans Subject: Re: BoD Removal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <31069D12@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> To remove a BoD member you need: a. 50% of the Crowns and Kingdom Seneschals agree that removal is necessary or b. 60%..... or c. 70% Basically from 50 to 75% need to agree. The exact percentage we can work out amongst ourselves. I think it should be somewhere between 65-75%. Now we have gone on that the SCA populace is so different form those in the mundane world that balloting every member would be the best and most cost effective way to give the masses a vote. RUBBISH! The masses will vote (or even care about the BoD) with the same frequency as the citizens of the US do during statewide elections (1-10%). That is no mandate. I say let the crowns and kingdom seneschal decide. Some GCers say what qualifications do the Crown have. Most crowns must have the financial strength to travel. That means most crowns are employed. Most crowns I know of in Ansteorra at least were educated and held paying jobs. Most that I know personally are mid level or up. Fine you can still discount this last statement. OK. How about the Kingdom seneshals. The few I know who have held that job were VERY qualified. Seneshal=Manager. They do keep informed and do keep the populace informed via regional seneschals who pass on info the local seneschals who then in turn give updates at populace meetings or local newsletters. In turn it goes up this same chain. I have seen the average SCA member go up to the Crown or Kingdom Seneschal and proceed to give their opinion on a topic which concerned them. The moral of this tirade is that those members of the populace who care enough... hold offices, want to hold offices and may eventually, stay informed and talk with others (Rialto, various local or kingdom maillists), apply to the BoD or the GC to become members, etc...... Also I agree with Justin re steps to take if you resign from the GC. Did everyone read John the Bearkiller's message? Does everyone know who he is? So lets table the election discussion and focus on removal od BoD members instead!!!!!! -Modius e-mail: modius@cityscope.net web page: www.cityscope.net/~modius From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 20:24:38 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Greg Rose Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 19:56:08 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Greg Rose Subject: Re: Alysoun: Time to vote? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Alysoun, I'd like to cogitate for 4-5 more days before we vote; I've revised some of my views on the basis of discussion and I think it would be useful to continue the discussion until, perhaps, next Monday or so. Hossein/Greg From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 20:34:27 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Greg Rose Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 19:50:34 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Greg Rose Subject: Re: Leave this part alone? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L John, How would the commenting stage be any more time consuming for an election proposal than for a removal procedure? Both would go out for comment and receive such comment as the membership cared to give for x period of time. The objection doesn't seem coherent to me. Hossein/Greg From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 20:34:41 1996 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: IN%"SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 19:58:44 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: BOD and Nominating Committe Suggestion (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L my main reason for wanting elections is that the board is spending _my_ money, and _i_ want to choose the people spending it. on nominating committees: the point has been brought up that one reason to have sucha committee is that the board has not always published all the candidates, and therefore we should pick a nominating committee so that all the candidates _will) be published. hogwash. we don't need a special nominating committee to do that. what we need is a board that will do that. (what we _really_ need, among other things,is a board that communicates a hell of a lot better than it does now - but that's a separate issue.) alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 22:45:35 1996 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: INTERNET"scagc-l@listserv.aol.com" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 22:00:44 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: elections; response to galleron To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Galleron said: >...Selecting the Board involves the following steps: >1)somebody suggests possible candidates >2)somebody reads lots of comment letters >3)somebody winnows down the field to a short list to take seriously >4)somebody chooses who actually serves. >Under the current system, anyone can do 1) and the Board does >everything else. Under the the system I prefer, 1) remains the same, >the elected, seven person nominating committee does 2) and 3), with >entry onto the ballot also possible by petition, and the electorate does >4). >Advantages: less workload for Board, more independence in >nominating process, with voice for overseas kingdoms and gadflies >that they might not have on the Board. ah, but under my leave-nominating-method-alone method, 1) remains the same, 2) and 3) aren't done at all, and 4) is for the electorate. of course, this follows the california method for elections, which allows for a wide variety of fringe elements - but i could live with that, provided there is the usual candidate's statement thang near the ballot. unless, of course, a petition with a certain number of names is required to be a candidate - but even with that, there's no need for a separate nominating committee. all that would be needed then is one person to count up the names on the petitions. alban, who by now is probably beating a dead horse. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 24 23:43:43 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Greg Rose Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 22:51:23 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Greg Rose Subject: An Election Proposal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Hossein. I have followed the election discussion closely and have tried to craft a concrete proposal which addresses many of the concerns expressed thus far about election of the board. I hope I have to some degree succeeded. I think it is useful to have a proposal on the floor which specifies concrete procedures so that we can evaluate just how complex or costly such a system might be and what trade-offs in terms of legitimation and popular participation might make such a system seem reasonable. Fiacha, I, therefore, move adoption of the following proposal. Hossein/Greg BOARD ELECTION PROPOSAL: I. ELECTION OF BOARD MEMBERS A. ELECTORS. All persons holding sustaining, associate, family, or international memberships will be members of the corporation for purposes of election of the Board of Directors. B. CANDIDATES. Any member of the corporation is eligible to be a candidate for the Board of Directors, providing that: 1. The candidate will have reached the age of eighteen (18) years by the official date of the election's commencement; 2. The candidate has submitted by the announced deadline a petition containing the signatures and membership numbers of fifty (50) members of the corporation who support the candidate's candidacy; 3. The candidate has submitted by the official deadline a signed statement of his/her willingness to serve if elected and proof of membership (e.g., membership number); 4. The candidate has submitted by the official deadline a statement of no more than two hundred and fifty (250) words, explaining his/her background and reasons for candidacy to be published with the official ballot. 5. No person may be elected to the Board of Directors for more than two consecutive terms. C. ELECTION PROCEDURES. The following procedures will be followed in the election of the Board of Directors: 1. Elections will be conducted in three-year cycles. In the first year of the cycle, three directors will be elected. In each of the second and third years of the cycle, two directors will be elected. The terms of directors will be three years. 2. All members of the corporation under I.A above will be sent by mail under the same cover from the corporate office at the official date for the election's commencement: a. A listing of the statements of the candidates in alphabetical order by legal name. No officer or agent of the corporation will alter the statement of any candidate, except as required by law (e.g., libel or obscenity); b. A ballot containing the mundane and society names of the candidates on which the members of the corporation may vote for up to four candidates in odd-numbered years and three candidates in even-numbered years; c. A statement of the official deadline by which the ballot must be postmarked to be counted. d. An envelope addressed to the corporate office in which to return the ballot. Postage for returning the ballot is the responsibility of the member of the corporation. 4. Ballots postmarked after the official deadline for return to the corporate office are void. 5. The ballots will be counted seven days after the official deadline for receipt of ballots by the corporate office manager and two agents designated by the Board of Directors. Any member of the corporation may observe the counting of the ballots. 6. In elections conducted in the first year of the cycle, the three candidates receiving the highest vote totals will be elected; in elections conducted in the second and third year of the cycle, the two candidates receiving the highest vote totals will be elected. 7. Ties will be decided by lot. 8. The results of the election, including all vote tallies, will be published in all kingdom newletters within two months of the completion of the official tally. The Board of Directors will certify the election and inform the candidates of the official tally within one week of the completion of that tally. 9. Any candidate may request a recount within two weeks of the completion of the official tally. Recounts will be conducted in accordance with the procedure established in I.C.5 above within two weeks of receipt of the request for recount. No candidate may request more than one recount. Results of recounts will be published in all kingdom newsletters within two months of the completion of the recount. D. DIRECTORS-ELECT. Directors-elect may participate in all deliberations of the Board of Directors prior to the commencement of their terms, but may not vote until commencement of their terms as directors. E. OFFICIAL DEADLINES. The following official deadlines will be followed for election of directors: 1. Deadline for submission of candidacy materials: 15 January; 2. Mailing of ballots: 15 March; 3. Deadline for postmark of ballots: 30 April; 4. Date of official tally: 7 May; 5. Date by which candidates must be informed of official tally results: 15 May; 6. Deadline for requests for recount: 28May; 7. Deadline for completion of recount: 4 June; 8. Commencement of term as directors for directors- elect: January board meeting. F. IMPLEMENTATION. The three most senior directors at the time of adoption of this proposal will vacate their directorships at the conclusion of the first election. In the first election following adoption of this proposal, three directors will be elected. In each of the next two succeeding years two of the remaining non-elected directors in order of seniority will vacate their deirectorships at the conclusion of each year's election. II. RECALL OF DIRECTORS A. DEFINITION OF RECALL. A director who has been recalled is removed from the Board of Directors effective from the date of the recall action. Recall may occur for any reason. B. RECALL PROCEDURES. Members of the Board of Directors may be recalled by any of the following procedures: 1. Majority vote of the Board of Directors; recall will be effective immediately. 2. Two-thirds majority vote of the Crowns and Kingdom Seneschals of the Laurel Kingdoms; the king, queen, and kingdom seneschal of each kingdom will each have one vote for purposes of recall; recall will be effective upon receipt of notification of the vote at the corporate office. 3. Submission of a petition to the Board of Directors containing the signatures and membership numbers of at least one thousand five hundred (1,500) members of the corporation. The eligibility of signators must be determined within five *5) working day following delivery of the petition to the corporate office; recall will be effective upon verification. C. REPLACEMENT OF RECALLED DIRECTORS. Replacement of a recalled director will take place at the next regular election of directors. The number of directors to be elected will be increased by the number of recalled directors if at least a full year of the recalled directors' terms remains. The regular director positions will be filled first, and the remaining recalled positions will be filled by the candidates receiving the next highest number of votes. Candidates elected to replace a recalled director will serve the remainder of the term of the recalled director. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 01:11:10 1996 Return-Path: References: Conversation <199601250351.WAA01378@bronze.lcs.mit.edu> with last message <199601250351.WAA01378@bronze.lcs.mit.edu> Priority: Normal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Erik Langhans Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 01:23:11 CST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Erik Langhans Subject: Re: Hosseins Election Proposal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601250351.WAA01378@bronze.lcs.mit.edu> NO NO NO to Hossein's election proposal. Yes only to the removal part of his proposal. -Modius e-mail: modius@cityscope.net web page: www.cityscope.net/~modius From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 04:00:47 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: klth-jsp@pop.lu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Janna G Spanne Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 10:04:17 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna G Spanne Subject: Re: Galleron: To Those Who Want to Leave Board Selection Alone (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L > I do think that the proposals have now been discussed in sufficient detail > for the Council to run a straw poll on methods of selection, on the format I > proposed earlier, with Councilors voting for every method they liked and > against every method they didn't. When I get the go-ahead I will bring back > another draft of my "Review of Selecting the Board" for your vote. > > After the vote, the Report can be revised to reflect the sense ot the > Council. Once that is done the Councilors get one more chance to change their > vote. > > Is the Council ready to do this? Yes. Galleron's review covers a variety of options, including Alysoun's "yes/no to elections". Hossein's latest proposal is way too restricted to vote on now, regardless of its possible merits. /Catrin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 09:01:33 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1127 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 08:33:45 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Alysoun: Time to vote? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9601242051.AA22170@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Jan 24, 96 03:51:19 pm Greetings from Tibor. Terras wrote: As I've said before, if you want to go this route - and keep the Board of Directors more "in tune" with the populace across our incredibly diverse organization, then perhaps you really SHOULD consider having one director from each kingdom - elect within Kingdoms or appoint, that doesn't matter to me. This *is* an interesting notion. Can you speak more on its good points, Terras? I think it appropriate that the Board increase the number of Directors, frankly. But not this way. Right now, the Board is torn in two directions: principally, they tend to act as advocates for the entire SCA, and in law they are to act in the public interest. What they avoid, actively, is partisanship toward their Kingdom of residence. While I am all for Kingdoms uber alles, myself, along with a sense of self-determination for the Kingdoms, I find myself feeling resistive toward a system where the national service corp of the Society is essentially a place where local preferences are exercised in a US Congressional sort of way. Thoughts? This is just my first impression. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 09:25:47 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 789 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 09:00:34 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Nominating Committee (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Guillaume, by Tibor. Forwarded message: Subject: Re: Nominating Committee Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 20:07:34 -0500 From: Bill Sommerfeld [Quotation of my Finnvarr's comment, and my suggestion to vote for a nominating committee deleted. -- Tibor] [feel free to forward this]. I'll suggest this for the Nth time: Select the nominating committee at random from the set of people who are willing to be on the nominating committee. BTW, the IETF has been doing this for the past couple years and it seems to be working fairly well. In general the nomcom seems to include a few of "the usual suspects" and a few "new faces", which is useful for maintaining perspective and avoiding groupthink. - Bill From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 11:23:04 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 10:40:30 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Leave this part alone? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Bearkiller... -- Justin From: LLUTHERFULTO@msuvx2.memphis.edu Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 23:47:01 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Leave this part alone? >John, > How would the commenting stage be any more time consuming for an >election proposal than for a removal procedure? Both would go out for >comment and receive such comment as the membership cared to give for >x period of time. The objection doesn't seem coherent to me. > >Hossein/Greg Greg, The larger the chunk that is changed, the more time will be needed to discuss and rap over. Having read the discussion in the GC for the last month or so, I find that : 1) Everyone on the GC agrees on finding a way to curb a corrupt, wrong, or stupid BOD member or members. 2) Not everyone on the GC agrees on whether to have general elections for the BOD. When you add in everyone's opinion on how, if you had them, elections will be done it seems to me that whatever plan is arrived at might be, shall we say, a very big issue once it gets out to the membership. I look at the discussions on the GC and imagine them SCA wide. It seems the proposal to change BOD elections would just take more time. The larger the discussion, nationwide, the more time it will take to make a final decision. The Board may set a date to finalize and vote on the change, but, if an issue is really BIG, I just think the Board will extend the decision deadline (I also believe the current Board is very concerned about not changing things without proper comment from the membership). Could be wrong. But, I find myself eager to see ways to curb the Board and it may blind me to other large changes at the moment. John From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 12:05:44 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 11:17:31 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: An Election Proposal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601250351.WAA01378@bronze.lcs.mit.edu> (message from Greg Rose on Wed, 24 Jan 1996 22:51:23 -0500) Hossein puts an election proposal on the table. I've got a couple of comments, not so much on his proposal as on how we should proceed now... First -- we're in an interesting position, in that there are clearly several feasible options, and people who feel passionately about each. I doubt that we're going to find consensus on any single proposal, due to the clear dichotomy between people who feel that General Elections are a Very Good Thing and those who feel that they are a Very Bad Thing. Consequently, I think the most appropriate course for this Council is to clearly enumerate the options, describe their strengths and weaknesses, and present those results to the Board. (Unless we *do* manage to get a clear and strong majority in favor of a single proposal -- I don't expect this, but it's possible.) So, a suggestion. For each of the major possible courses of action, we see if anyone feels strongly enough about it to write it into a formal proposal. (If no one cares enough to actually write it up, then I doubt it's really all that good an idea.) Hossein's proposal is a good first cut at one of those courses: general election, with general nominations. We vote individually on each of these proposals; people may vote in favor of multiple proposals, if they feel that multiple courses of action will work. (Personally, I'm likely to vote for a couple of them, and abstain on the rest -- I doubt that any method is actually crippling.) I'm of mixed minds about whether all of the proposals get forwarded to the Board, or just the ones that get at least 50% approval; any opinions on this? Regardless, those opposed to any given proposal have the right to write an argument against it. (This is guaranteed in the GC Charter.) Before we start these votes, indeed sometime soon, I think we should hold Galleron's straw poll, to assess raw support for the various options -- this may affect which ones actually get written up into formal proposals. No reason to waste time on a thoroughly doomed proposal, IMO (but regardless, it's worthwhile to know the lay of the land, and what the objections are likely to be). This straw poll is not binding in any way -- it's simply an attempt to get an idea of what we all think. There is one obvious objection to this suggestion: it defers the actual decision to the Board. But I think that the decision clearly belongs to the Board anyway (the GC just makes recommendations), and they're the ones who are going to have to live with the results. This way, we provide them with their major options, and a sense of how strongly we feel about them, so they have some good information to base that decision upon. I think this probably makes for a *more* informed and useful decision than us having an internal struggle over which proposal "wins". This is actually a general suggestion, beyond the issue at hand. I think we're going to hit more of these cases, where no one proposal has universal support, but there are multiple options. I'd say that this model, of producing a report that clearly lays out the options and how much support there is for them, is probably the most *useful* thing the GC can do for the Board... (BTW, if any of the members of the Board who are reading have opinions on this suggestion, either for or against this model, I think it would be useful to hear from you now...) Second point -- Hossein, I'd like to echo the suggestion that you separate parts I and II of your proposal. While they're not entirely unrelated, I do think that part II would go well with many of the other possible proposals for election, and should be considered separately. Also, it clarifies the arguments, and allows people to consider the merits of the removal method without worrying in detail about the election method at the same time. (The counterpoint here is that perhaps all proposals for election should also contain proposals for removal, since the methods are somewhat related, and the other compatible election proposals could simply adopt Hossein's removal method if appropriate. The danger here is multi-dimensionality -- we potentially wind up with several times more proposals, if each election proposal can be coupled with multiple removal proposals, and this could get unweildy. Think about it, and consider the options...) Overall, the proposal isn't half bad. It has at least one notable weakness (it's a bit expensive), but I doubt we're going to find any proposal that lacks weaknesses... -- Justin Who is honestly pretty neutral on this whole topic -- I just want to make sure that the adopted method works reasonably smoothly... Random Quote du Jour: "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. _Wolverine_ is meaningful" -- captkidd From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 12:46:48 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 36 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 12:04:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Expanding the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Finnvarr here. > I find myself feeling resistive toward a system where the national service >corp of the Society is essentially a place where local preferences are >exercised in a US Congressional sort of way. Me too. It will cost a lot more, too, as will any move to expand representation in this way. One reason basic costs have gone up in recent years is that in the 80s, two or three members of the Board were always from the central part of the West Kingdom, and three of the quarterly meetings were there. Us outsiders stayed in the houses of the WK members (and the Steward's house, and the Registrar's house) to save money. In the name of more diversity and getting in touch with the membership, this was done away with. This proposal would cost even more, and give you a Board that found it harder to work together, too, even if they somehow avoided being advocates for their kingdoms. Finnvarr From: Steve Muhlberger +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ `~-, ,-~`~-, ,-~`~-, ,-~`~-, ,-~` . | | | | | | | | From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 12:53:13 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Joseph Heck Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 10:56:43 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Joseph Heck Subject: Re: Alysoun: Time to vote? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601251333.IAA07588@abel.math.harvard.edu> from "Mark Schuldenfrei" at Jan 25, 96 08:33:45 am Mark Schuldenfrei said: > Terras wrote: > As I've said before, if you want to go this route - and keep the Board of > Directors more "in tune" with the populace across our incredibly diverse > organization, then perhaps you really SHOULD consider having one director > from each kingdom - elect within Kingdoms or appoint, that doesn't matter to > me. > > This *is* an interesting notion. Can you speak more on its good points, > Terras? My view of what the Board of Directors is and does is simply a control measure on the "game". Like has been already proposed here, I think they should deal with principalities & kingdoms - keeping those groups together, and letting kingdoms deal internally with their groups (shire, baronies, etc). I'd prefer to see membership drop down into Kingdom level, with some sort of agreement for checking across Kingdom lines - I'm not even sure it's reasonable for the Corporate level to be maintaining insurance, if it can be done less expensively (or not at all) in kingdoms. The core of the benefit to having a director from each kingdom is that you get a representation from each of the kingdoms (and hopefully cultures, although I know places like the Middle are going to be odd that way because of it's immense size) to maintain the SCA and the overall rules that we play by. How the kingdoms want to choose their "director" should be up to them. If they want to vote inside the kingdom, I think that's a LOT more reasonable than voting across the entire SCA. If they want to appoint, let'm appoint. Terras Shire of the Standing Stones Calontir -- joe (573) 882-2000 ccjoe@showme.missouri.edu http://www.missouri.edu/~ccjoe "with a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and imprenetrable fog!" -- Calvin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 13:04:44 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 38 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 12:18:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Finnvarr: Moving on -- Recall To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I find myself in substantial agreement with Justin's last post. I would like a sense of the council on the issue of electing the Board, and I would like to see some hard and fast proposals besides Hossein's (BTW, H., thanks for putting in the work). If we have a straw vote, I'd like people's Kingdom's attached to their votes, just to see if there is any geographical split. On Recall: I have a problem visualizing how this would work in a sensible manner. It will be hard to have a real knowledge of candidates for the Board to vote sensibly on them. However, the key things here are pretty soft -- does person X have appropriate experience, is person X a famous jerk? In a recall situation, how do any more than a handful of people find out that Director X or Director Y is untrustworthy and should be dumped? This is a matter of SPECIFICS -- Director X is always lobbying for the Combat Tatting Peerage and mandatory Milanese plate, and will eventually wear down the rest of the Board into agreeing to both. How do you know this? From the minutes? Not likely! Much easier to figure out that you don't like what the Board AS A WHOLE is doing. Does this lead us into a situation where the easiest option is to run a recall campaign against the whole Board? Is this healthy? Am I off the beam here? Perhaps a recall provision is necessary, but I still like the idea that at least some types of major decisions can be subject to veto or something like it, under some circumstances. That way the alternatives are not -- complain about the Board on the Rialto but do nothing/lynch the whole Board. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 14:27:06 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 13:53:57 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun: policy, not people To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Pushing the point made by Finnvarr in Moving on--Recall: It is very difficult to pin unpopular policies on individual directors. It has been reported to the Council that directors who voted against the membership policy received the same negative (even threatening) response as those who favored it. THE people most responsible for allowing a "bad" director are the people on the board, since they are in the best position to see when and if a problem is coming from a particular person. If the board tends to be wimpy now, figure it will be even worse if that person was elected and possibly has strong support from some interest group. (There are interkingdom groups--archery or rapier, for example--which could serve as a lobby and, if mobilized, elect a director.) Why is the Board wimpy? My guess is that recently, when the whole board was under attack, they stood together for self-defense and were too noble to throw someone to the wolves. However, I do get the impression that the board has been dominated by strong personalities in the past as well. This isn't the kind of thing that can be fixed with a clause in the by-laws. But it is something that can be addressed. The rest of the society can force the Board to accept this responsibility by rejecting the policy. A board which cannot effectively govern is thrown back on itself. For this to work in a smooth and orderly manner, we have to insist on rationale (the WHY). This makes it more clear where the divergence is: whether the problem is with the way the board thinks or with the way it implements. This is how members fight creeping institutionalization and keep their organization on track. To give you an example from another organization: Concern with outside funding sources like United Way is reasonable and requests from the top for information used in securing those funds is also reasonable. Gradually the focus on securing funds spilled over into programming--what the groups were being asked to do was becoming more directed to what would look good to the funding sources than to what was good in terms of the organization's own purpose. This doesn't happen overnight--it's a sort of drifting. The directors were good guys, it was their thinking that was slipping off on a tangent, and they had to be made aware of what was happening. In this case, it was not so difficult because there was a clear statement of purpose for the organization (something to wave under their noses). I realize that many people will not think that the Grand Council *did* anything unless they see something different in ink. Our problems are not in what is written down in the by-laws and corpora, and changes there will be no guarantee. Our difficulties lie in our organizational mentality. I've said this before and some of you seem to think I am saying that the problem is genetic and can never be altered. Sed contra, we can and should change that mentality. I had hoped that that was what the Council would primarily address. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 14:32:40 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2654 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 13:57:47 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: What to vote on and the GC Charter (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Katerine/Angharad, by Tibor. Forwarded message: Date: Thu, 25 Jan 96 13:37:29 EST From: jtn@eng2.uconn.edu (Terry Nutter) Subject: What to vote on and the GC Charter Tibor, please pass this on to the GC. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Greetings to the members of the Grand Council, from Katerine Rountre. Justin has written a longish message, suggesting that on issues where there is a difference of opinion, the Council should take votes, provide reports of all major positions, and report the results of the votes with those reports. I thought I'd mention that this is not only the procedure mandated in the Charter, it's also the procedure that the Council agreed on last month for substantive issues. While I have some emotional sympathy with John Bearkiller's feelings, I can imagine very few fundamental structural issues on which the Council will _not_ show more than one point of view. That isn't a reason to investigate as deeply as possible what the Council thinks. Indeed, it may be the issues on which it is most important to do that. As for leaving the decision to the Board (which Justin points to as the one disadvantage for the procedure in question), the decision is in fact left to the Board, no matter what the Council does. That cannot, therefore, argue against any particular proceeding on the part of the Council. As to a straw poll, I frankly don't see what that would accomplish, apart from eating up more time, for two reasons. First, we have heard enough comment on both sides of the issue to suggest very strongly that both sides (and many subthemes within each) have non-trivial support. That should be sufficient to indicate that you need, not a straw poll, but a real vote on real proposals to determine the weight of that support. Second, the depth of feeling on the part of many of the posters indicates that they will feel a need to write a minority report -- which by the Charter has to be passed onward, and which they have a right to ask others whether they want to sign onto -- no matter how small their numerical support, on the "numbers don't make right" principle. So even if the straw poll shows that a view does not have the support needed to carry the Council, I suspect you're going to have to deal with it anyhow. But that's just my suspicion. It would certainly help if more members who have not expressed their views did so, at least briefly. But for that, you don't need a poll. -- Katerine/Terry (formerly Angharad) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 15:04:21 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: maghnuis@cp.duluth.mn.us X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: "James D. McManus" Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 13:18:21 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: An Election Proposal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Hossein: Excellent proposal, even tho I intend to vote against it, it gets a nice concrete plan on the table. Fiacha: As we have extensively discussed the topic I request a brief period to discuss particulars of this plan ONLY so that we may vote on it Very soon. Thanx Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 15:05:15 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: maghnuis@cp.duluth.mn.us X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: "James D. McManus" Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 13:18:23 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: An Election Proposal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Hossein: If your proposals for Election and removal are separated I will have somesuggstions to suggest for ammendment of the Removal section. The Election section I believe should be Voted down entirely, not because it isn't well constructed, but rather because I believe the Election method is something we don't need to fix. Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 15:07:32 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: maghnuis@cp.duluth.mn.us X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: "James D. McManus" Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 13:18:24 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: Galleron: To Those Who Want to Leave Board Selection Alone (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L At 10:04 AM 1/25/96 +0100, you wrote: >> I do think that the proposals have now been discussed in sufficient detail >> for the Council to run a straw poll on methods of selection, on the format I >> proposed earlier, with Councilors voting for every method they liked and >> against every method they didn't. When I get the go-ahead I will bring back >> another draft of my "Review of Selecting the Board" for your vote. >> >> After the vote, the Report can be revised to reflect the sense ot the >> Council. Once that is done the Councilors get one more chance to change their >> vote. >> >> Is the Council ready to do this? > I request a week long straw poll... From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 17:31:57 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 16:41:45 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: An Election Proposal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Dani... -- Justin >From: dani@telerama.lm.com >Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 15:19:09 +0500 (EST) >Subject: Re: An Election Proposal >In-Reply-To: <9601251617.AA03747@dsd.camb.inmet.com> Justin [on Hossein's proposal]: >It has at least one notable weakness (it's a bit expensive)... This is correctable: Include ballots as inserts to an issue of TI or the Kingdom newsletters, rather than as a special mailing. The tradeoff is that non-sustaining members (currently about a third of the total) would be partially disenfranchised: They'd have to take the trouble to photocopy a sustaining member's ballot. (This can be partially corrected by including two half-page ballots in the insert.) This modification would also require voters to provide their own envelopes, which is not a bad thing. ----- Dani of the Seven Wells dani@telerama.lm.com "We live and learn, but not the wiser grow" -- John Pomfret From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 22:17:02 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Greg Rose Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 19:10:18 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Greg Rose Subject: Hossein: Corrected Election Proposal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Hossein. I noticed that in the four drafts through which this proposal has gone before I posted for GC consideration that I had neglected to make a change in the move from the third to fourth drafts. I am, therefore, reposting the proposal with that correction made in the text (the correction is in I.C.2.b). Hossein/Greg BOARD ELECTION PROPOSAL: I. ELECTION OF BOARD MEMBERS A. ELECTORS. All persons holdings sustaining, associate, family, or international memberships will be members of the corporation for purposes of election of the Board of Directors. B. CANDIDATES. Any member of the corporation is eligible to be a candidate for the Board of Directors, providing that: 1. The candidate will have reached the age of eighteen (18) years by the official date of the election's commencement; 2. The candidate has submitted by the announced deadline a petition containing the signatures and membership numbers of fifty (50) members of the corporation who support the candidate's candidacy; 3. The candidate has submitted by the official deadline a signed statement of his/her willingness to serve if elected and proof of membership (e.g., membership number); 4. The candidate has submitted by the official deadline a statement of no more than two hundred and fifty (250) words, explaining his/her background and reasons for candidacy to be published with the official ballot. 5. No person may be elected to the Board of Directors for more than two consecutive terms. C. ELECTION PROCEDURES. The following procedures will be followed in the election of the Board of Directors: 1. Elections will be conducted in three-year cycles. In the first year of the cycle, three directors will be elected. In each of the second and third years of the cycle, two directors will be elected. The terms of directors will be three years. 2. All members of the corporation under I.A above will be sent by mail under the same cover from the corporate office at the official date for the election's commencement: a. A listing of the statements of the candidates in alphabetical order by legal name. No officer or agent of the corporation will alter the statement of any candidate, except as required by law (e.g., libel or obscenity); b. A ballot containing the legal and society names of the candidates on which the members of the corporation may vote for up to three candidates in the first year of the election cycle and up to two candidates in in each of the second and third years of the election cycle; c. A statement of the official deadline by which the ballot must be postmarked to be counted. d. An envelope addressed to the corporate office in which to return the ballot. Postage for returning the ballot is the responsibility of the member of the corporation. 4. Ballots postmarked after the official deadline for return to the corporate office are void. 5. The ballots will be counted seven days after the official deadline for receipt of ballots by the corporate office manager and two agents designated by the Board of Directors. Any member of the corporation may observe the counting of the ballots. 6. In elections conducted in the first year of the cycle, the three candidates receiving the highest vote totals will be elected; in elections conducted in the second and third year of the cycle, the two candidates receiving the highest vote totals will be elected. 7. Ties will be decided by lot. 8. The results of the election, including all vote tallies, will be published in all kingdom newletters within two months of the completion of the official tally. The Board of Directors will certify the election and inform the candidates of the official tally within one week of the completion of that tally. 9. Any candidate may request a recount within two weeks of the completion of the official tally. Recounts will be conducted in accordance with the procedure established in I.C.5 above within two weeks of receipt of the request for recount. No candidate may request more than one recount. Results of recounts will be published in all kingdom newsletters within two months of the completion of the recount. D. DIRECTORS-ELECT. Directors-elect may participate in all deliberations of the Board of Directors prior to the commencement of their terms, but may not vote until commencement of their terms as directors. E. OFFICIAL DEADLINES. The following official deadlines will be followed for election of directors: 1. Deadline for submission of candidacy materials: 15 January; 2. Mailing of ballots: 15 March; 3. Deadline for postmark of ballots: 30 April; 4. Date of official tally: 7 May; 5. Date by which candidates must be informed of official tally results: 15 May; 6. Deadline for requests for recount: 28May; 7. Deadline for completion of recount: 4 June; 8. Commencement of term as directors for directors- elect: January board meeting. F. IMPLEMENTATION. The three most senior directors at the time of adoption of this proposal will vacate their directorships at the conclusion of the first election. In the first election following adoption of this proposal, three directors will be elected. In each of the next two succeeding years two of the remaining non-elected directors in order of seniority will vacate their directorships at the conclusion of each year's election. II. RECALL OF DIRECTORS A. DEFINITION OF RECALL. A director who has been recalled is removed from the Board of Directors effective from the date of the recall action. Recall may occur for any reason. B. RECALL PROCEDURES. Members of the Board of Directors may be recalled by any of the following procedures: 1. Majority vote of the Board of Directors; recall will be effective immediately. 2. Two-thirds majority vote of the Crowns and Kingdom Seneschals of the Laurel Kingdoms; the king, queen, and kingdom seneschal of each kingdom will each have one vote for purposes of recall; recall will be effective upon receipt of notification of the vote at the corporate office. 3. Submission of a petition to the Board of Directors containing the signatures and membership numbers of at least one thousand five hundred (1,500) members of the corporation. The eligibility of signators must be determined within five (5) working days following delivery of the petition to the corporate office; recall will be effective upon verification. C. REPLACEMENT OF RECALLED DIRECTORS. Replacement of a recalled director will take place at the next regular election of directors. The number of directors to be elected will be increased by the number of recalled directors if at least a full year of the recalled directors' terms remains. The regular director positions will be filled first, and the remaining recalled positions will be filled by the candidates receiving the next highest number of votes. Candidates elected to replace a recalled director will serve the remainder of the term of the recalled director. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 22:19:07 1996 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: IN%"SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 19:57:27 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: An Election Proposal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L justins suggestion that we present, not One Election Proposal, but a smorgasbord of what we've been discussing is a good one. i think a straw poll, as he suggests, to eliminate at least the the ideas that everyone hates, is also a good idea. if two ideas go upstream, two ideas it is. if four make it, four it is. (besides, didn't we discuss something like this several months ago, along the lines of a majority report with minority addenda? or a set of majority suggestions? for a set of intelligences that we represent, we certainly lack a long-term collective memory.) alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 22:27:17 1996 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: INTERNET"scagc-l@listserv.aol.com" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 19:51:29 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: choosing the size of the electorate? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L From: IN%"vnend@aol.net" "David W. James" 25-JAN-1996 11:02:32.89 To: IN%"ALBAN@delphi.com" CC: Subj: RE: elections; response to galleron Return-path: Received: from postman.ops.aol.com ("port 3576"@postman.ops.aol.com) by delphi.com (PMDF V5.0-5 #10880) id <01I0FB9HE9CG96W83P@delphi.com> for ALBAN@delphi.com; Thu, 25 Jan 1996 11:02:52 -0500 (EST) Received: from zelazny.ops.aol.com (zelazny.ops.aol.com [152.163.61.155]) by postman.ops.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA26517 for <@postman.ops.aol.com:ALBAN@DELPHI.COM>; Thu, 25 Jan 1996 11:03:25 -0500 Received: by zelazny.ops.aol.com (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI.AUTO) for ALBAN@DELPHI.COM id LAA04312; Thu, 25 Jan 1996 11:02:50 -0500 Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 11:02:47 -0500 From: "David W. James" Subject: Re: elections; response to galleron In-reply-to: "Alban St. Albans" <"elections; response to galleron"@delphi.com> (Jan 24, 10:00pm) To: ALBAN@delphi.com Message-id: <9601251102.ZM4310@zelazny.ops.aol.com> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.0 26oct94 MediaMail) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT References: <01I0EJX11B8Y98F82L@delphi.com> Alban, please forward this to the list. An odd thought just struck me as I was reading your posting, concerning the appropriate electorate. While I *really* like the people-subscribing-to-the- board-minutes/report as the electorate (especially if subscription does not require other dues!), I just thought of one that is odd but interesting: the electorate of the Board be the candidates for the Board plus some other small factor (Board, Chair of the Board, President and Society Seneschal, IAC or some other small, hopefully informed group.) I'm not sure it is better, but it does have the virtue of putting your time where your mouth is (to get a vote you have to be willing to do the work.) One other method that I like, but which I do not feel would be best (because it would be a logistical nightmare, at least at first) would be to make the Electorate anyone with an AOA or better. It has long been said that an AA means "we recognize that you are one of us", and, as such... Unfortunately, I'm afraid that it opens more problems than it solves. Kwellend-Njal From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 25 22:34:14 1996 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: IN%"SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 19:59:45 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: Expanding the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L representative-type selection for board directors is a bad idea, since the board is supposed to have a fiduciary responsibility for the SCA, Inc., and not for the individual kingdoms. mind you, there should be a variety of kingdoms on the board, but specifically and only because a variety of opnions and backgrounds is helpful, and not because those kingdoms should be represented on the board *as kingdoms*. alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 01:08:06 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: KINCORA1@AOL.COM Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 00:39:50 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Rolland Smith Subject: Re: Alysoun: policy, not people, and more To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I spoke with Ed and he had no problems with my intended method of replacing myself. Said he would post something here for everyones benifit. Is next week OK ?? >It is very difficult to pin unpopular policies on individual directors. It >has been reported to the Council that directors who voted against the >membership policy received the same negative (even threatening) response as >those who favored it. I there is any doubt contact Karen Hatten, Mistress Ellowen of Eaglewood. I think the basic quote from the (of course) annonomous caller was "you should just stick a knife in you're guts and kill yourself for what you've done to the SCA" As to the current debate, I really don't think "at large" elections will work. The pay to play mess, as big as it was, couldn't get 10% of the populace involved enough to even start trying to remove the board. What's the chance of getting a significant portion of the members to concern themselves with something as mundane as elections? I only see two alterntives to the current system: 1. Expand the board to one director per kingdom, selected by what ever means the kingdom decides. One possibility (to insure at least some representation for the common folk) could be having anyone interested in being representitive apply to the kingdom seneschal who would verify their qualifications and publish a list of candidates. These would be discussed at local meetings and when a consensus was reached the local seneschals would actually cast the votes. This would of course require a fairly long and no doubt painful restructuring process and would ultimately increase the cost of board meetings and doing business in general. Something to consider in light the populaces' objections to the current price of membership. 2. Use the selection process above to set up an IAC type commitee whose sole purpose would be to elect (from the nomination process already in place and with some input from the board) and when necessary remove board members. Removal would of course be more difficult (very high percentages or unanaminity) to avoid knee-jerk reactions and constantly changing the board over minor issues. The local seneschals could be used for feed back on an almost constant basis to keep track of the memberships' feelings. Getting thirteen people to educate themselves about nominees is a lot easier than trying (and failing I bet) to get 25k people to do so. Implementation would be fairly simple and the costs would be nominal. The board would still nominate and publish the names like they do now, only the election council would get any feedback and make the final decision. Even if there weren't enough votes (100%) to remove a board member, a majority vote (75%) could be a "no confidence" or "request for resignation". This council would almost always be discussing nominees so they could move quickly when unexpected (unrequested) resignations occur. I think it would work, it's simple, cost effective introduces a great deal of representation, and makes removal or atleast significant pressure to resign a real possibility without the pain and cost of a major restructure. Kyle From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 03:33:30 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: klth-jsp@pop.lu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Janna G Spanne Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 09:39:12 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna G Spanne Subject: Re: An Election Proposal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Justin proposes: >Before we start these votes, indeed sometime soon, I think we should >hold Galleron's straw poll, to assess raw support for the various >options -- this may affect which ones actually get written up into >formal proposals. ... Yes. Katerine says: >It would certainly help if more members who have not expressed their > views did so, at least briefly. But for that, you don't need a poll. On the other hand, Galleron's poll would provide a quick & easy way for our less active colleagues to express their opinion. Justin continues: >... we provide them [the Board] with their major options, and a sense of >>how strongly we feel about them, so they have some good information to >base that decision upon. I think this probably makes for a *more* >informed and useful decision than us having an internal struggle over >which proposal "wins". I agree completely. >Second point -- Hossein, I'd like to echo the suggestion that you >separate parts I and II of your proposal. Yes, please. /Catrin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 06:33:10 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: klth-jsp@pop.lu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Janna G Spanne Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 12:40:38 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna G Spanne Subject: Re: choosing the size of the electorate? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >... the >electorate of the Board be the candidates for the Board plus some other small >factor ... (to get a vote you have to be willing to do the work.) ... and pay the money (or the Corp would have to pick up the tab). Considering that the Board really does need to cut costs, do we want to run the risk of having to pay people's travel expenses from Europe and Australia, and wherever, just to give them a vote? What if they get elected? Ahrrmm... sorry... yes, you were a candidate, but, sorry, you're too expensive to have on the Board, tough luck... >One other method that I like, but which I do not feel would be best (because it >would be a logistical nightmare, at least at first) would be to make the >Electorate anyone with an AOA or better. ... which would let a few individuals arbitrarily decide who's to have a vote, and possibly force people to consider declining their AoA because they don't want to be bothered with politics. That's definitely spoiling the game *and* the elections. /Catrin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 09:26:47 1996 Return-Path: Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 07:52:00 CT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Mike.Andrews" To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L {reformatted for legibility} Michael Fenwick here. Finnvarr quoted someone (Tibor?), and commented: > Finnvarr here. > > > I find myself feeling resistive toward a system where the > >national service corp of the Society is essentially a place > >where local preferences are exercised in a US Congressional > >sort of way. > {deletia} > > This proposal would cost even more, and give you a Board > that found it harder to work together, too, even if they > somehow avoided being advocates for their kingdoms. I understand how it would cost more, but I don't quite see how it would the Board members would inevitably find it harder to work together. Would you be so kind as to explain? -- udsd007@dsibm.okladot.state.ok.us Michael Fenwick of Fotheringhay, O.L. (Mike Andrews) Namron, Ansteorra Pray, I beseech you, for the repose of the soul of Kathleen Anna Young Lister, once known as Baroness Caitlin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 09:52:50 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 09:18:21 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun: proposals To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Justin's idea to get the various views firmed up as proposals is a good one, but rather difficult for those of us who are against elections. Please consider splitting all proposals into three parts: nominations selection removal Even if one opposes election as the selection process, one might support changes in how the pool of potential board members is formed and/or how a member can be removed. On Hossein's proposal for removal--I like three votes per kingdom but not two for the Crown (many kings and queens are married). Can you think of a third party? The seneschal is administrative; the crown is, well, the crown: what third position would be in contact with the people's sentiments but have a somewhat different view? The interkingdom council rep? From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 10:02:10 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 09:18:21 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Re: policy, not people (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L On Jan 25, 1:53pm, Carole C. Roos wrote: > It is very difficult to pin unpopular policies on individual directors. It > has been reported to the Council that directors who voted against the > membership policy received the same negative (even threatening) response as > those who favored it. In the case of required membership, all of them shared the blame; the vote to change the By-Laws, without which required membership *couldn't* happen required the approval of all the directors. Even the two who originally voted against required membership voted to ammend the by-laws to allow it to happen. While I'm glad that they voted against it in the first place, I really wish they had stuck by their guns and scuttled the modification of the By-Laws. By the way, one thing I'd like to ask the council to consider is asking the current Board to restore the By-Laws to their 1993 state. Personally, I do not believe that the change was legal; they invoked emergency measures to do it and we still have no evidence that there ever was an emergency. David James From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 10:06:57 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2042 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 09:42:43 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: An Election Proposal (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for She Who Used To Be Angharad, by Tibor. Forwarded message: Date: Thu, 25 Jan 96 21:12:48 EST From: jtn@eng2.uconn.edu (Terry Nutter) Subject: An Election Proposal Tibor, please forward this to the GC list. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Greetings to all the members of the Grand Council, from Katerine Rountre. Dani writes: > Justin [on Hossein's proposal]: > >It has at least one notable weakness (it's a bit expensive)... > > This is correctable: Include ballots as inserts to an issue of TI or the > Kingdom newsletters, rather than as a special mailing. The tradeoff is > that non-sustaining members (currently about a third of the total) would > be partially disenfranchised: They'd have to take the trouble to > photocopy a sustaining member's ballot. (This can be partially corrected > by including two half-page ballots in the insert.) This modification > would also require voters to provide their own envelopes, which is not a > bad thing. According to what Ernest Goldsmith (the attorney for the petitioners in the Mandamus action, and a specialist in CA tax-exempt law) told my husband (if I understand correctly), there are precedents in case law that strongly suggest that any measure that gives unequal access to the voting process to some electors is vulnerable to legal challenge. If that is correct, then any scheme that makes some people take steps to get a ballot that others need not take is probably a Bad Idea. On the other hand, at present, every member who renews gets the full "Welcome to the SCA package" in response, in addition to a sizeable "You are about to expire" package before. If the latter were cut down to a postcard and the former, for renewals, went to an envelope with the new card in it, the savings from that alone would probably fund the cost of sending out one ballot a year, with or without envelopes. Cheers, -- Katerine/Terry From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 10:23:56 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 487 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 09:49:16 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Alysoun: policy, not people, and more To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <960125220021_206796907@emout04.mail.aol.com> from "Rolland Smith" at Jan 26, 96 00:39:50 am I spoke with Ed and he had no problems with my intended method of replacing myself. Said he would post something here for everyones benifit. Is next week OK ?? Greetings from Tibor. I'm having some trouble with this. I believe that we should let Fiacha and Edward handle this directly, and let Fiacha communicate the results. Anything else is undercutting his position. I have opinions of my own on this (as I usually do). But let's not make Fiacha's job the harder? Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 26 11:12:41 1996 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1331 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 10:40:33 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Partisan politics to be avoided To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601261346.IAA26860@listserv.aol.com> from "Mike.Andrews" at Jan 26, 96 07:52:00 am Greetings from Tibor. Michael Fenwick didn't quite understand Finnarr and my comments on the difficulty of one Director per Kingdom (appointed by Kingdoms) making it harder to work together. Simple. As I said earlier, Directors now have two masters: the good of the entire Society, and the good of the public in their fiduciary and legal capacities. Kingdom level representatives would have yet a third master: their Kingdoms. I'd made the comparison to US Congressional politics, and I think it is apt. Consider, for a topical example, how Newt Gingrich talks on the national level about big government, and it's impositions, yet he brings home more political pork for his district than almost any other Congressman... Some two years ago, I started to write a Corpora and Bylaws for an alternate SCA-like construct. I was very careful to try and keep the structure such that the Directors had a less partisan representational value, and had added a very IKC-like group to handle issues of play and re-creation. I believe, very strongly, that the responsibility of the Directors should be to "the world of the Kingdoms" and not to any one Kingdom in particular, and I am very much afraid that the inevitable effect of Terras' idea would be to tempt them into some sort of "My Kingdom: First Among Equals At Least." Tibor