From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 5 17:24:38 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: 3229 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 16:20:04 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Negative Feedback to the Board. To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Tibor. (NOT speaking as deputy Chair) [I've tried to "structure" my message, indicating what parts of the note I hope people will positively assist on. I've noticed that most of our correspondence consists of negative commentary. Which is why, if you'll note, I answered Gareth the other day with an invitation for him to make his ideas more explicit... for which I thank him.] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I've been thinking a bit, always a bad sign. There are three sorts of negative feedback I'd like us to explore, if we can reach accord on them: 1. Actions against individual decisions of the Board. 2. Actions against individual Directors. 3. General votes of no confidence in the entire Board. Please, consider those the "targets" of some form of negative feedback. I think that it should be progressively harder to send negative feedback to each level, which is why I ranked them that way. When I say negative feedback, I don't mean individualistic negative letters of approbation. I mean having procedures in place for providing formal and unignorable responses. For example, right now petitions are considered bad information. But what if there was a way to create a petition that showed a plurality of the participants resented a new policy or individual? Comments particularly invited on the means of negative feedback we could apply, and how to apply them. The "types" I will detail below. -------------------------------------------------- Now, there are two kinds of messages I'd like to see us send to those targets: 1. Bad news. 2. Fatal news. In this regard, I mean that we might want to formally censure a Director, and let them know they have lost support. Or, we might want them to be fired at once, with no time to arrange a graceful transition. The later should be harder. Imagine the difficulties of keeping things flowing if we actually "decapitated" the Corporation. (For example, the State of California would step in if all Directors were removed.) The discussion I've seen tends to blur the distinctions between decisions and Directors: probably because we are thinking of situations where an action is the sole fault of one Director, and it is so heinous that we want revenge. But, frankly, I'd rather see bad decisions reversed. If we can agree with the overall idea expressed above, I'd like to see us actually discuss what are all six values. Noting that the cases where we send the Board "bad news" are really almost polling for popularity, and not actually requiring action. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Corollary to the above... if we want to either criticize or reverse decisions, we need to assist the Board in distributing it's decisions and minutes in a more timely fashion. You can't respond to what you don't know. This means reducing the current flapper system to a reasonable level. Either by sending announcements from the Board's Secretary via email or postal mail more quickly, or some other option. I'd appreciate comments on this caveat, as well. How can the Board provide information (and receive it) in more timely ways? Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 5 20:15:24 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: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 19:34:48 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: We need a limited agenda, and a way to limit traffic... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L in line with limiting the agenda, and because a message i sent a couple of days ago seems not to have shown up, let me put forth a proposal, to be amended as necessary and thereupon voted on, so as to eliminate one item from the agenda, eventually. (besides, we're back to our old habits: too much talk, not enough voting.) to wit: add a section to the appropriate place in corpora, on the removal of members of the board of directors, said section adding something to the effect that directors may be removed by: resignation; removal by a majority of the other directors; end of the term of that director; and/or [new section] being voted out of office by a [majority][2/3 vote] of the great officers of state of all the kingdoms. "great officers of state" shall be defined in the appropriate sections of the laws of the various kingdoms. comment: why all the great officers, rather than just the seneschals? it would increase the number of votes, spreading out the decision-making, without making counting and collecting and sending out the necessary ballots an insurmountable problem. it would spread the decision around a varied constituency. comments? alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 5 20:35:41 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Serwyl@AOL.COM Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 20:02:09 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Chuck Hack Subject: Board Selection and Removal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Serwyl, Arthur writes: >'legitiamacy' in selection is one of the important issues in Director >selection. QUALITY and PREPARATION are the other two. typically someone >with strong interest is selected for a non-profits BOD and they go from >'outside the loop' with no real knowledge nor control to INSTANT "Vote on >this now" responsibility for the organization. >thats bad And goes on to suggest: >Potential board members would be first elected TO these committees, and >THEN, with with a public record of actual attendance, performance, and >positions available, could become eligable for election to the BOD. >It combines a pre-election performance trial with an extended and >productive orientation to the issues and responsibilities to be assumed. I have to agree with this (emphatically). We desperately need a training ground for potential Board members, and this could help provide it. The really interesting thing is that the 'Bad' Board was talking about instituting this type of system prior to the erruption of hostilities a year or two ago. As I recall from a conversation with one of the directors that left, they felt with the political climate the way it was, no one would trust that the intent was good and just shoot the whole thing down. It may be that now is the time to reopen that particular door. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 02:47:38 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: 2695 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 22:20:46 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Galleron: Re: Alban & Nathan on Elections (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L [From Galleron, via Tibor] Forwarded message: From WMclean290@aol.com Wed Jan 3 17:07 EST 1996 From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 17:06:35 -0500 Message-ID: <960103170610_105529937@emout05.mail.aol.com> To: schuldy@abel.math.harvard.edu Subject: Galleron: Re: Alban & Nathan on Elections Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2238 Please forward to GC In a message dated 96-01-03 00:02:28 EST, Alban writes: >actually, i'd like to suggest moving the "election of the board" discussion >to the way-back burner, and turn to "removal of a board member" >discussion. the election of a board sort of vaguely works, and trying to >introduce a brand new method will generate considerable heat when >the old method hasn't been shown to be tragically flawed. (flawed, yes, >but not tragically so.) >however, there's _no_ way for anyone not on the board to remvoe >a board member, so we should work on this. "Removal of a Board member" is a perfectly worthy topic. Once you remove them, how do you replace them? Which takes us back to "Election of the Board". Since the groundwork for that discussion is laid, why not resolve the question? Putting it on the back burner only means you'll have to start again from zero later. If the Council, after discussion, decides that it wants to recommend that we keep the current method of selecting the Board, that, with the reasons why, is also worth submitting to the Board. One could argue that the current "system" of removing Directors (informal pressure on Directors, who then resign because it's such a thankless job) works at least as well as the current system of selecting them. Which is not to say that either works as well as it should. Nathan writes: "Would someone in favor of re-vamping the Board selection process please describe how this measure could have avoided any of the recent problems we've had with the Board?" Well.... things might have been less polarized if the Board had been viewed as "Those Chumps We Elected" instead of "The Remote and Self-Perpetuating BoD from Whom We Have No Redress". And if the Board had been elected by Kingdom Seneschals who had themselves been elected by the seneschals under them, those Kingdom Seneschals might have been in a better position to articulate the wishes of the members. As it was, it was awfully easy for each side to view the other as either a bunch of unelected bureaucrats out of touch with the membership, or as a vocal but wrongheaded minority. Representative government isn't the whole answer by any means, but it could help. Will McLean/Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 04:56:19 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 22:50:50 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: BOD selection and removal Comments: To: Chuck Hack To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <960102222625_82851039@mail06.mail.aol.com> you neglected the possibility of election of BOD members by group level senashals. I based on what you said about BOD election by kingdom senashals it appears you would object to this method also. I disagree with your objections to alternative selection methods and ESPECIALLY with your suggestion that the current method is either good enough or better than any altenatives so far suggested on several grounds. So far as I can tell, you believe there IS no body outside the BOD capable of judging the suitiabllity of candiditates for BOD. I disagree. BOD members may become MORE aquinted with the annoying details of running the SCA *AND* the reality of the responsibilities and balances of the decisions thay must participate in *BUT* we're still talking about the *SAME* SCA the rest of us are IN and know about *OR WE SHOULD BE*. (if BOD inhabits an entirely different SCA than the rest of us wouldnt you consider that a problem with the BOD that needed to be addressed?). Somewhere within the SCA there is a fairly representative group of people, who have closer contact with, and responibility to, the general populace than the BOD that could be considered an informed, or at least adequate electorate. As to democracy upsetting your 'dream'... the tournements, and coronations and day to day play we prefer are the place for dreams. the SCA Inc. is a twentieth century corporate entity, needs to be run and treated like one, and needs to feel responsible to the people who pay its bills (members) so that it doesnt do something so self destructive that it finally alienates TOO MANY of its members and casue a real and regretable schism. Some form of indirect (or direct if neccesary) election would create a representitive to constituancy relationship which would likely keep the corporation much more sensitive to the opinions of the members and thereby prevent high handed behaviors that have upset many of us in the past. The sole (and soul) problem we need to address is the fact that the SCA is a top down organization (a problem which has as much in commmon with IBM as it does with monarchy) and NEEDS to be a BOTTOM_UP organization. ___________________________________+__________________________________ "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 Sat Jan 6 05:24:54 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 22:56:30 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: Galleron: Agenda Items (fwd) Comments: To: "Alban St. Albans" To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <01HZJXJNWRLE99F664@delphi.com> Um.. actually election methods is one area that the chairman of the BOD specifically asked us to look into. that suggests to me that he and other BOD members PERCIEVE there to be a problems, or at least believe the membership percieves there is a problem. (which I believe there is..) In light of that specific request fom the boy we are constituted to advise. back burnering it is prbaly a bad idea... ___________________________________+__________________________________ "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 Tue, 2 Jan 1996, Alban St. Albans wrote: > actually, i'd like to suggest moving the "election of the board" discussion > to the way-back burner, and turn to "removal of a board member" > discussion. the election of a board sort of vaguely works, and trying to > introduce a brand new method will generate considerable heat when > the old method hasn't been shown to be tragically flawed. (flawed, yes, > but not tragically so.) > however, there's _no_ way for anyone not on the board to remvoe > a board member, so we should work on this. > > alban > From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 06:20:42 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 23:10:00 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: Alysoun: do I have to? Comments: To: "Carole C. Roos" To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <960103113544_83070055@mail04.mail.aol.com> Er... Alysoun, I was volunteering to do the poll. I'm kind of waiting for an official agenda before doing so, but starting to become unclear as to whether a published agenda is part of the 'rule system' we adopted... In any case it was pointed out that the initial statement was 'mom and apple pie' and i hope it is. my plan is that *AFTER* we find that every one can agree to that (fingers crossed that theydo!), THEN I add things to it one at a time ane re-poll in a logical progression seeing how many will can agree how far. one step at time though. I'm hoping to find what we can all agree on. we seem to have found more than enought o disagree on... hope you dont mnd my using your post, but I thought you summed it up very well. ___________________________________+__________________________________ "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 Sat Jan 6 07:14:21 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 Approved-By: "E. F. MORRILL" Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 23:24:31 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "E. F. MORRILL" Subject: Re: Morgan: Budget and Financials (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601032019.PAA25250@abel.math.harvard.edu> from "Mark Schuldenfrei" at Jan 3, 96 03:19:05 pm > > Greetings from Tibor. > > Morgan wrote: > I have to agree with the original poster (Justin?) and disagree with > Magnus. At least two GC members are Mandamus plaintiffs, and Tibor > produced that noble but ill-wrought tax demand before the October Board > meeting. The Board members would probably be justified in viewing a GC > demand for the financial documents with a severely jaundiced eye. > > If the Board would treat the entirety of the GC that way, than both the GC > and the Board would be a sham and a disgrace. So would I, FWIW. > > I do not see that as likely. I believe that the individual members of the > Board agree that the Mandamus suit was something that should not have needed > to be brought, and should not have been resisted. And, although they may > wonder about the sorts of individuals that would have brought it, I doubt > they would color the entire GC badly as a result. > Except for certain memebrs of the GC that live in places, and they know who they are, (and if they don't then they should), I have no problem. > Morgan, I am CERTAIN you are wrong. I'd also be intensely upset if you were > right. > > Specifically, I had NO TROUBLE getting financial documents and other > information from Lori Taylor. In fact, she has always been quite helpful to > me, and I would urge other GC members to take advantage of her efficiency > and positive attitude. > Keep those cards and letters coming in. > (And, that is three GC members. Bertram, Hossein, and myself.) > > Tibor ("Noble but ill-wrought"? Well, what the heck. It fits on a > tombstone... :-) > shouldn't that be ill-rot? EDWARD Z -- E. F. Morrill Icon God of the Theatre World Husband of Elizabeth McMahon, High Fashion Designer aka Landgraf Edward Zifran von Gendy, KSCA, OL, OP, ETC Husband of Mistress Elizabeth Talbot, OL From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 11:06:59 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 10:48:06 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: BOD SELECTION/REMOVAL/REVERSAL:please note special instructions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L the initial poll vote thingy I pioneered seems to have been a good start, *BUT* doesnt meet our needs because we need a multi item version to be really useful. please help me as I experiment witht he multi-itme version. below are seven general statements regarding the selection, censure, and removal of BOD members, as well as reversal of BOD decisions. THIS IS NOT A PROPOSAL. this is a poll to see which of these elements should be further defined into implementable wording (by-law ammendment language and uttterly specific) My next posting will be a ballot form. please replace the "x"'s in the subject line with either "y" for yeah, 'n' for nay, or 'a' for abstain in your reply. If you would be interested in drafting the specific wording of one of these sections into proposal format/legal woridng for ammendment to the by-laws, replace the 0 at the end with the item nuber you would be willing to draft. reply to arthur@cnj.digex.net *NOT* to the gc mailing list, and feel free to comment on each item, but please do so in the space provided. sentiments echoed by at least three members will be published in the final tally. here it is: 1) the BOD should be selected by a group of electors small enough for the BOD to keep in contact with tehm on the one side, but broad enough for the popluace to keep in touch with them on the other. 2) To avoid society wide electioneering and election costs, and to provide an informed electorate, this group of selectors should be either some set of exisisting local officers selected by their local group, OR some set of regional officers selected by the member selected local officers. 3) these electors should also have the power to stay or reverse BOD decisions, and censure and remove BOD members. 4) The candidate pool for BOD elections should cosnist of people who have served a specified amount of time on BOD issue commitees over the past x years. 5) members of these item specific ad hoc working groups should be selected by ... er help me out here guys (items specific ad hoc groups so as to avoid GCitis with a million topics...) 6) an item specific ad hoc working group can be called into existance either by the BOD,a single BOD member, a national officer, or by the electorate, and must have a specific topic and a specific end date. 7) membership level 'petition' style reversals and censure/removal procedures should also exist so that no one can say "clique blocked me, no recourse, majority of members would agree". ___________________________________+__________________________________ "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 Sat Jan 6 11:23:34 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 11:01:14 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: BOD SELECTION/REMOVAL/REVERSAL: poll items To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L ITEMS BEING POLLED: Please reply by ballot(next message) 1) the BOD should be selected by a group of electors small enough for the BOD to keep in contact with them on the one side, but broad enough for the populace to keep in touch with them on the other. 2) To avoid society wide electioneering and election costs, and to provide an informed electorate, this group of selectors should be either some set of existing local officers selected by their local group, OR some set of regional officers selected by the member selected local officers. 3) these electors should also have the power to stay or reverse BOD decisions, and censure and remove BOD members. 4) The candidate pool for BOD elections should consist of people who have served a specified amount of time on BOD issue committees over the past x years. 5) members of these item specific ad hoc working groups should be selected by ... er help me out here guys (items specific ad hoc groups so as to avoid GCitis with a million topics...) 6) an item specific ad hoc working group can be called into existence either by the BOD, a single BOD member, a national officer, or by the electorate, and must have a specific topic and a specific end date. 7) membership level 'petition' style reversals and censure/removal procedures should also exist so that no one can say "clique blocked me, no recourse, majority of members would agree". ___________________________________+__________________________________ "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 Sat Jan 6 11:40:11 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, 4 Jan 1996 00:41:51 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: long-windedness To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L i think we're back to being in long-winded mode again. does anyone out there actually want to propose something, so edward doesn't get really steamed at us? (me? well, i'd like to suggest that wording be added to corpora regarding the removal of board members. specifically, in addition to a member being removed by the expiration of his/her term, or by resignation, or by a majority of the other members of the board, a member may be removed by [a majority vote] [a 2/3 vote] of the great officers of state of the various kingdoms "great officers of state" are defined by the appropriate kingdom laws. (why great officers, and not just the seneschals? it would broaden the backgrounds of the possible, er, de-electorate, but keep the number of voters down to a barely manageable number.) suggestions? comments? better wording? alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 12:08:03 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 11:41:20 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: BALLOT:BOD SELECTION POLL:1=x:2=x,3=x,4=x,5=x,6=x,7=x:volunteer=0 To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L replace x's with Y=yeah,N=Nay,A=abstain and reply to arthur@cnj.digex.net To volunteer to draft an item into proposal form, replace the 0 with item number. I will repost results regularly REPLY ONLY BY BALLOT. COMMENT HERE: please be brief. one line each if possible. 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 1) the BOD should be selected by a group of electors small enough for the BOD to keep in contact with them on the one side, but broad enough for the populace to keep in touch with them on the other. 2) To avoid society wide electioneering and election costs, and to provide an informed electorate, this group of selectors should be either some set of existing local officers selected by their local group, OR some set of regional officers selected by the member selected local officers. 3) these electors should also have the power to stay or reverse BOD decisions, and censure and remove BOD members. 4) The candidate pool for BOD elections should consist of people who have served a specified amount of time on BOD issue committees over the past x years. 5) members of these item specific ad hoc working groups should be selected by ... er help me out here guys (items specific ad hoc groups so as to avoid GC-itis with a million topics...) 6) an item specific ad hoc working group can be called into existance either by the BOD, a single BOD member, a national officer, or by the electorate, and must have a specific topic and a specific end date. 7) membership level 'petition' style reversals and censure/removal procedures should also exist so that no one can say "clique blocked me, no recourse, majority of members would agree". ====================================================== at this point this only a poll, and a call for volunteers so a proposal can be written that is known to be acceptable in principle to most of the GC. for that reason yeah,neah,and abstain can equally mean support,oppose,no opinion... I hope to conlude the poll and the necessary revisions so that we can get reasonable support behind a document for presentation with the report for the BOD meeting on the 19th. not a finished proposal mind you, just "heres the broad outline of what the reccomendation will try to do, we'll get it back to you after we hammer out the details and put it into implementable wording.. " Please do hurry folks... BTW "reply by ballot to arthur@cnj.digex.net" just means that only responses returned on the ballot form are likely to be tallied, and only comments in the provided spaces will be collated and reposted together later. I hope there will be general discussion of this.... As alwasy votes and final till its over so inthis case DO vote early and often... ___________________________________+__________________________________ "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 Sat Jan 6 13:04:47 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Greg Rose Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 12:11:48 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Greg Rose Subject: Re: BOD SELECTION/REMOVAL/REVERSAL:please note special instructions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Arthur, Maybe I missd something, but didn't we just vote to establish a specific organizational structure and a means whereby issues were to be placed on the agenda and voted upon? I don't see the purpose of an ad hoc polling. If you want such a thing, wouldn't it be good form to pass it by the chairman and have it put on the agenda? Hossein/Greg From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 14:02:34 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 13:36:47 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: BOD SELECTION/REMOVAL/REVERSAL:please note special instructions Comments: To: Greg Rose To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601061711.MAA00337@bronze.lcs.mit.edu> The procedure we have, allows for an infinite number of topics to be placed on the agenda, and they can be placed by anyone. The way your system is written, by DEFINITION if anyone posts a topic, then it IS on the agenda, and stays there for a month whereupon, if no votes are taken on it, it "dies". I think this is why Fiacha hasnt posted and agenda, BECAUSE IT CANT BE DONE, and is also why didnt bother to reply when i asked permission to conduct a poll. underyour system the question itself is silly. I'm not being facetious,nor am I trying to subvert your system. This is the way your system was written. I *COULD* just keep chiming in my two bits like everyone else, but that doesnt seem be getting us anywhere. *YOU* told me we had to have something on the subject by the 19th and gave that as a reason I should swallow my objections and get with your program. According to what you told me, we've got nine days to live if we dont produce something... On Sat, 6 Jan 1996, Greg Rose wrote: > Arthur, > Maybe I missd something, but didn't we just vote to establish a > specific organizational structure and a means whereby issues were to be > placed on the agenda and voted upon? I don't see the purpose of an ad hoc > polling. If you want such a thing, wouldn't it be good form to pass it by > the chairman and have it put on the agenda? > > Hossein/Greg > Having re-read the organization system we adopted, the agenda systems is: no agenda, no control, impossible job as chairman. My condolances to Fiacha. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 15:01:09 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: 629 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 14:35:26 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Arthur's "poll" To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Tibor. Arthur, I appreciate the intent of your poll, fully. But I also believe that you should give Fiacha a chance to work. He's a busy man (and is also writing the report for the Board right now, a task he's also inherited as chair.) A little more patience, would give the new Chairman a chance. I believe you have made his job the harder by rocking the boat right now. And, whether the language of the rules permits this rocking is a side issue. I ask, please, that you withdraw your poll, as soon as possible, and give Fiacha the room to maneuver he needs. I feel that he deserves the respect. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 15:23:04 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Greg Rose Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 14:53:41 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Greg Rose Subject: Re: BOD SELECTION/REMOVAL/REVERSAL:please note special instructions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Arthur, I told you, per Edward's own postings to the GC, that we had to get ourselves concretely organized before the end of December or we were in deep kimche. We have done that. Edward has also given us a list of three things he wants discussed ASAP. We are discussing the first of them now. My objection is not to your proposing a polling, although I think that detailed discussion is more fruitful than any survey instrument. And, frankly, such a polling is likely to curtail discussion rather than encourage it. My objection is to the unilateral announcement of a polling which you propose to conduct. The proper agency for the conducting of pollings is the chairman we just elected and his assistants. We adopted a set of rules. Let's try to live by them for at least a month or two. You may not like the rules and you may think them unworkable. However, I think you owe Fiacha, whom we just elected two weeks ago, the opportunity to get his implementation in place. He does have a family and was just through the holidays, which are generally busy for everybody. I have every confidence that he will have the agenda system in place shortly. If you want a polling, ask him then and we can discuss it and conduct it if the GC thinks it a worthwhile enterprise. Hossein/Greg From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 16:32:53 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: fiacha@premier1.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Nigel Haslock Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 23:24:51 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Nigel Haslock Subject: Re: Alysoun: do I have to? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Chairman Fiacha, This topic has drifted a looooong way. Please rethink and reset. As I recall, the original topic was "Can we gut any of the existing hierarchies?" Save the arguments on specifics until we decide that we need to try to justify gutting A&S specificly. In the meantime, consider that all offices are afflicted with both good and bad examples and that generalizing from a specific bad example is not a convincing argument any more than generalizing from a specific sterling example. Fiacha From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 6 17:11:48 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: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 16:42:58 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: doubling messages To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L a message i posted before new year's just arrived in my mailbox. this is essentially the same message i posted a couple of days ago (without the complaint about it disappearing). so, if you get two messages from me about removal of board members, please ignore one of them. it wasn't my fault. honest! alban, wondering why modern technology fails so often.... From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 04:32:30 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 03:18:06 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: Arthur's "poll" Comments: To: cMark Schuldenfrei To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601061935.OAA25485@abel.math.harvard.edu> I hope I haven't made Fiacha's job harder, because its already impossible as written. I would gladly work up a proposal giving the chair more control of the agenda, but I suspect Fiachas got one in the wings and I'll almost certainly support that. An unlimited agenda (as we have now) is NO agenda. For Fiacha to do his job, which is to help us focus and get results, we need to give him the tools to do so. Given the current flow of GC discussion I seemed to be faced with the choice of shutting up, chattering in the wind, or doing something that might be constructive and useful. I opted for the latter. I hope that it wont be interpreted badly, but apparently it has been. The purpose of this poll is not only to get the feedback, but to experiment with a method that would allow us to address complex multiple issues. if it works we can then specify who can call for one when and how, but at the moment there are no provisions for it. tibor also asked me to withdraw the previous balloting and I'm again going to respecfully decline. I asked for reponses to my private e-mail account, so the only GC bandwidth I'd be consuming would be occasionaly reposting the tallys. its not a vote, its not offical, its not binding, I'm just trying to see what people think. I hope this isnt being disrespectful to Fiacha. I realized that it could be interpreted that way and did ask permission to conduct an earlier poll (sorry alysoun! with the BOD meeting upcoming I though I should do this one first. I wanted to work out some details between the initial statement you made, your second statement, and a similar suggestion someone else made before sending that one up...) I would still like to ask people to respond using the ballot to my e-mail account. I hope two things, one is that the i've come up with some braod ideas we can agree upon, or that the feedback is sufficient formulate some that we do... the other is that I've creted another useful tool for establishing where we (collectively and indivudually) stand on complex issues. I would hope this would be seen that a tested method of doingthis cluld be seen as valuable gift tool for the chair to use in leading us rather than a challenge or disrespect. I did message an earlier "how do you feel about my running a poll?" statement (re:alysound member serving paradigm) and perhaps I should have waited longer for a response. Formal apology to Fiacha if he feels he needs one, and an offer of help. On Sat, 6 Jan 1996, Mark Schuldenfrei wrote: > Greetings from Tibor. > > Arthur, I appreciate the intent of your poll, fully. > > But I also believe that you should give Fiacha a chance to work. He's a > busy man (and is also writing the report for the Board right now, a task > he's also inherited as chair.) > > A little more patience, would give the new Chairman a chance. I believe you > have made his job the harder by rocking the boat right now. And, whether > the language of the rules permits this rocking is a side issue. > > I ask, please, that you withdraw your poll, as soon as possible, and give > Fiacha the room to maneuver he needs. I feel that he deserves the respect. > > Tibor > From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 11:20:02 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: fiacha@premier1.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Nigel Haslock Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 07:50:53 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Nigel Haslock Subject: AGENDA To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from your Chairman, I have been quite all week for three reasons. Firstly, I apologise for that omission of a formal agenda. However, you have all been doing really well at staying on topic. Note that the organizeational proposal that we agreed to requires that we talk about something for a month before creating a formal proposal. Thus I feel that Arthurs attempt to negociate a formal proposal at this point is more than a little improper. Secondly, I have been reminded that a board meeting is coming up and that we need to submit a report. You can expect to see this in a day or two. Thirdly, I have been biting my tongue a lot. This will not last for ever. I also regret to announce that Caroline Forbes has informed me that she has resigned from the council. Regards Fiacha -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Agenda and status as I see it. 1. Selecting Board Members - In progress 2. Removing Board Members - In Progress 3. Financial Oversight - Tabled 4. Membership - We are still waiting to see the output from the committee. 5. Landmarks - Waiting for a summary/proposal 6. Outsourcing - Waiting for ?? 7. Simplifying Board Workload - Drifted off target 8. Removal of Inactive Members - Under investigation 9. Replacement of Missing Members - Pending 10. Officer Training - Pending From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 11:34:21 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: fiacha@premier1.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: Nigel Haslock Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 08:04:44 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Nigel Haslock Subject: Agenda Items To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from the Chairman, The fact that anyone can get an item on the agenda does not imply that anyone is free to start discussing it at length. It is also relevant to notice that the item is not on the agenda until the agenda is published. I thought that it was clear from last months discussion that the topics under discussion at any time would be limited. Thus members of the council are not free to raise a new topic and then agitate for discussion of that topic. Anyone who prefers that mode of discussion is hereby invited to play on the sca-reform mailing list. With the publication of the initial agenda, I invite you all to discuss selection and removal of Board members. I do not want to see efforts at consenus building yet. I want to see more suggestions on how to perform either or both operations, along with some thought on the general criteria for proposals that I mentioned last week. Anyone who thinks that I forgot to list their agenda item needs to remind me. Fiacha From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 13:14:34 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 12:48:51 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: BOD SELECTION/REMOVAL/REVERSAL:(Arthur on Hossiens Comments) Comments: To: Greg Rose To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L cyberspace seems to have eaten my earlier reply to which I've added one paragraph... On Sat, 6 Jan 1996, Greg Rose wrote: > Arthur, > I told you, per Edward's own postings to the GC, that we had to > get ourselves concretely organized before the end of December or we were > in deep kimche. We have done that. Edward has also given us a list of > three things he wants discussed ASAP. No Hossien, you told me to my face that if we didnt have a concrete proposal on BOD selection, SPECIFICALY ON BOD SELECTION, by the meeting on the 19th that that would be the end of the GC. you also stated EZ had told you this. I wondered why you pulled me aside from the group to tell me that, but the fact is that you did, and that you repeated the statement several times, and when I stated it in those terms you affirmed that this is what you were saying. > My objection is to the unilateral announcement of a polling which > you propose to conduct. The proper agency for the conducting of pollings > is the chairman we just elected and his assistants. We adopted a set of > rules. Let's try to live by them for at least a month or two. er perhaps the probelm is that it looks too 'organized' or 'official'... I probably should have added MORE disclaimers saying that "this aint a formal GC anything, this is just my way of picking our collective brain and getting some help to write something that WOULD be a formal proposal with a good chance of passing LATER...". I suppose I could get on the phone, and write private E-mail messages to do the same thing, but I suspect this would lead to forming a clique of insiders who pretty much have everything ironed out and agreed on before any one outside even sees it let alone has a chance to contribute. when I've seen that sort of thing happen in local SCA chapters it usually results in people feeling disenfranchised and dropping out. I dont thik any of us want to see that happen in the GC so I thought I'd ask through the 'public' channel instead. as to the rules, they say nothing about polling. its just like any other GC posting, only it includes an organized method of responding, and means I'm serious about putting in the effort it takes to get feedback on my ideas from as many GC members as possible. > You may not like the rules and you may think them unworkable. > However, I think you owe Fiacha, whom we just elected two weeks ago, the > opportunity to get his implementation in place. He does have a family and > was just through the holidays, which are generally busy for everybody. I > have every confidence that he will have the agenda system in place shortly. It appears you now agree that we DONT have an agenda system already in place. Thats a start. I suspect that Fiacha is either working on an agenda rules proposal that allows him to do a meaningful job, or is just planning on "up and doin' it". I d rather see the former so that we ALL know how its supposed to work, but its obvious he's going to have to do SOMETHING outside of the our rules as they are currently written to create a maagable agenda we can work through to get results. > If you want a polling, ask him then and we can discuss it and conduct it if the > GC thinks it a worthwhile enterprise. I did ask him about a polling, a bit more than a week ago. I didnt hear anything back. when I thought about it , I realized that under our current rules system, the question "can I ask everyones opinion on something?" was probably silly, and that this might be why I didnt get a response. I (for once) seem to have been in a rush, but given what YOU told me IN PERSON on this issue I hope that its at least an understandable one. let me get that last line straight though. I can only post a request for organized feedback on my ideas, regarding subjects which are actively under discssion (and presumably on the agenda) , if the GC (who exactly is that, the chair, the chair and deputy?) think its worthwhile? is the same guy who said the system was vague because "that which is not forbidden is permitted"? From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 13:56:03 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 13:31:36 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: AGENDA Comments: To: Nigel Haslock To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601071550.HAA20804@premier1.premier1.net> I'm sorry this attempt at getting feedback from people in an organized way is being misinterpreted as a formal proposal. on the other hand, If I start now, take about two weeks to get the feedback from which to write *A* (not *The*, but *A*) proposal and then took another week or so to get it written up, I'd already be past the one month period... The only differnce between this posting any any other GC posting is an attempt at an organized method of soliciting feedback. Its subject is two of the active topics on the agenda, and if I were to repost it without the "please reply thus" header, it woudlnt be drawing this fire. Then again I also wouldnt have systematic results I could work from easily. I'm dealing with items that are now formally on the agenda, I'm trying to get feedback fromthe other council members, understand there positions and put my ideas on the table. would it be sufficient compromise to *NOT* post the responses unitl you're ready? On Sun, 7 Jan 1996, Nigel Haslock wrote: > Greetings from your Chairman, > > I have been quite all week for three reasons. > > Firstly, I apologise for that omission of a formal agenda. However, you have > all been doing really well at staying on topic. Note that the > organizeational proposal that we agreed to requires that we talk about > something for a month before creating a formal proposal. Thus I feel that > Arthurs attempt to negociate a formal proposal at this point is more than a > little improper. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 14:01:03 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 Approved-By: "E. F. MORRILL" Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 13:36:36 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "E. F. MORRILL" Subject: Re: BOD SELECTION/REMOVAL/REVERSAL:(Arthur on Hossiens Comments) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: from "arthur dent" at Jan 7, 96 12:55:48 pm > > cyberspace seems to have eaten my earlier replies to which I've added two > paragraph... > > On Sat, 6 Jan 1996, Greg Rose wrote: > > > Arthur, > > I told you, per Edward's own postings to the GC, that we had to > > get ourselves concretely organized before the end of December or we were > > in deep kimche. We have done that. Edward has also given us a list of > > three things he wants discussed ASAP. > > No Hossien, you told me to my face that if we didnt have a concrete > proposal on BOD selection, SPECIFICALY ON BOD SELECTION, by the meeting on > the 19th that that would be the end of the GC. you also stated EZ had told > you this. I wondered why you pulled me aside from the group to tell me > that, but the fact is that you did, and that you repeated the statement > several times, and when I stated it in those terms you affirmed that this > is what you were saying. > What I asked for was a chairman for the GC by the January Meeting. That seems to be done. THe other items, BOD Election, International Affairs, etc, were items that I thought should be dicussed. BUT...They did not have to be reccommended by this meeting. EDWARD Z -- E. F. Morrill Icon God of the Theatre World Husband of Elizabeth McMahon, High Fashion Designer aka Landgraf Edward Zifran von Gendy, KSCA, OL, OP, ETC Husband of Mistress Elizabeth Talbot, OL From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 14:25:46 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Greg Rose Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 13:55:36 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Greg Rose Subject: Re: BOD SELECTION/REMOVAL/REVERSAL:(Arthur on Hossiens Comments) Comments: To: arthur@cnj.digex.net To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Arthur, You write: >No Hossien, you told me to my face that if we didnt have a concrete >proposal on BOD selection, SPECIFICALY ON BOD SELECTION, by the meeting on >the 19th that that would be the end of the GC. you also stated EZ had told >you this. I wondered why you pulled me aside from the group to tell me >that, but the fact is that you did, and that you repeated the statement >several times, and when I stated it in those terms you affirmed that this >is what you were saying. I recall the conversation quite vividly. I said that Fast Eddie had said to me that he wanted the GC organized ASAP and the other Board members as well had said that the GC's failure to get organized called into question its continued existence. I also said that Edward had posted to the GC a list of what he wanted discussed ASAP. You replied that it was just a suggestion, not a directive from our ombudsman and that, if Fast Eddie wanted action, he should say so. As a result I asked him to repost his earlier message with the clarification that he really wanted action. Numero uno on the the list of issues he sent to the GC for discussion was election of the BoD. >> My objection is to the unilateral announcement of a polling which >> you propose to conduct. The proper agency for the conducting of pollings >> is the chairman we just elected and his assistants. We adopted a set of >> rules. Let's try to live by them for at least a month or two. > >er perhaps the probelm is that it looks too 'organized' or 'official'... I >probably should have added MORE disclaimers saying that "this aint a >formal GC anything, this is just my way of picking our collective brain >and getting some help to write something that WOULD be a formal proposal >with a good chance of passing LATER...". > >I suppose I could get on the phone, and write private E-mail messages to >do the same thing, but I suspect this would lead to forming a clique of >insiders who pretty much have everything ironed out and agreed on before >any one outside even sees it let alone has a chance to contribute. when >I've seen that sort of thing happen in local SCA chapters it usually >results in people feeling disenfranchised and dropping out. I dont thik >any of us want to see that happen in the GC so I thought I'd ask through >the 'public' channel instead. I always thought that good, old-fashioned _discussion_, like what we've been doing for the past week, was the way to engage in a public exchange of views. I don't see how a polling which you run and in which you alone have the data advances public discussion one iota. Survey instruments, in principle, lose information in comparison to full and frank discussion. I see your proposal as circumscribing the exchange of ideas, not advancing it. >as to the rules, they say nothing about polling. its just like any other >GC posting, only it includes an organized method of responding, and means >I'm serious about putting in the effort it takes to get feedback on my >ideas from as many GC members as possible. > >> You may not like the rules and you may think them unworkable. >> However, I think you owe Fiacha, whom we just elected two weeks ago, the >> opportunity to get his implementation in place. He does have a family and >> was just through the holidays, which are generally busy for everybody. I >> have every confidence that he will have the agenda system in place shortly. > >It appears you now agree that we DONT have an agenda system already in >place. Thats a start. I suspect that Fiacha is either working on an agenda >rules proposal that allows him to do a meaningful job, or is just planning >on "up and doin' it". I d rather see the former so that we ALL know how >its supposed to work, but its obvious he's going to have to do SOMETHING >outside of the our rules as they are currently written to create a >maagable agenda we can work through to get results. Fiacha published the agenda this morning. It might be of more use for you to read your email before suggesting that our chairman isn't doing his job. >> If you want a polling, ask him then and we can discuss it and conduct it if the >> GC thinks it a worthwhile enterprise. > >I did ask him about a polling, a bit more than a week ago. I didnt hear >anything back. when I thought about it , I realized that under our current >rules system, the question "can I ask everyones opinion on something?" was >probably silly, and that this might be why I didnt get a response. I (for >once) seem to have been in a rush, but given what YOU told me IN PERSON on >this issue I hope that its at least an understandable one. > >let me get that last line straight though. I can only post a request for >organized feedback on my ideas, regarding subjects which are actively >under discssion (and presumably on the agenda) , if the GC (who exactly >is that, the chair, the chair and deputy?) think its worthwhile? What you are doing is taking an unofficial vote of the GC. Taking votes is the responsibility of the chairman. >is the same guy who said the system was vague because "that which is not >forbidden is permitted"? You have a wonderfully selective ear. You announce a vote on an issue under discussion (calling it a "polling") and then you wonder why some of us object that the organizational procedures specify a particular way in which to poll (i.e., by voting on proposals) the opinion of the GC. I don't see how the Qur'anic principle that "that which is not forbidden is permitted" applies to a case where the written rules specify a procedure. I have tried to keep this at the level of a discussion of ideas and procedures, but I tell you frankly that this incident seems consistent to me with an attempt to hijack the GC's discussion by unilateral action. It is also consistent with your proposal that the GC executive committee consist of the top three vote-getters in the chairmanship race -- ain't it wonderful how in a two-man race that gets you the job, even if you get only one vote? Fiacha won the election and is getting things organized. I would have thought that entering that race obligated you to act as if you accepted it's outcome. Let Fiacha do his job and let the discussion proceed. Hossein/Greg From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 7 17:05:18 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: david friedman Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 13:38:46 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: david friedman Subject: Selection and removal of Board Members To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Selection of Board Members: A. Candidates for the board may be nominated either by majority vote of the nominating committee or from the membership. 1. The nominating committee consists of one member from each kingdom, nominated and elected like a board member for a two year term, plus (ex officio) the current Board members and the current heads of the major Society-wide hierarchies (Steward, Laurel, Society Marshall, Treasurer, MOA--minus whichever we manage to eliminate). The non ex-officio members have chief responsibility for seeking out candidates, but every member has one vote. 2. The nominating committee shall nominate one candidate for each opening on the Board and on the nominating committee. 3. Candidates may also be nominated by a petition signed by 2% of the membership. T.I. and the newsletters are required to accept such petitions as advertising, at their ordinary advertising rates. B. Candidates are elected by postal ballot. 1. The ballot shall include a brief description of each candidate's qualifications, provided by the nominating committee or, if the candidate is nominated by petition, by the candidate. 2. The ballot may be distributed in either T.I. or the newsletters. Members (for example family members) who do not receive their own copy may send in a photocopy ballot with their membership number. 3. Election is by a plurality of votes cast. Comments: This is designed as a system where the board is self perpetuating as long as the membership is reasonably happy with how things are going. Gathering 500 names on a petition is a good deal of trouble, so most of the time there will be only one candidate for each office, elections will be pro forma, and we can all ignore politics. But if people are seriously unhappy, an insurgent set of candidates can be nominated and elected. The elected members of the nominating committee are intended to provide a resource for finding candidates, as well as a voice from outside the current ruling group--although selected by the current ruling group. I think this is useful. Our problem is not so much a Board that wants to run the Society without caring what the membership wants as a Board that is too involved in doing things to pay enough attention to the views of others. I can easily imagine a Board, even the Board of two years ago, nominating me to be on the nominating committee, despite my holding views radically different from theirs on the particular issues that led to the blowup. --- Removal of Board Members A. A Board member may be impeached by petition of 5% of the membership or 1/2 of the Kingdom seneschals or 1/2 of the current Kings and Queens or a majority of the Board. B. If a Board member is impeached, the Board may vote to remove him. If it does not, there is a special election, as above, to determine whether he will be removed from the Board. T.I. and the newsletters must accept material arguing for or against removal at their usual advertising rates. If a majority of those voting vote for removal, the member is removed, and may not be re-nominated for two years. Otherwise the member is reinstated and free to complete his term. C. During the time between impeachment and removal (or reinstatement) the Board member will count towards a quorum but will not vote. D. Removed Board members are replaced by the ordinary process of nomination and election. David/Cariadoc David Friedman Professor of Law Santa Clara University ddfr@best.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 01:49:32 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: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 00:16:15 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Magnus out for a while To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Knee surgery on Tuesday so I might b out of it for a while. If I write anything too strange this week, blame it on the medications/ Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 02:15:39 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 01:51:03 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: You're right hossein we are gettng side tracked... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L you're right Hossein, but its not my attempt to solicit organized feedback on topics that are on the agenda that are sidetracks, its the discussion of whether or not I ought to/can.(and their less than productive devolutions) theres a lot of stuff in that last posting I'd like to reply to , but I doubt that would lead anywhere productive. I think I can straighten this mess out... hey guys! remember my posting of seven principles I thought would be a good way to select a BOD? well , Id' really appreciate feedback on them. just so I don't accidently subvert anything, I guess you'll have to post your replys the way we've always been doing it, rather than letting me do the work of collating the responses so as to make them organized and save bandwidth (talk about an attempt that backfired!). In the event that later on, anyone (like me) might want to put it all together it might be helpful to try that multi-item reply thingy I was experimenting with. I'm really sorry that this got interpreted as an attempt to "try and take over the world pinky..", I just wanted to know what as many of you as possible thought of my ideas, AND wanted to experiment with "multi-item ballots" cuz such a system MIGHT be useful at some point, in fact a few people even asked if it could be done... well I hope that puts to this to rest. I'll just repost those "seven principles for selecting a board" ideas I had without the funky header and you guys will reply (or not) using that ballot thingy(or not). oh wait, you were going to do that anyway... ___________________________________+__________________________________ "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 Mon Jan 8 17:06:46 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: CORWYN@AOL.COM Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 16:34:04 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Corwyn da Costa Subject: Re: Alysoun: do I have to? Comments: cc: fiacha@premier1.net To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Hello, all. Sorry to have to post this to list, but my mail to Fiacha (and many people) has been bouncy. For some reason, I can't access the agenda list that Fiacha sent around. It and a couple of other bits of mail are "no longer available" according to AOL. Talk about frustrating. Could either Fiacha or Tibor send me a new copy, or repost it as convenient ? (so I don't get 30 copies) Thanks Corwyn From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 18:51:20 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: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 17:05:40 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Joseph Heck Subject: Morgan: Board Election/Dismissal (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Margo Lynn Hablutzel said: >From 72672.2312@compuserve.com Mon Jan 8 17:04:34 1996 Date: 08 Jan 96 18:01:45 EST From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <72672.2312@compuserve.com> To: GRAND COUNCIL DISCUSSION GROUP Subject: Morgan: Board Election/Dismissal Message-ID: <960108230145_72672.2312_FHP56-1@CompuServe.COM> I have read, with varying degrees of thoroughness I admit, the MANY messages that have come in since the middle of Friday. Most I think I can pass on, but a few items are worth addressing: Arthur, what's the point of your poll? It starts out on one of the topics, then wanders far off-course. If you are trying to assemble information about the GC's attitudes, I think you can get that from reading the posted messages, and in a more thorough way than the poll allows. Also, isn't it the prerogative of the Chair and Deputy to authorize such information-gathering? so that it ties in with the topics under discussion. I also read yur seven principles. IMHO, I think a better way to start looking at the issues of Board Member Election and Board Member Dismissal (as I've noted, I think the two have to be developed together) would be to examine the procedures outlined in some of the relevant statutes. Once you know what can be done, then look at the SCA and similar organizations to see what would work. Entity-wide elections CAN occur, with a minimum of electioneering, if the procedures are carfully outlined and designed to eliminate or seriously reduce the possibility. I have participated in these, on both sides of the ballot. If the rules for the election are properly drafted and monitored, there is little leeway for nonsense like electioneering. (For example, while in one election you can do it, must be at your own expense -- can you imagine someone mailing to all 25,000+ members? In another, it is simply grounds for disqualification.) I think that only by making the Board an elected Board to some extent will the removal or dismissal of Board members be effective. Now I cannot remember who it was to pointed out that removal procedures are all but useless if you have a self-perpetuating Board. This leads to the corollary that if a Board member is removed, that person cannot be reappointed, or can be only after certain redemptive requirements (including a mandatory time period of absence) are met. It seems to me that resolution of this issue should be much less time-consuming than it has been. Here is my proposal for election: Various methods of election have been suggested. Either choose one, or choose a range of 2-4 from which the Kingdoms may select. This would be the method to nominate candidates to the Board. After a proper nomination is made, the candidate's mundane and SCA credentials are submitted for review. If all is in order, the person makes a brief statement that is printed with the others in TI, and people send in a ballot or whatever to register their vote. (One person suggested to me that people have negative votes, so you can vote against someone you really dislike. This could get complicated.) Ballots are received, votes tallied, person(s) with higest score(s) win(s). Simple as that. If a person is acting inappropriately, a vote of confidence can be taken by a certain group, such as the Kingdom seneschals and Royalty, or the electing Kingdom if we come down to one-per. If the vote is against, the person must run in an election and win to hold the eat. I can get more detailed, if you like, I have other ideas, but I have to go install a computer now. ---= Morgan |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com -- joe (573) 882-2000 ccjoe@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 Mon Jan 8 19:07:07 1996 Return-Path: X-Nupop-Charset: English Approved-By: flieg@GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 15:21:35 -0800 Reply-To: flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Flieg Hollander Subject: Fw: BOD SELECTION/REMOVAL/REVERSAL:please note special instructions (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Hal Ravn But many of the sentiments are mine as well - Flieg ------------------------------ From: Dorothy J Heydt Sun, 7 Jan 1996 21:26:42 -0800 (PST) To: flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: BOD SELECTION/REMOVAL/REVERSAL:please note special instructions (fwd) Flieg... I'd be appreciative if you'd consider forwarding these comments to the GC list. Since that's the intent, I'll sign myself-- --Hal Ravn, IAC, West arthur dent writes: > here it is: > > 1) the BOD should be selected by a group of electors small enough for the > BOD to keep in contact with tehm on the one side, but broad enough for the > popluace to keep in touch with them on the other. I would like to suggest (again) that the kingdoms--and whoever each kingdom wishes to designate--fulfills the first requirement. The kingdoms could also figure out ways (note the plural) to satisfy the second condition. > 2) To avoid society wide electioneering and election costs, and to provide > an informed electorate, this group of selectors should be either some set > of exisisting local officers selected by their local group, OR some set of > regional officers selected by the member selected local officers. I think the equine is well and truly dead.... Not all areas of the SCA operate on a 'local level is dominant' model. This suggestion caters to one of at least two way in which people actively participate in the Society. Since the GC membership is supposed to consist of people taking a Society-wide approach to problems, I think it remains to us interested by-standers to point out when proposals step on local toes or omit local conditions that invalidate the ideas for parts of the Society. The West does not have "regions". It has Principalities and it has Marches. A significant number of people in the West consider the *kingdom* to be their 'local group', and this sort of proposal leaves them out in the cold. I strongly urge that you consider reorganizing the selection of Directors around the kingdoms and leave it up to the kingdoms to break it down from there. There is no specific need to determine the rules from top to bottom. > 3) these electors should also have the power to stay or reverse BOD > decisions, and censure and remove BOD members. If the kingdoms were the statutory members, it would follow that they would elect and remove Directors--*and* be called upon to ratify (are decline to ratify) changes to the By-Laws (and in that manner prevnt the Board from being able to protect itself >from concerted actions by the kingdoms). The real questions in this model are things like what fraction of the kingdoms would it take to remove a Director and ratify changes to the By-Laws. > 4) The candidate pool for BOD elections should cosnist of people who have > served a specified amount of time on BOD issue commitees over the past x > years. And, thus freezing out people who might be eminently qualified but who have been doing other things? Isn't this proposal even closer to self-perpetuation than the present set up? > 7) membership level 'petition' style reversals and censure/removal > procedures should also exist so that no one can say "clique blocked me, > no recourse, majority of members would agree". We have some of this now. Go read _Corpora_ and _G&PD_. There are some very interesting ways to impeach a Director or petition for revocation/denial of membership. The key element that is apparent from the crisis that erupted two years ago is that there is no way to *remove* a Director save convincing the Board to do so. At present, all we can do is embarass one into quitting (though I'll admit that such methods are remarkably effective). Perhaps I should write a proposal for the GC to debate, providing the needed changes to _Corpora_ and _By-Laws_.... The one I wrote to revise bansihment proceedures that was debated by the IAC seems to rather well received.... --Hal Ravn, IAC, West (Hal Heydt) c/o djheydt@uclink.berkeley.edu * * * 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 8 19:51:22 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Greg Rose Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 19:18:48 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Greg Rose Subject: Re: Magnus out for a while To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Magnus, Good luck on the surgery. Hossein/Greg From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 8 20:39:39 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: 286 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 20:05:36 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Alysoun: do I have to? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <960108163341_35495947@emout06.mail.aol.com> from "Corwyn da Costa" at Jan 8, 96 04:34:04 pm Could either Fiacha or Tibor send me a new copy, or repost it as convenient ? (so I don't get 30 copies) It, and the follow-on message, have been sent as plain text. Others who may need it resent are invited to send my private mail, at schuldy@math.harvard.edu Thanks. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 03:02:59 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 37 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 21:32:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Finnvarr: SCA-Wide approach (Hal R.) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Hal Ravn said: >>> I think the equine is well and truly dead.... Not all areas of the SCA operate on a 'local level is dominant' model. This suggestion caters to one of at least two way in which people actively participate in the Society. Since the GC membership is supposed to consist of people taking a Society-wide approach to problems, I think it remains to us interested by-standers to point out when proposals step on local toes or omit local conditions that invalidate the ideas for parts of the Society. The West does not have "regions". It has Principalities and it has Marches. A significant number of people in the West consider the *kingdom* to be their 'local group', and this sort of proposal leaves them out in the cold. I strongly urge that you consider reorganizing the selection of Directors around the kingdoms and leave it up to the kingdoms to break it down from there. There is no specific need to determine the rules from top to bottom. >>> Hal is right to point out where we are stepping on toes: in this case, at least some Western toes. On the other hand, his own principle militates against leaving the selection of the Directors to the kingdoms. There are a large number of people in the SCA who don't see their kingdoms as representative enough to fulfil this role; and also people who see the SCA as a whole as primary, and the Kingdoms as dear but secondary. Some are on this council. I started pushing the idea of indirect elections of officers up to the Board level, but am willing to listen to other proposals. I will react to Cariadoc's proposal -- which has the virtue of not handing the individual members wholly over to Kingdom officers and Monarchs (all unelected -- but only after further thought. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 08:32:54 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 08:13:45 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Your (7 prinicples) Proposal (fwd) from Solveig Throndardottir To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L what you describe is one of the possible outcomes of making my generalizations specific. your caveat of marshallate/chirogurgonate officers being eleigable for BOD candidacy is probably a good idea and when I repost it I will include. the catch is its ONLY a good idea if the BOD is to be the "head of the society" rather than "the corporation of the society". people with expertise in an area feel qualified and called upon to make decisions in that area. If we want the the BOD making those "head of the socety decisions thatn we need the broadest possible SCA officer expereince base. if not we need accountants, insurance agents, and other corporate types as well as folks with experience in running SCA local groups (seneschals) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 19:40:42 -0500 From: Barbara Nostrand To: arthur@cnj.digex.com Subject: Your Proposal Noble Cousin! Your proposal sounds very similar to my proposal that the IKAC should effectively become the BoD and the existing BoD should become an executive committee appointed by the IKAC. You have added the nuance that candidates for the executive committee should have prior experience with some sort of special topic committee. In this I can agree as long as these can include such things as staff positions in the marshalate, the chiurgeonate, the College of Arms, etc. These society level committees do not have to be simply things like the Audit Committee or the Grand Council. Basically, normal operations would be accomplished by the kingdoms, service committees and the executive committee. The IKAC would intervene as necessary and would be responsible for Executive Committee appointments. Your Humble Servant Solveig Throndardottir Amateur Scholar Permission granted to forward, quote, etc. this private message. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 09:02:01 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 24 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 08:30:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Finnvarr: Bad news to the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I have been looking over the messages of the past week. I think it is highly appropriate that we consider a more acceptable method of selecting the Board, simply because unless the Board has some legitimacy, none of its decisions will have much clout. Provisions for ejecting people from the Board are appropriate for discussion at the same time. However, I must agree with Tibor's message of almost a week ago that figuring out how to efficiently express disagreement with Board decisions is perhaps more important than any of this. I do not see how the events of two years ago can be blamed on the selection process; distrust of the Board was amplified by a widespread distrust of the Board as a self-selected entity, yet. But did any of the decisions come out of a flawed process? Same thing applies to ejection. Even in the midst of the great crisis, most members were not in a position (or even very interested) to judge who might be responsible for things they didn't like (if they were concerned at all). Even people who were quite angry or upset would, I guess, have little info about which individual directors might be responsible, and whom it might have been worthwhile to remove. Let's not lose track of this thought. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 09:22:41 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: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 07:55:13 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Joseph Heck Subject: Re: Morgan: Board Election/Dismissal (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Arthur, who I don't think really needed it ;) arthur dent said: > Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 08:30:58 -0500 (EST) > From: arthur dent > To: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <72672.2312@compuserve.com> > cc: GRAND COUNCIL DISCUSSION GROUP > > I could support direct elections, I think they're probably a good idea. i > think we're dancing around the alternatives because there have been a few > postings that sound like members of the GC are unalterably opposed to the > idea. If you can get them to change thier positions thatn yours is > undoubtady the simpler and better (and more standard in the non-profit > world) solution. In the meantime I'm looking for the compromise we can > all work with that's acceptable to those opposing direct elections while > providing a cosntituancy for the board to be accountable to (that we can > get at) > > On the other hand, the SCA *IS* a society and people feel personal stakes > in a lot of issues. we've also got a lot of folks who fancy themselves > grey eminances and enjoy politics.. conditions which DONT occur in many > Non-profits but which did in one I managed once. the annual meetings > where bad enough we had our security detail on call just in case. Nobodys > got a a million or more invested in this SCA, but people can > still get pretty worked up. > > > despite what that sounds like, I still favor direct election by paid > membership. very strongly. I considered omiting the previous paragraph > because it appears to weaken/reverse taht position, but didnt because I > *STILL* support direct election despite bad experience. reason being with > the family savings at stake, elections were still SURVIVABLE, but without > that recourse it would have gotten A LOT uglier. even in the worst case > scenarios, elections are better than no elections. > > ___________________________________+__________________________________ > "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 8 Jan 1996, Margo Lynn Hablutzel wrote: > > > I have read, with varying degrees of thoroughness I admit, the MANY messages > > that have come in since the middle of Friday. Most I think I can pass on, but a > > few items are worth addressing: > > > > Arthur, what's the point of your poll? It starts out on one of the topics, then > > wanders far off-course. If you are trying to assemble information about the > > GC's attitudes, I think you can get that from reading the posted messages, and > > in a more thorough way than the poll allows. Also, isn't it the prerogative of > > the Chair and Deputy to authorize such information-gathering? so that it ties in > > with the topics under discussion. > > > > I also read yur seven principles. IMHO, I think a better way to start looking > > at the issues of Board Member Election and Board Member Dismissal (as I've > > noted, I think the two have to be developed together) would be to examine the > > procedures outlined in some of the relevant statutes. Once you know what can be > > done, then look at the SCA and similar organizations to see what would work. > > > > Entity-wide elections CAN occur, with a minimum of electioneering, if the > > procedures are carfully outlined and designed to eliminate or seriously reduce > > the possibility. I have participated in these, on both sides of the ballot. If > > the rules for the election are properly drafted and monitored, there is little > > leeway for nonsense like electioneering. (For example, while in one election > > you can do it, must be at your own expense -- can you imagine someone mailing to > > all 25,000+ members? In another, it is simply grounds for disqualification.) > > > > I think that only by making the Board an elected Board to some extent will the > > removal or dismissal of Board members be effective. Now I cannot remember who > > it was to pointed out that removal procedures are all but useless if you have a > > self-perpetuating Board. This leads to the corollary that if a Board member is > > removed, that person cannot be reappointed, or can be only after certain > > redemptive requirements (including a mandatory time period of absence) are met. > > > > It seems to me that resolution of this issue should be much less time-consuming > > than it has been. Here is my proposal for election: Various methods of > > election have been suggested. Either choose one, or choose a range of 2-4 from > > which the Kingdoms may select. This would be the method to nominate candidates > > to the Board. After a proper nomination is made, the candidate's mundane and > > SCA credentials are submitted for review. If all is in order, the person makes > > a brief statement that is printed with the others in TI, and people send in a > > ballot or whatever to register their vote. > > > > (One person suggested to me that people have negative votes, so you can vote > > against someone you really dislike. This could get complicated.) > > > > Ballots are received, votes tallied, person(s) with higest score(s) win(s). > > Simple as that. > > > > If a person is acting inappropriately, a vote of confidence can be taken by a > > certain group, such as the Kingdom seneschals and Royalty, or the electing > > Kingdom if we come down to one-per. If the vote is against, the person must run > > in an election and win to hold the eat. > > > > I can get more detailed, if you like, I have other ideas, but I have to go > > install a computer now. > > > > > > ---= Morgan > > > > > > > > > > > > > > |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! > > 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- > > |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com > > > > > > > > -- > > joe (573) 882-2000 > > ccjoe@missouri.edu http://www.missouri.edu/~ccjoe > > "with a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and > > imprenetrable fog!" -- Calvin > > > -- joe (573) 882-2000 ccjoe@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 Tue Jan 9 11:40:33 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 11:13:25 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Board Selection To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Brian... -- Justin >Subject: Board Selection >Date: Fri, 05 Jan 1996 17:22:07 -0800 >From: Guy Cox Greetings, On Thus, Jan 4, Auther Dent wrote: > a representitive/constituent relationship between the BOD members and a > small and (fairly) informed group of electors would definatly help keep > the BOD in touch, and would mean at least one member in every branch felt > responsible for keeping up on issues/could relate those sissues to from > any member who cared... This sounds more like a way to communicate between the BOD and the membership at large than an election proceedure. If you replaced the word "electors" with "councilors" or "advisors" or... Then the BOD could seek information from those advisors (expanding the amount of input to any decsion) and send out information/straw proposals through the same advisors (spreading the word better). If this is really a small group of informed and involved _electors_ then it reminds me of the political machine politics of Tamany Hall, etc. -- Brian O'Seabac Guy Cox cox@hpcea.ce.hp.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 11:48:24 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Sven Noren Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 17:04:33 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Sven Noren Subject: Frithiof on board elections To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Arthur had thought a lot on elections, here is my thoughts: 1) Selection of the board by electors could be a workable method. 2) How to elect the electors: Picking some existing officers somehow does not seem right to me. Not that I can point out why. And one elector per local group makes for quite a lot of electors. Electing one elector per 100 or 200 members or so seems more managable. 3) >>these electors should also have the power to stay or reverse BOD decisions, and censure and remove BOD members.<< With 250 electors, this could be a lot of trouble! Both because for every decision there will always be someone questioning it, and to get a vote from everybody will take some time and cost. Having a one month voting round after each board meeting to see wich decisions get overturned and wich board members get censured does not make for effective governing.... 4) Picking candidates for board positions from those serving on board committees severely limits the available candidates. I would prefer nominations from the membership or by the electors. (Thoughts on how to form such committees and select the members on them snipped) 7) Reversal and removal by the membership also, would only make my point 3) above even worse. Direct election of half the board members and the chairman every year would probably be easier and lead to LESS campaigning. Morgan also wrote about elections: Here is my proposal for election: Various methods of election have been suggested. Either choose one, or choose a range of 2-4 >from which the Kingdoms may select. This would be the method to nominate candidates to the Board. Why not let the kingdoms use their method of choice? I see no need to control the method for selecting candidates. (One person suggested to me that people have negative votes, so you can vote against someone you really dislike. This could get complicated.) Not necessarily. There is actually a method for doing this called "accept voting", devised for elections of chairmen and the like. It works like this: The ballot contains a list of the candidates. You check one_or_more_ candidates; those that you could accept as chairman or whatever. If you think that all but one is OK, then you can check all but that one! If no-one is up to measure you can leave a blank vote, of course. Ballots are received, votes tallied, person(s) with higest score(s) win(s). Simple as that. Exactly! The candidate that gets the most votes is the one acceptable to most voters. The total number of votes cast can, and probably will, be several times the number of voters. I.e: the winner got 75% of the votes, and the closest competitor got 67%. (No one can get more than 100%, though.) It may seem odd, but it really does work. If a person is acting inappropriately, a vote of confidence can be taken by a certain group, such as the Kingdom seneschals and Royalty, or the electing Kingdom if we come down to one-per. If the vote is against, the person must run in an election and win to hold the (s)eat. A bit overdone, in my opinion. If one board member goes out-of-bounds the rest of the board should bring hir back in line. Otherwise a vote of confidence in the entire board might be appropriate. I would rather see a way to overturn decisions by the board. Both these should be regarded as extreme measures, not to be used lightly. Can anyone come up with a mechanism for that? Frithiof the friendly herald (Sven.Noren@kemi.UU.SE) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 11:54:48 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 11:14:01 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: We need a limited agenda To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Brian... -- Justin >Subject: We need a limited agenda >Date: Fri, 05 Jan 1996 17:27:03 -0800 >From: Guy Cox Greetings, This one I agree with whole heartedly!! On Fri, Jan 5., arthur dent wrote: > reading all the GC stuff is taking me about 40 minutes *A DAY*. people > without the luxury of daily E-mail, or who access thier mail at work are > soon going to be utterly swamped, again. > > WE need the official 'this is the list of items under discussion' list , > if there is to be one , and we may also need a method for limiting > positng ( yes, mea culpa...). we now have far too many threads going to > realisticly accomplish anything on them. > > we need a limtied agenda, and a limit to traffic volume, otherwise this is > going to feel very mcuh like the old GC before we 'got organized'. -- Brian O'Seabac Guy Cox cox@hpcea.ce.hp.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 14:02:58 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 13:26:39 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Alysoun: Board Election/Organization Serves Membership To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Brian... -- Justin Subject: Alysoun: Board Election/Organization Serves Membership Date: Mon, 08 Jan 1996 17:09:32 -0800 From: Guy Cox Greetings, In a message dated 30 Dec 95, Alysoun asked if the members of the Grand Council could agree to some common ground from which to start our discussions and put forward the following as part of that common ground: > If we start from the view of a player we can establish a series of priorities > which can guide us in debating the proper role and function of different > parts. This will require us to focus on the game/administration > interface--but then, that's where the rub is. > > To lead off: a player wants first and foremost other people to play with. So > the first and highest priority of the organization is to connect the players. > Currently we are doing this in two primary ways and a number of secondary > ways. The primary ways are by (1) recognized groups (shires et al.) which > identify and collect players in a local geographical area and (2) kingdom > newsletters which advertise the opportunities to play with people outside the > local geographical area. The secondary ways include other forms of > communication such as Rialto and other forms of "connecting" such as > wide-based households, guilds, etc. Or as was concisely expresses "the organization serves the membership." Several people spontaneously concurred with this and I do too. I have been reading the discussion on board selection and removal. One of the problems I have had with GC discussion is the lack of criteria by which to make decsions -- other than if I think the idea is a good one or not . Alysoun has given me the first ray of light with "the organization serves the membership" goal for SCAInc. Using that as a criteria I would like to hear more discussion about David/Cariadoc's suggestion (4Jan95 message): > I believe a common system in other organizations is nomination by an > existing group, such as the current Board members plus some others, > followed by election by the general membership--with some not too onerous > procedure for nominations by members. If everything is going well, only one > candidate is nominated for each office and you have the sort of > self-perpetuating system we now have. But if the membership is unhappy, > someone nominates a rival candidate and he gets elected. It may be worth > considering. I believe this system makes the most sense sense it directly links the members with the BOD, the members elect the BOD to run the infrastructure that serves the members. If this doesn't happen to the satisfaction of the membership someone else is elected. The BOD and the organization then becomes more accountable to the membership it is to serve -- hopefully motivating the BOD to better serve that membership. This all happens through mail and outside of our re-creation activities. If the professional organizations I am a member of can afford this type of election (we're usually talking about one mailing a year of three or four pages and a return envelope) then I think the SCA might be able to budget for this also. As we look at the various ways to elect and remove Board members I would ask others to comment on: What will having the ability to elect/remove a board member get? Will it cause the membership to be served better somehow? Or does it actually decrease the level of service? How will you know that the organization is better serving the membership once this mechanism is in place? If we can answer questions like this, than I think (hope) we will also be able to arrive at a reasonable process for electing/removing a board member. Thanks! -- Brian O'Seabac Guy Cox cox@hpcea.ce.hp.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 14:49:33 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 20 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 13:44:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Finnvarr: Brian's suggestion To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Brian O'Seabac said: >This sounds more like a way to communicate between the BOD and the >membership at large than an election proceedure. If you replaced the word >"electors" with "councilors" or "advisors" or... Then the BOD could seek >information from those advisors (expanding the amount of input to any >decsion) and send out information/straw proposals through the same >advisors (spreading the word better). This has some promise as an idea, could it be structured appropriately. Structure is very important, as the GC experience should have shown by now. I have been thinking about the suggestion of advisory committees. There is sense, there, too, but also a problem. Committee work may well burn out suitable candidates before they ever get to the Board. Still thinking, Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 15:36:11 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: 3853 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 14:53:38 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Tibor: Issues deriving from Director elections. To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9601091826.AA20317@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Jan 9, 96 01:26:39 pm Greetings from Tibor. First, a short point: MANY organizations hold elections of Directors. I suspect we are re-inventing the wheel somewhat here. Three notes to add to the discussion of selection of Directors... 1. When considering who votes... I like the idea of a wider enfranchisement than from amongst those who already hold office. Most positions are already self-perpetuating within the Society, as each officer generally has a very large (if not exclusive) role in choosing a successor. I've been reaching for a means whereby we can allow a self-nomination process into the election phase. (I would also note that Kings, while not exactly nominated, frequently couldn't tell you the difference between Corpora and the Bylaws, and are not by nature always well informed electors. Also, I like to separate the re-creation from the infrastructure where I may.) I'd also note that California law gives people who vote on Directors the privileges that come from statutory membership. This means that we must consider changes to the bylaws, and California Corporate Code. (Those who are interested: it is on the Web at something like http://www.leginfo.ca.gov >from memory.) Not that it would be a terrible burden, but there is also the issue of expense of wider polling to consider. At the same time, I'd also like to see an informed electorate. Combining those issues, I'd like to suggest that, if we go for a democratic style reform, that we consider limiting ballots for Director elections to those that subscribe to the Board Minutes. Comments, please? Would this be a suitable population, were we to move to a self-nominating group of electors? Are the concerns above about self-perpetuation of offices valid? 2. Most Board elections are relatively insensitive to timing. That is, I suspect, because of two factors. Most Board's meet but once a year, and most Directors limit themselves to oversight issues. Contrariwise, our Board meets quarterly, and Directors manage many issues directly. And, while our Board is not always as volatile as it has been during the past two years, it certainly can be: and is always volatile in the sense that normal schedules allow for rotations: each term is supposed to end in a separate quarter, two ending each year. We need to provide a solution to this conundrum, if we are going to have an electoral process that requires ballots to be sent outside the Board. The one advantage to the current procedure, is that new Directors can be selected in as little as a two weeks time. Any scheme we create, should have the flexibility to meet these demands. We could do some of the following: allow election of pro-tem directors, increase the number of directors and leave empty seats until the following election, pre-approve ranked directors, move responsibilities for day to day affairs away from the Directors, set up alternate high speed election criteria, allow the Board to operate below strength (operate in some fashion: perhaps with reduced authority.) On this, I have no recommendations, yet. Just the warning that if we slow down the process of replacement, we need to bear in mind the cost of that reduction in speed. I invite comments on implications. What other possible changes could we make? Which of them are more easily achievable than others? 3. With these two points in mind, I am discovering that it is hard to make a simple change to the means of election of Directors. If we deconstruct enough to just make a minimal change, we may find ourselves unable to make the most efficacious modification: contrariwise, as David/Cariadoc is known to say, the best could become the enemy of the good, as one decent large scale change could engender a multitude of corollary chnnges. I look forward to your comments: I don't have a good conclusion yet. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 16:21:38 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 15:37:56 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Seven principles for BOD Selection/Removal/Reversal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: (message from arthur dent on Mon, 8 Jan 1996 01:55:34 -0500) A few comments on Arthur's principles: >1) the BOD should be selected by a group of electors small enough for the >BOD to keep in contact with them on the one side, but broad enough for the >populace to keep in touch with them on the other. Mom-and-apple-pie, but it isn't entirely clear what this rules in or out. >2) To avoid society wide electioneering and election costs, and to provide >an informed electorate, this group of selectors should be either some set >of existing local officers selected by their local group, OR some set of >regional officers selected by the member selected local officers. Not at all obvious yet; I don't consider general suffrage ruled out. I don't really believe in the electioneering problem, and while election costs are a real issue, they should be quantified before we make any decisions. (This is actually a useful subtopic to discuss -- how much *would* it cost to run a general election?) >3) these electors should also have the power to stay or reverse BOD >decisions, and censure and remove BOD members. Plausible if you accept (2), but not necessary. I think this fits the Occam's Razor principle, but we should be open to counter-arguments. And I don't take (2) as a given. >4) The candidate pool for BOD elections should consist of people who have >served a specified amount of time on BOD issue committees over the past x >years. Good policy, but (IMO) bad law. We shouldn't tie ourselves down like that. The Board committees should be for definite, real, issues to address. I can easily see someone not fitting in with a committee that has openings, but still being a good candidate for the Board. This should be one consideration when selecting candidates, *not* mandatory. >5) members of these item specific ad hoc working groups should be selected >by ... er help me out here guys (items specific ad hoc groups so as to >avoid GCitis with a million topics...) Not clear to me that one size fits all here. Do we believe that one selection model is necessarily correct for all committees? (I don't, although I'm open to be convinced of it.) >6) an item specific ad hoc working group can be called into existence >either by the BOD, a single BOD member, a national officer, or by the >electorate, and must have a specific topic and a specific end date. Recipe for making committees for their own sake. Every committee is likely to cost real money (for expenses) -- I don't think we should make it *too* trivial to do so. In general, I think you're *way* too enamored of the idea of Board members being selected from committee members. Like I said, it's a reasonably good idea, but let's not go overboard here... (I find myself helplessly thinking of the game "Kremlin" here...) >7) membership level 'petition' style reversals and censure/removal >procedures should also exist so that no one can say "clique blocked me, >no recourse, majority of members would agree". Something of this sort, yes... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "That doesn't become you. Which is extremely nice to know if you don't LIKE clones." -- nj From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 16:32:11 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 15:54:30 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Selection and removal of Board Members To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: (message from david friedman on Sun, 7 Jan 1996 13:38:46 -0800) Some thoughts on Cariadoc's proposal: Overall, not at all bad. It's a compromise, but seems to address most of the concerns that have been brought up here. The expense of running an election isn't terribly high -- basically the "cost" of the necessary pages in TI or Kingdom newsletters. (Which is real, and should be figured.) It would tend to select for high stability, but permit sudden change when needed. (It also requires volunteer or paid workers to collate and tally the several thousand ballots; this might run some expense. I would assume that 10-20% of the ballots would actually be returned -- I'd be *astonished* if more than 40% were.) Downside: the mechanism is certainly slow, since it is tied into the publishing schedule for the newsletters; this means that the Board would not be able to react quickly to unexpected resignations. On the other hand, one would like to believe that the tendency towards high burnout rates will reverse itself if we can get the rest of the structure fixed. (So the Board doesn't get hit by every issue.) And I can't think of any mechanism that is *really* fast; this may just be the price of general elections. >1. The nominating committee consists of one member from each kingdom, >nominated and elected like a board member for a two year term, plus (ex >officio) the current Board members and the current heads of the major >Society-wide hierarchies (Steward, Laurel, Society Marshall, Treasurer, >MOA--minus whichever we manage to eliminate). The non ex-officio members >have chief responsibility for seeking out candidates, but every member has >one vote. Which glosses issues like what constitutes a "vote" on the nominating committee. But we don't have to solve *everything* right now; the details could be fleshed into this framework, I think. >3. Candidates may also be nominated by a petition signed by 2% of the >membership. T.I. and the newsletters are required to accept such petitions >as advertising, at their ordinary advertising rates. Of course, I'm not sure every Kingdom newsletter *has* advertising rates -- anyone know? I agree with the principle here: that it should always be possible to petition in an alternate candidate, but the Corp. doesn't have to subsidize that, just enable it. >1. The ballot shall include a brief description of each candidate's >qualifications, provided by the nominating committee or, if the candidate >is nominated by petition, by the candidate. I would say that there should also be the capability to make an arbitrary statement of intent, with some sort of length limit. Qualifications are only half the story -- intentions and opinions also matter. (I suspect Cariadoc intended this to be implicit, but it should be clear.) >A. A Board member may be impeached by petition of 5% of the membership or >1/2 of the Kingdom seneschals or 1/2 of the current Kings and Queens or a >majority of the Board. Okay, that's better than the current system, and still hard to invoke. >B. If a Board member is impeached, the Board may vote to remove him. If it >does not, there is a special election, as above, to determine whether he >will be removed from the Board. T.I. and the newsletters must accept >material arguing for or against removal at their usual advertising rates. Good; I like this approach... >C. During the time between impeachment and removal (or reinstatement) the >Board member will count towards a quorum but will not vote. Very important -- this means that even an impeachment has some teeth. Given that holding the election to remove will probably require at *least* three months (and I wouldn't be surprised if it took six), this is crucial. Overall, not bad. It's a bit slow, and a bit of work for the electorate to exercize their vote. But it would probably work, and wouldn't cost an excessive amount. Certainly the best proposal I've seen so far, and a plausible implementation of membership-suffrage... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: You Know You're in the SCA when... ...you're a burly guy who looks like a Hell's Angel, but you do embroidery in public. ...you hide the really awful costume references in the stacks at the library, so future costumers won't be led astray. Or, you write criticisms in the margins of said awful costume references. -- Lothar From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 16:45:31 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 16:16:11 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Tibor: Issues deriving from Director elections. To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601091953.OAA16573@abel.math.harvard.edu> (message from Mark Schuldenfrei on Tue, 9 Jan 1996 14:53:38 -0500) Tibor writes: >First, a short point: MANY organizations hold elections of Directors. I >suspect we are re-inventing the wheel somewhat here. True; on the other hand, those elections take a bunch of different forms. The ILF uses a very simplistic version of membership suffrage. Masonry uses something not far from Cariadoc's model, with the additional twist of having a "line" of officers leading to the top positions. Fandom doesn't really *have* a solid concept of top-level Directors, just local ones. (And heaven only knows how they run the World Science Fiction Society.) We've got many options; we need to choose between them... >At the same time, I'd also like to see an informed electorate. Combining >those issues, I'd like to suggest that, if we go for a democratic style >reform, that we consider limiting ballots for Director elections to those >that subscribe to the Board Minutes. The elitist in me loves it; the populist hates it. I think it would be a political non-starter -- I have a suspicion that a lot of people would revolt at the concept. But it isn't crazy... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: Re: The History of Usenet "More seriously, the cabal worked for a while. Then it stopped working, and we tried something else. At the time this seemed like the end of the world as we knew it, in reality it was evolution in action (the dinosaurs, as they saw the comet streaking down towards impact, probably reacted similarly. "Shit. Now we'll never get talk.bizarre rmgrouped before those damn mammals take over.")" -- Chuq From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 20:49:44 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 20:08:29 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: Board Selection Comments: To: Mark Waks To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9601091613.AA18327@dsd.camb.inmet.com> > >Subject: Board Selection > >Date: Fri, 05 Jan 1996 17:22:07 -0800 > >From: Guy Cox > > Greetings, > > On Thus, Jan 4, Auther Dent wrote: > > > a representitive/constituent relationship between the BOD members and a > > small and (fairly) informed group of electors would definatly help keep > > the BOD in touch, and would mean at least one member in every branch felt > > responsible for keeping up on issues/could relate those sissues to from > > any member who cared... > > This sounds more like a way to communicate between the BOD and the > membership at large than an election proceedure. If you replaced the word > "electors" with "councilors" or "advisors" or... Then the BOD could seek > information from those advisors (expanding the amount of input to any > decsion) and send out information/straw proposals through the same > advisors (spreading the word better). > > If this is really a small group of informed and involved _electors_ then it > reminds me of the political machine politics of Tamany Hall, etc. > > -- Brian O'Seabac > Guy Cox > cox@hpcea.ce.hp.com that is a possible BAD outcome of such a system, but all methods we're examining have potnetial bad outcomes. on the other hand, people with the name 'counciler' or 'advisor' generally doenst confer removal and reversal powers, just the privilage of chewing on someones ear when they feel they want you to... the parralel to 'tamany hall' stands or falls on how that group is selected. if they are royal appointments, as opposed to individuals selected/accesable/accountable to those who selected them, then yu have tammany hall, otherwise you have an indirect democracy somewhat like the constitution was intended to provide. I dont use that parrallel to imply its a superior system to others, just tha it IS a form of representation, and could provide better communications/accountablilty between the board and membership. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 21:19:42 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 20:26:47 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: Tibor: Issues deriving from Director elections. Comments: To: Mark Schuldenfrei To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601091953.OAA16573@abel.math.harvard.edu> That bit about limiting the BOD electing populace to those who subscribe to the BOD minutes is especicially brilliant. it serves to limit the electorate to those who care enough to keep up on the issues and are willing to pay a nominal fee for the privilage, it provides a ready made mechanism for distributing ballots and election materials, as well as reversal/censure/report card sort o' feedback to keep the board in touch... the rest of your suggestions cautions, and concerns are useful, but this one seems to sovle a host of problems, simply at no additional cost to the SCA, with no trouble to members who wish not to be troubled, and with a single stroke. On Tue, 9 Jan 1996, Mark Schuldenfrei wrote: > Greetings from Tibor. > > First, a short point: MANY organizations hold elections of Directors. I > suspect we are re-inventing the wheel somewhat here. > > > > Three notes to add to the discussion of selection of Directors... > > 1. When considering who votes... I like the idea of a wider enfranchisement > than from amongst those who already hold office. Most positions are already > self-perpetuating within the Society, as each officer generally has a very > large (if not exclusive) role in choosing a successor. I've been reaching > for a means whereby we can allow a self-nomination process into the election > phase. (I would also note that Kings, while not exactly nominated, > frequently couldn't tell you the difference between Corpora and the Bylaws, > and are not by nature always well informed electors. Also, I like to > separate the re-creation from the infrastructure where I may.) > > I'd also note that California law gives people who vote on Directors the > privileges that come from statutory membership. This means that we must > consider changes to the bylaws, and California Corporate Code. (Those who > are interested: it is on the Web at something like http://www.leginfo.ca.gov > from memory.) > > Not that it would be a terrible burden, but there is also the issue of > expense of wider polling to consider. > > At the same time, I'd also like to see an informed electorate. Combining > those issues, I'd like to suggest that, if we go for a democratic style > reform, that we consider limiting ballots for Director elections to those > that subscribe to the Board Minutes. > > Comments, please? Would this be a suitable population, were we to move to a > self-nominating group of electors? Are the concerns above about > self-perpetuation of offices valid? > > > > 2. Most Board elections are relatively insensitive to timing. That is, I > suspect, because of two factors. Most Board's meet but once a year, and > most Directors limit themselves to oversight issues. Contrariwise, our > Board meets quarterly, and Directors manage many issues directly. > > And, while our Board is not always as volatile as it has been during the > past two years, it certainly can be: and is always volatile in the sense > that normal schedules allow for rotations: each term is supposed to end in a > separate quarter, two ending each year. > > We need to provide a solution to this conundrum, if we are going to have an > electoral process that requires ballots to be sent outside the Board. The > one advantage to the current procedure, is that new Directors can be > selected in as little as a two weeks time. > > Any scheme we create, should have the flexibility to meet these demands. We > could do some of the following: allow election of pro-tem directors, > increase the number of directors and leave empty seats until the following > election, pre-approve ranked directors, move responsibilities for day to day > affairs away from the Directors, set up alternate high speed election > criteria, allow the Board to operate below strength (operate in some > fashion: perhaps with reduced authority.) > > On this, I have no recommendations, yet. Just the warning that if we slow > down the process of replacement, we need to bear in mind the cost of that > reduction in speed. I invite comments on implications. What other possible > changes could we make? Which of them are more easily achievable than > others? > > > > 3. With these two points in mind, I am discovering that it is hard to make a > simple change to the means of election of Directors. If we deconstruct > enough to just make a minimal change, we may find ourselves unable to make > the most efficacious modification: contrariwise, as David/Cariadoc is known > to say, the best could become the enemy of the good, as one decent large > scale change could engender a multitude of corollary chnnges. > > I look forward to your comments: I don't have a good conclusion yet. > > Tibor > From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 21:46:28 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 20:51:54 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: SIX principles (revised and annotated(fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L My hope here is EXACLTY to find "mom and apple pie". If we know where each other stand in general principle, we can probably reach agreement quicker. as comments come in, its as likely to get more general as it is more specific. 1) the BOD should be selected by a group of electors small enough for the BOD to keep in contact with them on the one side, but broad enough for the populace to keep in touch with them on the other. 2) these electors should also have the power to stay or reverse BOD decisions, and censure and remove BOD members. 3) The candidate pool for BOD elections should consist of people who have served a specified amount of time on BOD issue committees over the past x years. that doesnt mean people currently ON committees, just people who've done some time, have a public record with postions on some issues, and have a record of meeting their commitments. 4) members of these item specific ad hoc working groups should be selected by ... er help me out here guys (items specific ad hoc groups so as to avoid GCitis with a million topics...) 5) an item specific ad hoc working group can be called into existence either by the BOD, a single BOD member, a national officer, or by the electorate, and must have a specific topic and a specific end date. 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, 9 Jan 1996 23:04:03 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: We need a limited agenda To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L i'm not sure we need to limit the agenda so much as we need to vote and get items out the door and to the board.... alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 9 23:55:08 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 23:10:23 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: automated balloting for bod elections... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L there's been murmers about the cost and manpower and time involved in counting so many ballots manually... er.. I think most of us here are techies of one sort or another, how cheap can we come by a scanner with a sheet feeder? I think I've seen one under $2k, in the last few months. with good ballot design and well picked OCR this probably isnt the problem it used to be. ___________________________________+__________________________________ "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 9 23:57:53 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: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 23:20:36 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: board communications To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L you all know, don't you, that there are other ways than elections and councilors and advisors to keep the communications between the board and the membership flowing? one good method is writing letters and calling the board on the telephone. another method is requiring the board to make available not only minutes of every meeting, but also, oh, a month or so in advance, the proposed minutes of the upcoming meeting *with lots of detailed notes about proposed changes and such*. sheesh! the thought of elections as communications! what ever happened to writing letters? publications? regular blurbs >from the board in TI and the newslettes? elections as communications! hmmmmph. alban, with a headcold which makes him grumpy. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 00:07:01 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 23:04:07 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Re: Tibor: Issues deriving from Director elections. Comments: To: Mark Schuldenfrei To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601091953.OAA16573@abel.math.harvard.edu> > At the same time, I'd also like to see an informed electorate. Combining > those issues, I'd like to suggest that, if we go for a democratic style > reform, that we consider limiting ballots for Director elections to those > that subscribe to the Board Minutes. > > Comments, please? Would this be a suitable population, were we to move to a > self-nominating group of electors? Are the concerns above about > self-perpetuation of offices valid? > > I look forward to your comments: I don't have a good conclusion yet. > > Tibor Tibor, the implications of this one are dazzling. Seeing as newtons apple hit YOUR head I'm going to restrain myself from writing up a system based around it for a week or so, cuz thats your perogotive...(I've had to stop myself twice) but... the two bits I've got to throw in are a) The BOD minutes would have to become a full scale publication with a ballot in every one due to BOD roatations for elections/nomination. while this will raise the subscriptions proce somewhat, it may also pay for a secretary to keep and transcribe USABLE official minutes. It also provides paid and non-paid space for all the election/commite stuff that might need to be published and maybe a soapbox page for any BOD member who wants it... all of which are very much needed by those who'd want to elect/impeach bod members/policies, and none of which your average TI subsriber would care to see... Everytime I think about this I see more positive spinnoff effects real minutes,improved commo to those who care and not bugging those who dont, self financing, mailing list already in place (get ready for rapid growth!), it sort o' feels like staring at one of those silly 3d images when it suddenly becomes clear! the drawack of course is that some will see it as "voting with your wallet", which raise a few hackles even in me. however this translate to 'non-subsized elections' and if we can keep the subscription cost under $25 per year even poor college student can manage. PS every Non_profit I've seen has kept abysmal minutes cuz they wouldnt put up the money for a secretary/transcriber. good corporate records are a pretty substantial benefit. Hats Off! From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 06:02:26 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Sven Noren Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 11:25:12 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Sven Noren Subject: Frithiof on elections To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Tibor wrote: At the same time, I'd also like to see an informed electorate. Combining those issues, I'd like to suggest that, if we go for a democratic style reform, that we consider limiting ballots for Director elections to those that subscribe to the Board Minutes. As long as subscription to Board Minutes is available for a reasonable price, this is an excellent idea. And, while our Board is not always as volatile as it has been during the past two years, it certainly can be: and is always volatile in the sense that normal schedules allow for rotations: each term is supposed to end in a separate quarter, two ending each year. We need to provide a solution to this conundrum, if we are going to have an electoral process that requires ballots to be sent outside the Board. The one advantage to the current procedure, is that new Directors can be selected in as little as a two weeks time. How about electing, once a year, the number of Directors that are scheduled to be replaced for the coming year? And maybe one or two "extras" in case of need? The ordinary procedure for swedish non-profits is to elect half the board (for a term of two years) and a chairman at the Yearly Meeting. Also elected is one or two extras, that are to step in if any of the board members have to resign. These extras may sit in and speak at board meetings, but not vote. Since half the board has been in place for at least a year it's relatively easy for the new members to get up to speed. That is also the reason for letting the extras follow board work up close. (It is also usual to elect a nominating committee, tasked to find candidates for next election, and a couple of auditors to oversee the board's spendings and make a report to the Yearly Meeting.) Any usable ideas in this? Frithiof the friendly herald (Sven.Noren@kemi.UU.SE) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 09:42:13 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 Approved-By: "E. F. MORRILL" Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 09:14:59 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "E. F. MORRILL" Subject: Re: SIX principles (revised and annotated(fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: from "arthur dent" at Jan 9, 96 08:51:54 pm Just so people know how I "personally" feel, I will respond, without malice and in nice "weelll, here's what I think" tones. > > My hope here is EXACLTY to find "mom and apple pie". If we know where each > other stand in general principle, we can probably reach agreement quicker. > as comments come in, its as likely to get more general as it is more > specific. > > 1) the BOD should be selected by a group of electors small enough for the > BOD to keep in contact with them on the one side, but broad enough for the > populace to keep in touch with them on the other. I think that this should be done by the memebrship of the Org. When I return form the BOD meeting, I will post up my version of how I think the elections/nominations should run. Oh, well, I have thought about this for 20 years. > 2) these electors should also have the power to stay or reverse BOD > decisions, and censure and remove BOD members. I'm not sure that that is entirely legal. Control rests with the BOD as required by law. This is not to say that, should there be an "elector" body (which I don't think I agree with), that some oversight powers should be had. Again, under your proposal, the electors become the BOD > > 3) The candidate pool for BOD elections should consist of people who have > served a specified amount of time on BOD issue committees over the past x > years. that doesnt mean people currently ON committees, just people > who've done some time, have a public record with postions on some issues, > and have a record of meeting their commitments. > Yes, we must have more qualifications than just a "natural person over the age of 21". > 4) members of these item specific ad hoc working groups should be selected > by ... er help me out here guys (items specific ad hoc groups so as to > avoid GCitis with a million topics...) > 5) an item specific ad hoc working group can be called into existence > either by the BOD, a single BOD member, a national officer, or by the > electorate, and must have a specific topic and a specific end date. THis I think may be seperate issue. > > thing the BOD could use all the volunteer help it can get, and so far as I > can telll the GC has only been costly in terms of exasperation... have we > been spending more than stamp money? another comment was the proliferation > of committees it might cause a proliferation of useless committees, but > only if thier sponsor (of the speific committee) is willing to put up with > it) I have found that a lot of committees start out great then die. Maybe this trend can be changed in the furure. > > > 6) membership level 'petition' style reversals and censure/removal > procedures should also exist so that no one can say "clique blocked me, > no recourse, majority of members would agree". > > Agreed. Like I said, when I'm mback I'll have more, including a "sample" of how I'd like to see it go. EDWARD Z -- E. F. Morrill Icon God of the Theatre World Husband of Elizabeth McMahon, High Fashion Designer aka Landgraf Edward Zifran von Gendy, KSCA, OL, OP, ETC Husband of Mistress Elizabeth Talbot, OL From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 10:01:32 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: 842 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 09:33:29 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor: Issues deriving from Director elections. To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9601092116.AA21749@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Jan 9, 96 04:16:11 pm Greetings from Tibor: I'd written the following point: At the same time, I'd also like to see an informed electorate. Combining those issues, I'd like to suggest that, if we go for a democratic style reform, that we consider limiting ballots for Director elections to those that subscribe to the Board Minutes. Justin answered: The elitist in me loves it; the populist hates it. I think it would be a political non-starter -- I have a suspicion that a lot of people would revolt at the concept. But it isn't crazy... I don't see why. Can you explain? It addresses the populist concern: if you want a ballot, you get one, and the information required to use it intelligently. It includes all who care enough. The rest may grouse, but I don't have sufficient sympathy for the idle complainant at this time... (:-) Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 11:24:29 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 10:55:25 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Selection and removal of Board Members To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Eric... -- Justin >Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 08:57:45 -0600 (CST) >From: Ron Fleig >Subject: Re: Selection and removal of Board Members >In-Reply-To: <9601092054.AA21406@dsd.camb.inmet.com> On Tue, 9 Jan 1996, Mark Waks wrote: > Some thoughts on Cariadoc's proposal: cut > Downside: the mechanism is certainly slow, since it is tied into the > publishing schedule for the newsletters; this means that the Board > would not be able to react quickly to unexpected resignations. On the > other hand, one would like to believe that the tendency towards high > burnout rates will reverse itself if we can get the rest of the > structure fixed. (So the Board doesn't get hit by every issue.) And > I can't think of any mechanism that is *really* fast; this may just > be the price of general elections. cut > -- Justin I am reminded of the comments made at the birth of Prince Harry of Great Britian. "We have a heir and a spare." If there were nine members of the BOD, each elected for a three year term, and three new members being elected/taking their seats each year, it would be simple to have a couple of "spares" ( The top two or three runners-up?) waiting in the wings. Eric the Wanderer of the Flying Dragon's Cave Ron Fleig urfleig@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 11:33:08 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 11:07:32 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Tibor: Issues deriving from Director elections. To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601101433.JAA13567@abel.math.harvard.edu> (message from Mark Schuldenfrei on Wed, 10 Jan 1996 09:33:29 -0500) Tibor replies to me, on the topic of electorate-through-minutes: > The elitist in me loves it; the populist hates it. I think it would > be a political non-starter -- I have a suspicion that a lot of people > would revolt at the concept. But it isn't crazy... > >I don't see why. Can you explain? It addresses the populist concern: if >you want a ballot, you get one, and the information required to use it >intelligently. It includes all who care enough. The rest may grouse, but I >don't have sufficient sympathy for the idle complainant at this time... (:-) The populist side of me is rather suspicious of elections with tests attached to them, because those tests invariably bias the vote. In this case, the electorate is made up of people who are getting the Board minutes, most of whom are probably reading them. Those minutes put a definite slant on all facts, and I think it unlikely that they would ever be otherwise. I worry that this scheme therefore can cause a subtle feedback bias into the Society -- you get to be an elector if you are reading the Corporate vehicle, which could tend to cause elections that reinforce that Corporate mindset. As for the politics, I fully expect that there would be a fairly serious outcry of people saying, "I'm a member, so I should get to vote on the Board if anyone does, goddammit!". One thing I've learned >from the past two years is that a *lot* of people believe firmly that paid members should get lots of privileges. Whether you take that seriously or not is a decision, but I do think there would be some fairly major flamage to deal with... These aren't certainties, and I am quite willing to grant that the scheme has advantages; I just want to point out that it has dangers as well. People shouldn't go considering it a panacea... -- Justin Who honestly hasn't decided whether he likes the idea or not, overall... Random Quote du Jour: "War has ended, not with the bang of a bomb, but with the gentle whisper of crashing software." -- Gerard Stafleu From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 14:46:36 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: 2768 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 14:10:08 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Tibor: Populist versus elitist issues To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9601101607.AA00308@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Jan 10, 96 11:07:32 am Greetings from Tibor. Justin wrote: The populist side of me is rather suspicious of elections with tests attached to them, because those tests invariably bias the vote. In this case, the electorate is made up of people who are getting the Board minutes, most of whom are probably reading them. Those minutes put a definite slant on all facts, and I think it unlikely that they would ever be otherwise. Justin, there will always be a problem with information and slanting issues. One man's unbiased report is another woman's poppycock. You are right to identify that as a concern, but it's a severable concern. For example, Brother Crimthan (many moons ago) wrote a perfectly respectable proposal for a Law and Policy newsletter that could be implemented within the Society. It vanished into the mists. But something just like it could be revived. I worry that this scheme therefore can cause a subtle feedback bias into the Society -- you get to be an elector if you are reading the Corporate vehicle, which could tend to cause elections that reinforce that Corporate mindset. On the other hand, I've been a Board Minutes junkie for most of my Society career... (remember who used to write up summaries for the Rialto, way back when?) A close reading of those historical minutes lead to many of the opinions I hold now... I see now cause and effect of the sort you seek, here. (I was concerned about the issue of banishments and the Board as they are now, but I also have great faith in the IAC revision ideas for those banishments. I'm willing to ignore the issue until they finish their work. Provided we re-open it then.) As for the politics, I fully expect that there would be a fairly serious outcry of people saying, "I'm a member, so I should get to vote on the Board if anyone does, goddammit!". One thing I've learned from the past two years is that a *lot* of people believe firmly that paid members should get lots of privileges. Whether you take that seriously or not is a decision, but I do think there would be some fairly major flamage to deal with... I am less certain of that flammage. Nor am I afraid of flammage... any decision that includes only some will be met with a certain hostility, but universal suffrage has it's own pitfalls. The man who mishandled his release of the Tax letter, cannot be afraid of flammage... (I wish I could insert a smiley here.) These aren't certainties, and I am quite willing to grant that the scheme has advantages; I just want to point out that it has dangers as well. People shouldn't go considering it a panacea... I agree there are dangers, but I seem to be counting them smaller than you. Is the balance "de gustibus"? Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 15:12:37 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: 937 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 14:40:46 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Selection and removal of Board Members To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9601101555.AA00290@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Jan 10, 96 10:55:25 am Greetings from Tibor. Eric the Wanderer wrote: If there were nine members of the BOD, each elected for a three year term, and three new members being elected/taking their seats each year, it would be simple to have a couple of "spares" ( The top two or three runners-up?) waiting in the wings. That was one option I had considered. But do we fly them to Board meetings? Keep them up to date? What rights do they have, and how do they stay prepared? What if they too become unavailable? I'm thinking I am more inclined to lift a rarely used provision out of the current bylaws: and allow former Directors who have been off the Board for more than a year to be appointed temporarily. As well as increasing the size of the Board so that minor shortages are not a crisis. (Probably adding a codicil that these former Directors must have served a full term, or not been removed, etcetera or likewise... I don't know.) Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 15:50:58 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: 2282 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 15:18:31 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor: Issues deriving from Director elections. To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: from "arthur dent" at Jan 9, 96 11:04:07 pm Greetings from Tibor. Arthur wrote: Tibor, the implications of this one are dazzling. Seeing as newtons apple hit YOUR head I'm going to restrain myself from writing up a system based around it for a week or so, cuz thats your perogotive...(I've had to stop myself twice) Thanks! It's a direct spinoff from the Carolingian elections, where I proposed that anyone who thought they were a Carolingian, and could send a SASE to the Barony, obviously cared enough to vote. Please, we are here to work together. Don't think I am proprietary about the notion: I am not. Write up what you wish, please. The corollaries were: a) The BOD minutes would have to become a full scale publication with a ballot in every one due to BOD roatations for elections/nomination. Not the only option. We could also reduce the number of Board meetings, or elections as well. Or, it could stay the way it is, and an additional ballot mailing be sent. Or... there are many potential ideas here. the drawack of course is that some will see it as "voting with your wallet", which raise a few hackles even in me. however this translate to 'non-subsized elections' and if we can keep the subscription cost under $25 per year even poor college student can manage. That is a sticky one. I've always been against the required membership argument of "but it's so little money, if you wanted it you can pay for it." On the other hand, it's an economy of scale. Sending what is essentially garbage data to each and every member, so that they can know who is on what ballot, and what issue took place when, is a waste of money. If the price is aimed at reason. (Say, estimated costs rounded up to the nearest dollar, with competitive bids on providing the costs) then I am sure it could be kept reasonable. It is quite true that it's possible to implement abuse here. It is also important to remember that people who can vote for Directors are considered Members under California Corporate Code, and there are a LOT of rights and issues in that code aimed at preserving the rights of classes of member. It's unlikely that any Director who has ever heard of the Mandamus Petition would choose to litigate on those grounds: I think we can expect caution to a degree. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 16:37:52 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: 1349 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 16:04:47 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Selection and removal of Board Members (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Eric the Wandere, by Tibor. Forwarded message: Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 14:51:42 -0600 (CST) From: Ron Fleig Subject: Re: Selection and removal of Board Members On Wed, 10 Jan 1996, Mark Schuldenfrei wrote: > Greetings from Tibor. > > Eric the Wanderer wrote: > it would be simple to have a couple of "spares" ( The top two or three > runners-up?) waiting in the wings. > > That was one option I had considered. But do we fly them to Board meetings? No, but if they live in the area of a board meeting they should attend. They probably would anyway since they are interested in being on the board. > Keep them up to date? They should automaticly get the board minutes and additionally be kept up to date as the BOD sees fit. > What rights do they have, and how do they stay prepared? That would be up to the BOD, but they can't vote since they are not on the board. Give them as much info as possible but don't spend much money. > What if they too become unavailable? Then we are no worse off than if we didn't have "spares." But if we are electing a third of the board each year then we probably won't run out of "spares" without a major catastrophy. Eric the Wanderer Ron Fleig urfleig@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 19:50:43 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, 10 Jan 1996 20:02:03 CST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Erik Langhans Subject: Reactions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings Gcers! I completely disagree with going to the SCA membership at large to determine BoD replacements. Informed members, Yes. Too bulky too cumbersome and look at the usual voter turnouts we have in the mundane world. I expect that 10% of our members would only end up voting. That's not a mandate. Yes to Albans idea to vote on items and get them out the door. Big no to any sort of electorate body. A new BoD member sould be voted in by a combine group of BoD and individual Kingdom Crown/Seneshal Votes. Nine member BoD is ok. Three year terms only with removal procedure in place, otherwise two years only. Post BoD minutes on Rialto. -Modius e-mail: modius@cityscope.net web page: www.cityscope.net/~modius From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 20:33:00 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: Nathan Clarenburg Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 18:58:08 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Nathan Clarenburg Subject: A&S Offices (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded to the GC by Nathan Adelaar ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 3 Jan 96 11:27:00 -0800 From: MCKAY_MICHAEL@tandem.com To: nathan@cis.ksu.edu Subject: A&S Offices A further response to your post. You may forward the section below to the GC list, if you think it is appropriate. Seaan ------------ TEXT ATTACHMENT -------- SENT 01-03-96 FROM MCKAY_MICHAEL @ATALLA Nathan (nathan@cis.ksu.edu) Writes: >Siobhan and others reiterate concerns I've held for years about problems >in the A&S setup. I think we need to refine the reasons for information >to travel "up" from local to corporate level, and wish there were more >effective ways to send information back "down" to local officers and the >people they serve. I've been watching the A&S conversation with some interest. Although the following will confirm much of what has been said, I noticed that the West Kingdom has a slightly different slant on the way an A&S office is run. The West tends to have a much less formal reporting system as a whole than some kingdoms, it was only recently that we started having quarterly reports >from the senescahles, let alone the other offices. Since my household member was Kingdom Sciences officer for 3 years (and Principality officer for 2 years before that), I can probably give some accurate insight. Like much of the other areas, A&S reporting is incomplete and is there more to "check out that it is working" than for any other reason. It was a constant headache to find-out who the A&S officers, let alone getting reports from them. An A&S officer did not really have any clear duties, just a general mandate to "advance and support A&S amongst their area". During my friends office, they restarted an A&S newsletter (for sharing of resources, and to help keep in touch). Keeping the subscription list up-to date was quite time consuming (I think the newsletter died out again, I have not seen one for a while). So you might ask, what does an A&S officer in the West kingdom do, when they don't even have the minimal formal reporting requirements? The answer really depends upon the individual person. I have known some excellent A&S officers, and others who just served as an office place-holder. Given this background, I think this A&S conversation has moved to some pertinant concerns. Right now in the West, there is very little seperating an A&S officer from any other enthusiastic A&S type of person. The "blessing of an officer" will only give a person a limited amount of encouragement and authority (as an aside, this is one of the reasons that I don't currenty hold any SCA offices higher than the canton level; I am usually just as effective without a title and don't have the reporting requirements). To summarize: What can the SCA do (Inc. and society) to support the activities it wants to do? The A&S office was chosen as an example because our current system does not seem to support it very well. Nathan's suggestion of a "Information Officer" points out a current weakness. For an educational group, we seem to be pretty poor at providing information to the membership at large. This seems like a good thing to remedy. Seaan McAy Caer Darth; Darkwood; Mists; West (Santa Cruz, CA) Per fess indented argent and vert, three pheons counterchanged From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 20:49:19 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 14 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 19:49:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: 9 member Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I am against expanding the Board to 9 members because: Once you get past 7 inter-personal dynamics change. Expense. Isn't there a large constituency for cutting costs? Directors' tickets and accommodation are a big cost. I do think we can elect Board members once a year, if we go to some kind of election system. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 21:53:05 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: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 17:10:33 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Roy Gathercoal Organization: George Fox College Subject: seven principles for board selection To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Arthur asks for feedback on these seven points: 1) the BOD should be selected by a group of electors small enough for the BOD to keep in contact with them on the one side, but broad enough for the populace to keep in touch with them on the other. The issue here should be on legitimacy. We should not make the mistake of trying to turn the board into a representative body. It is not possible to construct a board that will be representative in any meaningful way--the closest we could come is to have the dominant viewpoints in each region represented. This would be a step backward. Being "in touch" is a good and necessary thing. Being selected by some geographically disbursed body is not prerequisite. 2) To avoid society wide electioneering and election costs, and to provide an informed electorate, this group of selectors should be either some set of existing local officers selected by their local group, OR some set of regional officers selected by the member selected local officers. This is what I mean. We have made the jump here to geographic representation. There are many other ways to avoid electioneering--like not having an election. 3) these electors should also have the power to stay or reverse BOD decisions, and censure and remove BOD members. I think these issues should be kept separate. The process of removing a board member should be a remarkable and historic thing, not a matter of course. We want a board that is responsible and willing to make tough decisions, not simply one committed to the innocuous and the safe. 4) The candidate pool for BOD elections should consist of people who have served a specified amount of time on BOD issue committees over the past x years. Perhaps this should be considered as a plus, but not as a requirement. We should always leave the possibility open for people who have been excluded >from the mainstream channels to enter as board members. It would be too easy to keep "the wrong people" out of the race for board members by simply excluding them from specific committees. 5) members of these item specific ad hoc working groups should be selected by ... er help me out here guys (items specific ad hoc groups so as to avoid GCitis with a million topics...) If you don't require #4, you don't need #5. I would prefer not going too far in legislating how future committees should be selected. Seems that committees might be best served by allowing selection based on the specific needs of the situation. 6) an item specific ad hoc working group can be called into existence either by the BOD, a single BOD member, a national officer, or by the electorate, and must have a specific topic and a specific end date. If you don't do #4, you don't need #6. 7) membership level 'petition' style reversals and censure/removal procedures should also exist so that no one can say "clique blocked me, no recourse, majority of members would agree". Yes, but if we have this, we don't need to carefully structure the other ways of nominating board members. In general, I believe that some refinement of Cariadoc's proposal could work. In principle, a selection that is something similar to what we have now with an added way of exceptional direct election. I would not agree with his kingdom-based system, insofar as I believe that attempts to backdoor representation are dangerous. The crowns of the kingdoms are way too homogeneous to be considered representative, and far too available to coercive pressures from well placed others. (Now if we want to change the way in which crowns are selected . . .evil grin) In short, kingdoms are not designed to be representative (as a congressional district is reputed to be) and so should not be used as a base unit for a representational process. Also, local branches should not be so used. Would Carolingia be willing to have the same single vote as my eight-member shire? Or will we see a sudden proliferation of dinky cantons in order to secure more votes? This seems to me to be a silly reason to encourage the establishment of branches. Further, a one-vote per group system will greatly bias the process towards conservatism, and while I sound like a conservvative here, I am seldom in that role among the populace. Small and/or isolated groups will tend to identify more strongly with the established structure than with relatively disorganized and unknown voices of dissent from somewhere else. Gareth -- From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 22:06:42 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Serwyl@AOL.COM Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 21:25:38 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Chuck Hack Subject: Serwyl: Board Selection To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Serwyl, I've been following the Board selection discussion with great interest but due to mundane considerations I haven't been able to respond to points raised as fully as I would like. (So I'll keep this as short as possible) :) There seems to be several 'camps' forming on what should constitute the electorate for the Board. One of the popular suggestions right now being election by Seneschals, Crowns and/or other Kingdom officers. I'm not altogether certain this provides much benefit. Crowns as electors are problematic from several standpoints, and unless we go to a system where Kingdom officers are elected from below, there is no guarantee that the whole structure will become a very elitist heirarchy. On the plus side, at least the number of electors is expanded, and you have a hopefully more informed electorate. The other suggestion, which has gotten a lot of play, was Tibor's thought on limiting electors to those subscribing to the Board minutes. I was leary of the idea at first but the concept is beginning to grow on me. (Don't faint Tibor, I know this hasn't happened much :). A number of problems have been brought up, but I think they are solvable. As for the information loop becoming inbred, we can allow potential Board members to offer personal bios and statements of position. That should ease the concern. It would also be a shame to miss the input of the Kingdom Seneschals. Paid subscriptions and voting rights should come with the office. Other officers could be added at the discretion of the Kingdom (by having the Kingdom buy that officer's subscription). The same option could apply to the Crown, although as their term of service is much shorter I don't see a subscription as doing them much good. One important point: Tibors system is much faster than any general election, but we need a method to appoint members quickly in the event of a member's early withdrawal. The emergency selection of a prior member is one option. Another is to vote in advance on candidates, who will then wait for the next vacancy. Should a vacancy open and the next elected member not be ready to take his or her place, they could decline, but the election would only stay open for a certain amount of time. (So if they declined for too long their election would eventually become invalid). On a Nine member Board. NO, for all the reasons Finnvarr gave. It will cost us more and change the dynamics of the Board for no obvious benefit. On selection of Board members from a pool of people who have worked on committees. While I think the committees would be a great training ground (and Lord knows we need one), I would hesitate to limit our selections from this pool. We could see faster rates of burnout for Board members, and you run a real risk of having an inbred Board. If you want to cut the field of potential candidates down at all, limit it to people who are already electors (ie anyone who subscribes to the Board minutes). Hmm, I really am getting to like this idea better and better.... Well, not as short as I planned, but..... From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 22:14:00 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: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 18:40:14 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Roy Gathercoal Organization: George Fox College Subject: on elections and publications To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Justin wrote: >Overall, not at all bad. It's a compromise, but seems to address most of the concerns that have been brought up here. The expense of running an election isn't terribly high -- basically the "cost" of the necessary pages in TI or Kingdom newsletters. (Which is real, and should be figured.) It would tend to select for high stability, but permit sudden change when needed. In the interest of pointing out that all of these topics are intensely interrelated, allow me to point out that if we decide to take a course which separates kingdom and TI subscriptions from membership, that this option is no longer available to us. That is, of course, unless we wish to overtly disenfranchise all of those members which are now having problems affording memberships. Separate publications will cost more for the individual than they currently do (due to separate list maintenance, smaller print runs, increased postal rates, etc.). So, if I can be a member but not be allowed to participate in the selection of leadership unless I spend more money (for one or more publications) then my membership is pretty much windowdressing. Just a thought. Also, allow me to point out that if we assume that elections will be anything other than ho-hum apathy personified (and I would point to the historic paucity of letters of comment on the list of nominees to the board as example) then elections will not simply be a matter of two unimpassioned and generous parties exchanging objective information in a neutral forum. Look at the controversy and rumors surrounding many of our Crown Tournaments, for a guage. (has anyone on this forum not heard detailed accounts of how one or another Crown winner rhino-ed his way to the Crown?) If we have elections, and expect that people will care enough to meaningfully participate, we must carefully consider how the system can be wrongfully manipulated, for if it is important enough for enough people to care to make it legitimate, it will be important enough for some to attempt to use subterfuge. And reform (necessarily involving the outlawing of some tactic that has worked effectively for some powerful person or group) will be next to impossible once people have invested themselves in one trick or another. At this point (e.g., PAC reform in the US Congress) will involve choosing whose ox is to be gored. . hint, it won't be the oxen which most effectively worked for the people who are in power as a result of the oxen's efficacy. So if we set up mechanisms that are readily available, we should be careful about setting up explicit and detailed ground rules that will foresee and prevent at least the most obvious excesses. Gareth -- From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 10 23:47:47 1996 Return-Path: From: Joseph Heck Subject: Morgan on the Board Stuff (LOTS) (fwd) To: scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM (SCA Grand Council Discussion Listserv) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 22:44:28 -0600 (CST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This message was originally submitted by ccjoe@MAIL.MISSOURI.EDU 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 (144 lines) ------------------ Margo Lynn Hablutzel said: >From 72672.2312@compuserve.com Wed Jan 10 20:24:23 1996 Date: 10 Jan 96 21:25:49 EST From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <72672.2312@compuserve.com> To: Grand Council Discussion List Subject: Morgan on the Board Stuff (LOTS) Message-ID: <960111022549_72672.2312_FHP70-1@CompuServe.COM> I am going to respond only to those items about which I feel especially strongly, given the volume over the last few days: Flieg posted for Hal Ravn, IAC, West, stating that he shares the views: >>> 4) The candidate pool for BOD elections should cosnist >>> of people who have served a specified amount of time on >>> BOD issue commitees over the past x years. > And, thus freezing out people who might be eminently qualified > but who have been doing other things? Isn't this proposal even > closer to self-perpetuation than the present set up? I'll add a third voice to that. I would also note that simply attending Board meetings should not be a criterion, as at least one person whom I know attends every meeting is highly unqualified, sayeth many in his Kingdom. (Someone else suggested this as consideration for, I think, backup or 'spare' members.) Also on the issue of spares: Most Boards can function with a range of members that take into account sudden inability to fulfill a term. In Illinois, the statute provides a minimum number of Board members, and the allowable range (not more than five between maximum and minimum; minimum must be no less than three). There is no necessity to appoint someone to fill in for a Board member who leaves with, say, six months to go in the term, unless that would freeze the board by bringing it below the minimum. I like Tibor's suggestion of lifting the reappointment of former Directors, and agree that it should be only those who successfully completed a full term without removal or challenge. Finnvarr noted: >> Even in the midst of the great crisis, most members were >> not in a position (or even very interested) to judge who >> might be responsible for things they didn't like (if they >> were concerned at all). Even people who were quite angry >> or upset would, I guess, have little info about which indi- >> vidual directors might be responsible, and whom it might >> have been worthwhile to remove. This is why I think a two-step process would be A Good Thing. First step, a vote of confidence or no confidence in the actions. If the situation is not addressed, or in situations when a Board member is clearly acting outside his or her authority, an expulsion "election" can take place. I don't like Solveig Throndardottir's suggestion "that the IKAC should effectively become the BoD and the existing BoD should become an executive committee appointed by the IKAC." People MUST remember that howevre intertwined they are, we have two different entities: a mundane corporation, and a medieval recreationist society. I don't think the IKAC is constructed or qualified to run the corporation, and I'm not sure they want to (IKAC members want to answer?). I would venture that the Board does not need to concern itself with quite everything it has been, and perhaps figuring out what should and should not be reported and handled at the Board level, and how, would be a future agenda item. I disagree with Cariadoc that "If everything is going well, only one candidate is nominated for each office and you have the sort of self-perpetuating system we now have. But if the membership is unhappy, someone nominates a rival candidate and he gets elected." In the groups where I have seen this type of election, especially when groups are elected such as Assembly or Board members, there are always a few extra candidates. For example, of eighteen available posts you have twenty-three candidates. Thus, there is some choice to the matter, and people really feel that casting their votes makes a difference. In response to my suggestion that we "choose a range of 2-4 [methods] from which the Kingdoms may select ... to nominate candidates to the Board," Frithiof said >> Why not let the kingdoms use their method of choice? >> I see no need to control the method for selecting >> candidates. This allows the Kingdom to choose from a given set of methods. The concern was that some Kingdom might, for whatever reason, choose a method like combat that would not necessarily provide the best selection of Board members. As an example, the list of possibles would go on credentials, with the nomination being by (choose one): Royalty; Curia; Landed Barons and Baronesses; Peers; Seneschals; General Populace; or a combination (such as Royalty plus Curia). In another post, Frithiof pointed out that we don't need to elect Board members every quarter, and I agree. Once yearly should be enough, and would reduce the "downtime" engendered by having new Board members constantly coming on board and slowing everybody down with their learning curve. I have not seen any other NFP that elects Board memebrs on a constant, quarterly basis. Isn't Brian O'Seabac's suggestion concerning "advisors" or "councilors" what the IKAC and/or GC are supposed to be about? And I believe dward is right, that the Board cannot cede its power or responsibilities to them. I agree, with some minor tinkering, to the Justin/Cariadoc suggestion on elections. (Cariadoc's with Justin's commentary.) I think by "advertising rates" Cariadoc meant that newsletters could not impose a surcharge on political material; and yes, most newsletters (I get them all, plus) have such rates. SIDEBAR: Justin asked "And heaven only knows how they run the World Science Fiction Society." -- as all fen know, it's the SMOFs. About Board minutes -- I have gone to Board meetings with my laptop and transcribed fairly good ones, not verbatim all the way through but close. It's not hard if you're a decent typist. A court reporter runs about $20-30 per hour, depending, and may be worth it if you want verbatim transcripts. Remember, we are talking about a four-times-per-year expense, which makes it more reasonable in the long haul, if you want detailed accuracy. I disagree with Modius about posting Board minutes on the Rialto. I have only recently had software that allows me to get it, and I know others who can't. If we had an official SCA BBS, that's one thing, but the Rialto isn't it. Tibor suggested in one post that electing members be those who receive Board minutes, and in another noted that members get certain benefits under the California Code. I would add that you CAN have two classes of members, with different voting rights for each, so that the Board-minute-receiving members can vote, and the merely-dues-paying members can be nonvoting. If this is not possible, they can be restricted to fewer Board members than the others. Having taken up far more space than I intended, I'll return to my embroidery now. ---= Morgan (small, mostly populist who prefers an educated electorate) |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com -- joe (573) 882-2000 ccjoe@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 11 06:57:25 1996 Return-Path: References: <199601101910.OAA08055@abel.math.harvard.edu> Approved-By: David Schroeder Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 06:28:02 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: David Schroeder Subject: Re: Tibor: Populist versus elitist issues To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601101910.OAA08055@abel.math.harvard.edu> For example, Brother Crimthan (many moons ago) wrote a perfectly respectable proposal for a Law and Policy newsletter that could be implemented within the Society. It vanished into the mists. But something just like it could be revived. Gee, I thought I'd suggested that, to be called "The Bull" if I remember correctly... My best -- Bertram, some time editor/publisher From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 08:45:17 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 20 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 08:15:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: 9 member Board (outsider comment) Comments: To: keradwc@rahul.net To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L At least one person misunderstood the comment below, so let me clarify. I don't favor one-year TERMS on the Board for precisely the same reasons Keradwc objected to them. Finnvarr >> I do think we can elect Board members once a year, if we go to some kind of >> election system. >> >> Finnvarr >Please reconsider before proposing such a change. The general "job" of >any board of directors is to lead the organization in its LONG TERM >goals, not to get bogged down in the day-to-day details. While a >shorter tenure doesn't always link to a shorter-term perspective, >there's more than enough data to indicate it's a major danger. ... Kevin Connery/Keradwc an Cai From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 10:43:18 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: fiacha@premier1 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: Nigel Haslock Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 07:13:33 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Nigel Haslock Subject: Further thoughts of Franchise To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <30F539E5@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> Greetings from Fiacha, I seems to me that the Board Minutes would make an adequate vehicle for distributing position statements and vote forms. It also seems to me that we should allow these to be replicated and that any vote be validated with either a photocopy of a membership card or an actual mailing label. Thus we minimise the cost of creating and distributing vote forms but we allow all members to vote. Finally, we ensure that the target population has a better than average chance of being informed. Also, I feel that limiting candidates to serving committee members is a bad idea. Instead, consider requiring that candidates be subscribers to the Board Minutes. Fiacha From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 11:17:26 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 10:55:25 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: seven principles for board selection To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <1064316.ensmtp@foxmail.gfc.edu> (message from Roy Gathercoal on Wed, 10 Jan 1996 17:10:33 -0800) Gareth responded to Arthur's principles; in general, I don't strongly disagree with him, although my viewpoints are a little different. But one point: >Also, local >branches should not be so used. Would Carolingia be willing to have the same >single vote as my eight-member shire? Quite possibly. Bear in mind, we just *had* just this sort of representative election internally, where each guild, office, household, etc, had one vote, regardless of size of constituency. And a major alternative that was being batted about was a vote where anyone was allowed to vote, if they considered themselves to be "Carolingian", regardless of their actual location or degree of involvement with the Barony. The point of which is -- while people aren't 100% altruistic, they aren't entirely greedy either. Schemes that are disproportionate on the surface *can* fly, if people perceive them as likely to produce reasonable results at a low cost... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "Confessionals (an aspect of the Middle Ages not found in the SCA, since they are forbidden by the BOD policy on religion) were a place where all sins were revealed and shortcomings made known. The only place in the SCA where all sins are revealed and shortcomings made known is the Pennsic Swimming Hole." -- from The SCAtanic Verses From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 13:32:27 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: 1117 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 13:08:23 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor: Issues deriving from Director elections. (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Drogo, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: "Paul Stratton (DEC) (Exchange)" Subject: RE: Tibor: Issues deriving from Director elections. Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 14:21:30 -0800 Hi Tibor from Drogo the Forgetful, My response to your message and for the GC list. You wrote: > I don't see why. Can you explain? It addresses the populist concern: > if > you want a ballot, you get one, and the information required to use it > intelligently. It includes all who care enough. The rest may grouse, > but I > don't have sufficient sympathy for the idle complainant at this time... > (:- This could be considered a "poll tax" like the kind that was common in the Southern United States until the 1960s and the Supreme Court declared it illegal. Since the SCA is a private group it shouldn't apply, but I'm sure that would be the main complaint. Personally I think this is a dandy way and we should do it. The people that subscribe to the BoD notes are quite likely to be more responsive. Drogo From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 13:41:36 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, 11 Jan 1996 13:12:05 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Board elections and removal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L i have two objections to nominating committees in the s.c.a.: it's going to be difficult to get yet another set of volunteers to keep it fully staffed; and there's no guarantee such a group will do any better or any worse at board recruitment. i don't believe the nominating committee will come up with more or better nominees than the present system (especially as the members listed by, for example, cariadoc can _already_ suggest potential board members; they just don't do so as part of an official committee), and it therefore adds a level of complexity to a problem that it's not going to solve. on voting: everyone seems to be for expanding the electorate. i've seen, basically, three broad proposals: 1) totality: everyone who participates in the s.c.a. votes, because the board's decisions affects everyone who plays. 2) broadness: everyone who's an official dues paying member votes, because the board overseers a mundane corporation, and only the people paying for that corporation should have a say in electing the board running the corporation. 3) narrow: a) people subscribing to the board minutes vote, since they're the ones who are following the board closely enough to have knowledge of what the board is, does, and should do. b) some section of corporate officers and/or kingdom officers and/or crowns vote, since they're the ones most knowledgeable about the day-to-day running of the s.c.a. election ballots, with brief position papers, could appear in TI and/or the kingdom newsletters and/or board minutes. impeachment and/or removal of board members, again, can be done by a certain proportion of the board itself, all participants, all dues-paying members, all board-minutes subscribers, and/or all corporate/kingdom officers and crowns. the paperwork would have to be done on a case-by-case basis, because no-one can now tell why a board member would be impeached/removed. is this a good summation? alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 14:23:03 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: 745 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 13:47:56 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor: Populist versus elitist issues To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: from "David Schroeder" at Jan 11, 96 06:28:02 am Greetings from Tibor. I'd writen: For example, Brother Crimthan (many moons ago) wrote a perfectly respectable proposal for a Law and Policy newsletter that could be implemented within the Society. It vanished into the mists. But something just like it could be revived. Bertram answered: Gee, I thought I'd suggested that, to be called "The Bull" if I remember correctly... I wrote confusingly. I wasn't discussing the idea itself. (I knew I couldn't remember who had it originally.) Brother Crimthann had put together a proposal of great length and detail, which I believe he sent to the Board. It was that proposal I was recalling and mentioning. My deepest apologies for any unintended insult or confusion. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 14:25:13 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: 860 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 13:52:50 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Selection and removal of Board Members (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Eric, by Tibor. Forwarded message: Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 09:33:48 -0600 (CST) From: Ron Fleig Subject: Re: Selection and removal of Board Members (fwd) Please post to GC list. Tks. Don't get hung up on a nine member board. I only used that number as it is convenient to have three elected each year for three year terms. (We elect half of our ten member Civil Service Council where I work each year for a two year term with the runner's up available to be appointed to vacancies as needed.) It would work just as well electing two in each of two years and three in a third year for three year terms; its the method and term, not the number that counts. And even more important is the idea of having the "spare(s)." Eric the Wanderer Ron Fleig urfleig@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Jan 11 14:36:57 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 14:01:46 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Board elections and removal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <01HZVVOC3L8I9APWUW@delphi.com> (ALBAN@DELPHI.COM) Alban writes some models of Board election, including: >1) totality: everyone who participates in the s.c.a. votes, because >the board's decisions affects everyone who plays. *Is* anyone actually suggesting this? Speaking as a hardcore decentralist, and a strong anti-pay-for-play type, even I doubt that this could be made to work well. And, frankly, I think election of the Board is one of the most mundane activities the SCA could have, and one of the most intrinsically tied to the Corporation. It's one of the few things I can think of that I am entirely comfortable with restricting to paid members... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "And David did see Bathsheba bathing and did exclaim 'Yum!'" ... "And Jesus did say 'I....hurt.'" -- from the King Chris Edition of the Bible, courtesy tyg From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 07:37:14 1996 Return-Path: References: <199601111847.NAA13079@abel.math.harvard.edu> Approved-By: David Schroeder Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 07:14:18 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: David Schroeder Subject: Re: Tibor: Populist versus elitist issues To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601111847.NAA13079@abel.math.harvard.edu> Excerpts from mail: 11-Jan-96 Re: Tibor: Populist versus .. by Mark Schuldenfrei@abel.M > Brother Crimthann had put together a proposal of great length and detail, > which I believe he sent to the Board. It was that proposal I was recalling > and mentioning. Cool... Was it ever posted electronically? Sounds like it would be quite interesting to read. > My deepest apologies for any unintended insult or confusion. Huh? Not required. No insult, and the confusion was all mine... :-) > Tibor My best -- Bertram From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 11:35:14 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 168 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 11:00:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Morgan on the Board Stuff (LOTS) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <72672.2312@compuserve.com> I usually forward through Terras, but COIN, the system he is on, has been down for a couple of days, and a person who finally was able to get a message out said that mail is erratic and we don't know if it will be up anytime soon. Because this is getting old, I am asking Finnvarr to post it to the list, and am looking for another forwarding source, until COIN is more stable. --------------- Forwarded Message --------------- Date: Wed, Jan 10, 1996, 21:07 I am going to respond only to those items about which I feel especially strongly, given the volume over the last few days: Flieg posted for Hal Ravn, IAC, West, stating that he shares the views: >>> 4) The candidate pool for BOD elections should cosnist >>> of people who have served a specified amount of time on >>> BOD issue commitees over the past x years. > And, thus freezing out people who might be eminently qualified > but who have been doing other things? Isn't this proposal even > closer to self-perpetuation than the present set up? I'll add a third voice to that. I would also note that simply attending Board meetings should not be a criterion, as at least one person whom I know attends every meeting is highly unqualified, sayeth many in his Kingdom. (Someone else suggested this as consideration for, I think, backup or 'spare' members.) Also on the issue of spares: Most Boards can function with a range of members that take into account sudden inability to fulfill a term. In Illinois, the statute provides a minimum number of Board members, and the allowable range (not more than five between maximum and minimum; minimum must be no less than three). There is no necessity to appoint someone to fill in for a Board member who leaves with, say, six months to go in the term, unless that would freeze the board by bringing it below the minimum. I like Tibor's suggestion of lifting the reappointment of former Directors, and agree that it should be only those who successfully completed a full term without removal or challenge. Finnvarr noted: >> Even in the midst of the great crisis, most members were >> not in a position (or even very interested) to judge who >> might be responsible for things they didn't like (if they >> were concerned at all). Even people who were quite angry >> or upset would, I guess, have little info about which indi- >> vidual directors might be responsible, and whom it might >> have been worthwhile to remove. This is why I think a two-step process would be A Good Thing. First step, a vote of confidence or no confidence in the actions. If the situation is not addressed, or in situations when a Board member is clearly acting outside his or her authority, an expulsion "election" can take place. I don't like Solveig Throndardottir's suggestion "that the IKAC should effectively become the BoD and the existing BoD should become an executive committee appointed by the IKAC." People MUST remember that howevre intertwined they are, we have two different entities: a mundane corporation, and a medieval recreationist society. I don't think the IKAC is constructed or qualified to run the corporation, and I'm not sure they want to (IKAC members want to answer?). I would venture that the Board does not need to concern itself with quite everything it has been, and perhaps figuring out what should and should not be reported and handled at the Board level, and how, would be a future agenda item. I disagree with Cariadoc that "If everything is going well, only one candidate is nominated for each office and you have the sort of self-perpetuating system we now have. But if the membership is unhappy, someone nominates a rival candidate and he gets elected." In the groups where I have seen this type of election, especially when groups are elected such as Assembly or Board members, there are always a few extra candidates. For example, of eighteen available posts you have twenty-three candidates. Thus, there is some choice to the matter, and people really feel that casting their votes makes a difference. In response to my suggestion that we "choose a range of 2-4 [methods] from which the Kingdoms may select ... to nominate candidates to the Board," Frithiof said >> Why not let the kingdoms use their method of choice? >> I see no need to control the method for selecting >> candidates. This allows the Kingdom to choose from a given set of methods. The concern was that some Kingdom might, for whatever reason, choose a method like combat that would not necessarily provide the best selection of Board members. As an example, the list of possibles would go on credentials, with the nomination being by (choose one): Royalty; Curia; Landed Barons and Baronesses; Peers; Seneschals; General Populace; or a combination (such as Royalty plus Curia). In another post, Frithiof pointed out that we don't need to elect Board members every quarter, and I agree. Once yearly should be enough, and would reduce the "downtime" engendered by having new Board members constantly coming on board and slowing everybody down with their learning curve. I have not seen any other NFP that elects Board memebrs on a constant, quarterly basis. Isn't Brian O'Seabac's suggestion concerning "advisors" or "councilors" what the IKAC and/or GC are supposed to be about? And I believe dward is right, that the Board cannot cede its power or responsibilities to them. I agree, with some minor tinkering, to the Justin/Cariadoc suggestion on elections. (Cariadoc's with Justin's commentary.) I think by "advertising rates" Cariadoc meant that newsletters could not impose a surcharge on political material; and yes, most newsletters (I get them all, plus) have such rates. SIDEBAR: Justin asked "And heaven only knows how they run the World Science Fiction Society." -- as all fen know, it's the SMOFs. About Board minutes -- I have gone to Board meetings with my laptop and transcribed fairly good ones, not verbatim all the way through but close. It's not hard if you're a decent typist. A court reporter runs about $20-30 per hour, depending, and may be worth it if you want verbatim transcripts. Remember, we are talking about a four-times-per-year expense, which makes it more reasonable in the long haul, if you want detailed accuracy. I disagree with Modius about posting Board minutes on the Rialto. I have only recently had software that allows me to get it, and I know others who can't. If we had an official SCA BBS, that's one thing, but the Rialto isn't it. Tibor suggested in one post that electing members be those who receive Board minutes, and in another noted that members get certain benefits under the California Code. I would add that you CAN have two classes of members, with different voting rights for each, so that the Board-minute-receiving members can vote, and the merely-dues-paying members can be nonvoting. If this is not possible, they can be restricted to fewer Board members than the others. Having taken up far more space than I intended, I'll return to my embroidery now. ---= Morgan (small, mostly populist who prefers an educated electorate) |\ 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 12 13:28:32 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, 12 Jan 1996 18:43:39 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Fiacha: AGENDA To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >Agenda and status as I see it. >... >5. Landmarks - Waiting for a summary/proposal A proposal does - or rather did - exist. My co-editor published=20 a version of it on another electronic SCA forum, where it got=20 rather thoroughly trashed. I think that most of the ensuing=20 flame war was due to mis- and overinterpretation on sundry=20 parts, but the fact that the text *could* lead to that sort of=20 thing indicates that the proposal was a bad one.=20 I'm convinced that the issue will show up in one way or another=20 if we ever discuss a clearer separation of the medieval and the=20 mundane aspects of the SCA, but for the time being we should=20 concentrate on important issues we can treat in a constructive=20 manner, such as Board selection and workload (I happen to think=20 they're related).=20 I propose that the Landmarks be removed from the agenda for the=20 time being. /Catrin =20 Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 13:33:07 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 13:02:20 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Board Elections, Board Minutes, and Membership To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L A thought just crossed my mind, and makes me reconsider Tibor's idea of election-through-Board-minutes a little. In my *ideal* world, the Corporation would be removed from the central role it now occupies -- we'd spin the game-governance role out to a new body (the IAC?), and push as much as possible down to the Kingdoms, so that the Corp. could primarily function as a service provider for the game. In that scenario, my view has always been that, if "Corporate membership" existed at all, it would be greatly downplayed -- such members would be people who were specifically interested in the runnings of the Corporation, and their membership would buy them precisely two things: a Corporate newsletter, and a vote. I'm not bringing this up as a proposal right now -- it edges heavily into the whole what-is-membership argument, which I don't want to open yet because it's a huge (if important) can of worms. But it occurs to me that Tibor's proposal is *compatible* with this model, although it doesn't mandate it. Change the concept of "membership" around, expand the Board Minutes to the Corporate newsletter, make it automatic with a membership, and you've got my ideal model. So -- I guess I like Tibor's idea more, the more I think about it. While it doesn't force us down the road to changing membership around, it does permit it, which is a flexibility I quite like... (And I have to admit that his informed-electorate idea does have some real merit...) Just something to think about; I'm not really intending this for big debate right now... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "44. I can't concentrate because Big Bird keeps singing to me about the number `4'." -- from "New Improved Delusions" From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 15:24:25 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 14:19:32 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Fiacha: AGENDA To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <960112.184339.17693@macpost.lu.se> (message from Janna Spanne on Fri, 12 Jan 1996 18:43:39 +0100) Catrin proposes: >I propose that the Landmarks be removed from the agenda for the >time being. I concur, at least that they should be considered indefinitely back-burnered. (I'm not going to say "tabled", since that term is badly ambiguous to an international audience.) I think they're very interesting, and *might* become important under certain structural models, but I don't think they're immediately important enough to risk the real potential for distraction right now... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: >from "Top Ten Things that Would Happen if Cerebus Became a Network TV Show": "-2. Using the last five minutes of the show to read viewers letters is cancelled when most of the letters start discussing masturbation. -3. Ratings plummet during Jaka's Story, many men are furious when they hear they missed seeing Jaka's butt, they return and are happy that they were in time to see `that geek Pud get blown away with a crossbow'." -- Jeffrey Stoltman From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 15:32:19 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 14 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 14:47:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Landmarks To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I am sorry to hear that we will not see the Landmarks proposal just because some other people did not like it. If there is any possibility that we will spin off the supervision of the "game" to some body besides the Board, we're going to need some basis from which to do so. Without an agreed-upon basis, I suggest we will end up with the Board stuck with supervising, well or badly, on the basis of its own rulings. It is unlikely in the extreme that it will hand over this power (which is still important) to another body without a foundational document of some sort. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Jan 12 20:27:14 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: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 19:54:22 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Board Elections To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L after a flurry of messages, there's been only a couple of minor messages in the last couple of days. does this mean people actually have enough information to maybe think about voting on how to do elections? alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 13 10:45:05 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 83 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Sat, 13 Jan 1996 10:11:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Morgan: Bit More on Board Elections To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded by Finnvarr for Morgan. >>>> Gareth said that "if we decide to take a course which separates kingdom and TI subscriptions from membership, that this option is no longer available to us." I think that TI should be part of the Greater SCA membership, and the Kingdom newsletters should be tied to membership in the various Kingdoms. There is no reaon a member in Greater SCA should not get something of substance for his/her money. (NOTE: This assumes a Greater SCA membership, with designations or a separate membership for Kingdom. Many of the organizations to which I belong do this: a basic membership for a basic rate, add a bit for each section. Rather as one does now to add the newsletters for Kingdoms other than that of residence.) Gareth also said that: "If we have elections, and expect that people will care enough to meaningfully participate, we must carefully consider how the system can be wrongfully manipulated, for if it is important enough for enough people to care to make it legitimate, it will be important enough for some to attempt to use subterfuge." Yep. But if the voting is SCA-wide, that dilutes a lot of the possibility. Also, I would take a key from the elections I am in for various organizations: Each member gets a ballot pre-printed with his/her name and member number, and a return envelope with a preprinted member-address sticker, such as is used on the magazines and other correspondence. You mark ballot, place in envelope, seal envelope, SIGN ACROSS FLAP, and there you go! About the Board makeup: I think that a geographically representative Board would be too unwieldy. People are already fussed at the idea of nine Board members (which I personally think would be a useful number), and effectively doubling the Board right now would be a major strain. My compromise would be to elect Board members in rotation from the Kingdoms; if you have yearly elections of three Board members, you get through the Kingdoms in about five years. If a special election needs to be held to fill a slot, the election occurs from the next Kingdom on the list, and NOT from the Kingdom from which that Board member came. Alban's summary on board elections was dead on, I think. I would say that ONLY dues-paying members should have the right to vote, not the greater SCA, because they are easier to track and verify. I don't know of an organization to which I belong that allows mere participants to vote for officers and assembly and so on. Any appropriate subsection of the membership NOT limited to Curia and Crowns can also be considered. I am not about to trust running the corporation to the designee of a bunch of persons for whom I don't vote and who I may not trust to oversee my College, much less run the corporation. Fiacha's suggestion that Board candidates be subscribers to the Board Minutes is a GOOD one, I think, because it shows an ongoing interest in the matters. And I like the idea that, if we don'e let ALL dues-paying members vote, we allow those who receive the Board Minutes. Even if someone doesn't actually read them thoroughly, they show a wilingness to take an extra step to ensure a voice. I disagree with Justin that the Corporation ought to be spun away and its management duties given to the IAC. I think the two can work together, but there are some things that the Corporation needs to track if only on an FYI basis. And I don't think the IAC wants to take over such duties as finance. I also think that the Corporation can, and should, consider ways to give additional benefits to members which it, as a corporation of sizeable membership, can negotiate. ---= Morgan |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 13 20:36:29 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: maghnuis@cp.duluth.mn.us (Unverified) 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: Sat, 13 Jan 1996 19:10:57 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: Budget Committee/Financial Information:CONCUR To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L A >In the long term, perhaps we can raise this as an agenda item, discuss it >and make the necessary recommendation but that will not get the record >keeping fixed right away. > > Fiacha Fiacha, what will keep the current records from being Kept correctly? If this has not been done previously I suggest than we have NO higher priority than requesting/demanding that the finances be handled competently. This week, not after a month or three of discussion. Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Jan 13 20:39:10 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: maghnuis@cp.duluth.mn.us (Unverified) 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: Sat, 13 Jan 1996 19:11:00 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: Selection and removal of Board Members To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I have not yet seen a selection process that worksbetter than the current withought causing extra problems. The below mwthod for removal sounds reasonable: >>A. A Board member may be impeached by petition of 5% of the membership or >>1/2 of the Kingdom seneschals or 1/2 of the current Kings and Queens or a >>majority of the Board. > >Okay, that's better than the current system, and still hard to invoke. If it is invoked the need should be fairly obvious. > >>B. If a Board member is impeached, the Board may vote to remove him. If it >>does not, there is a special election, as above, to determine whether he >>will be removed from the Board. T.I. and the newsletters must accept >>material arguing for or against removal at their usual advertising rates. > >Good; I like this approach... > >>C. During the time between impeachment and removal (or reinstatement) the >>Board member will count towards a quorum but will not vote. > >Very important -- this means that even an impeachment has some teeth. >Given that holding the election to remove will probably require at >*least* three months (and I wouldn't be surprised if it took six), this >is crucial. > >Overall, not bad. It's a bit slow, and a bit of work for the electorate >to exercize their vote. But it would probably work, and wouldn't cost >an excessive amount. Certainly the best proposal I've seen so far, and >a plausible implementation of membership-suffrage... > > -- Justin Ditto -ouch, scary word) Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Jan 14 14:11:46 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 13:44:08 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun is lost To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Alysoun AOL has had technical difficulties. I could not access mail this past week (from Dec. 6) and when I was reconnected, some of it was unavailable and some, I suspect, just wasn't there because I have holes in the discussion. I gather that an official agenda was posted: could someone send it to me? Can anyone summarize the main threads in the Board selection/removal discussion? As I am trying to paste it together, it appears that we have moved from discussion of whether or not elections are worth the pain, to what is the SCAinc (and the responsibilities of directors)? This later topic has been a theme underlying discussion in the Council since its inception. It would be logical to decide first if the Council IS going to address the subject of substantive change. If not, then we take up the other topics on the basis of the status quo--how to make the current system better--and not waste time inventing new constructions. If yes, then we focus on what might be a better construction and strive to spend the year developing a vision which would serve all the kingdoms and not worry overmuch about details. As it is, we are going around and around. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 01:23:34 1996 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 00:58:41 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: Supbscription Sufferage:some concrete ideas... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Pick this apart, beat on it awhile, maybe it will hammer into a decent proposal. 1) ammend the by-laws to create a voting class of members specifically definded as subscribers to the BOD minutes/newsletter and set up an effective date that gives enough lead time to get the publication in proper shape AND get the word out so people can subscribe. PROBABLY should delay first balloting for an issue or two UNLESS you want to use "Subscribe now and VOTE!" to try and start a marketing stampede. 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. This peson should also be typing up a monthy index to be compiled and published at the end of the year... well maybe not, but IF you ever want to use old minutes for anything, this is essential. 3) Make a saddle-back estimiate of how many subscriptions the "voting privilage newsletter is likely to inspire and how quickly and see to it that SCA central in milpitas is set up to deal with it expeditiously. Measures should also be taken at this point to automate the balloting process with a half decent PC with a good OCR package and scanner with a sheet-feeder. Planning now and automating the process will make for happier subscribers when they're votes are RAPIDLY tallied, and will probably prevent a breakdown/heartattack in the offcie staff as well... 4) While board meetings are quarterly , my best guess is that a useful Publication should be published about twice per quarter, one the month after a BOD meeting (so subscribers can see what HAS happened) , and the other a month BEFORE (so subscribers can SEE and put their two bits in on whats GOING to happen) EXAMPLE: BOD Meeting in January. Backward looking issue in February. Forward looking issue in March. BOD meeting in April. The february newsletter in this case would have the minutes and complete transcript and summary of the BOD meeting. THE BALLOT: If we put the ballot is on the same sheet of paper as the mailing label, then the outgoing mailing label can be used as the validator of the ballot. yes I know it can be forged, but frankly, just about ANYTHING can be forged... IF vote fraud is considered an important concern then the ballot should be on the outside back cover of the newsletter so that the Scanner/OCR can tie the votes and the info on the mailing label together in one pass, and scream when it gets invalid or duplicate member numbers (or something like that) Theres lots of space on even a half page ballot, and thats GOOD, becasue many of the ideas for reform we've been discussing would HAVE to be passed by referendum to gain any acceptance... The ability to regularly and easliy conduct referendums and polls on a steeady basis will be an asset to the BOD and to the corporation, let lone the ability to allow for nominations and elections on a regular and routine (and paid for ) method rather than any "special" mechanism... Those are my immidiate thoughts on the matter but I'm going to recap the advantages of such a ssytem anyway 1) Its a self financing (possibly revenue generating) reform 2) It gives both legitimacy and accountablity to the board 3) It puts votes in the hands of those who give a damn 4) Implementation reqires nothing more complicated than a minor ammendment to the by-laws and re-vamping an exisiting publication. 5) It DOESNT tie to any specific future reforms, nor reqire any other reforms . its strictly the BOD revamping BOD stuff and not touching kingdom/regional/local officers/crown/regional sentiments at all 6) it doesnt pester anyone who doesnt want to get involved. 7) its even fair and right...those who care have a say in how the SCA runs, those who dont arent bothered, the board no longer operates in a vaccuum but as the elcted representitives of a constituancy with a regular and non-catostrophic means of making thier opinions known, as well as of keeping an accurate current picture of BOD actions and issues as well as "the state of the SCA" . ___________________________________+__________________________________ "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 Mon Jan 15 08:50:57 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: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 09:13:22 CST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Erik Langhans Subject: No to Dent's Proposal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L NO! To Dent's Proposal. -Modius e-mail: modius@cityscope.net web page: www.cityscope.net/~modius From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 11:22:03 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 10:57:49 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Morgan: Bit More on Board Elections To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <30F7F7B2@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> (message from Steve Muhlberger on Sat, 13 Jan 1996 10:11:00 PST) Morgan writes: >I disagree with Justin that the Corporation ought to be spun away and its >management duties given to the IAC. I think you've misunderstood me. I've never suggested that the IAC get control of management (although it's possible that others have suggested that) -- I think the IAC is poorly suited to it. Rather, I think the IAC should be given control of *Corpora*, which it *is* fairly well suited for. Corpora, at least conceptually, defines the game that we're playing. That game is best described as something like the intersection or union of the multifaceted games that the Kingdoms are playing -- none are quite alike, but they share a lot of common ground, and Corpora really ought to be defining that common ground. It seems to me that the IAC is the right body for that particular job, because changes to Corpora really ought to be handled by negotiation by the Kingdoms, rather than simple fiat from the top. It probably ought to serve as the "legislature" for Corpora; it might also serve as the judiciary for it, but that might be best handled separately. And yes, this makes changing Corpora difficult -- I think that's also appropriate. Mind, this glosses several real issues, like the fact that Corpora is currently something of a mish-mash of game and mundane responsibilities, that we'll never *completely* separate the two (but can do a lot better than now), and that the IAC, as far as I can tell, is only semi-functional at the moment. However, in the long run, I think this is the direction to move in -- it puts a specific, reasonably definable responsibility in some other hands, reducing the Board's workload a little. -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: In the nominees for Worst Continuity Error: "Tom DeFalco. He IS a continuity error. Too bad he's not at DC, where at least he would be quickly accepted into the mystic ranks as Earth's Retcon Elemental. Then, Tefe could be explained away as a Daxamite spy, and Constantine's father would have revealed that it was only his robot who had gotten slain by the Family Man." -- from The 1991 Alternate Squiddy Awards From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 12:03:55 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: 5381 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 11:41:15 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Supbscription Sufferage:some concrete ideas... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: from "arthur dent" at Jan 15, 96 00:58:41 am Greetings from Tibor. Arthur... you did say "pick this apart"... ------------------------ First. I believe that the issue of quality of Board Minutes is (and ought to be) severable from the issue of voting for Directors. Let us agree to make it so? If we can agree it's a separate issue, I'd like to place it later on the agenda, so as to confuse only one issue at a time. ------------------------ Second, the more I reflect on the Board Minutes/electors issue, the more I come to the conclusion that I am a populist at heart. To that end, what I would suggest doing, is as follows... (or something like it) Any paid donor to the SCA Incorporated above a certain dollar level, and age, may vote for Directors [1]. Proof of membership is required. Ballots will be mailed (on a schedule to be determined) will be mailed to subscribers to the Board Minutes only. [2] A voting period will commence the day the ballots are mailed, and end 6 weeks later. Ballots postmarked during that time (when accompanied by proof of membership) are valid. A quorum consists of all cast votes. Someone needs to check what California Law says about membership notification and voting. If each voting member must receive notification and a ballot, then I would rescind this modification, and move back to a "Board Minutes subscriber = voting member" approach. Footnote [1]: This may be the wrong approach: I'd like to see family or associate memberships also vote, but the language I started with allow anyone who sends, say, 10 dollars to vote. This could be construed as a good, or a bad, thing. Footnote [2]: If we are being exhaustively populist, I could see arranging so that Kingdom Senschals are also sent ballots. Comments either way? ------------------------ Third, Means of voting. Coincidentally, my wife's ballot for the American Psychological Association came this weekend, and its balloting format is similar to what I was considering as a means of voting. Given how many social scientists and statisticians there are in the APA, it gives me a sense of comfort that what they do is moderately valid. APA form of voting: Each ballot can contain up to N candidates, ranked in order of preference. Votes are tallied for each candidate on the ballot, using the first choice of each ballot. The lowest candidate is discarded, and the ballots for that candidate are redistributed for the second choice (if any). Ballots with no further choices are "exhausted" and set aside. Voting continues until only N candidates remain. Those are the victors. I'd like us to adopt this, wholesale. Comments pro or con? ----------------------- Fourth, issues of timing. One of the "advantages" of the system we have now, is that directorial candidates are contacted after voting takes place, and can turn the job down if they like. 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. This also leads into the issue of prior planning: how far in advance of actual assumption of the Director positions should ----------------------- Fifth, an open issue to consider. The role of the Chairman and President of the SCA are conflated right now, and the powers of the Chair are ill defined, but potent. The position is supposed to combine a certain amount of neutrality and agenda setting, with the normal powers of the Directors. I was wondering if we ought to concentrate on that portion of the power structure, and if we might want to make those two positions part of separate electoral positions? Comments, either way? ----------------------- Sixth, without a schedule of Directors and their elections and replacements, this scheme is meaningless. We have 5 to 7 Directors, who serve 3 year terms right now. As a software and math person, I find prime numbers a bit disconcerting when attempting to set up a rotating schedule. Yet, I am not too interested in changing the numbers of Directors. That was the real question about the Chair of the Board, and the President issue. Comments or ideas on how we can take the current numbers and rotational schedules, remove the ad hoc means of replacement, and still have something that works? ----------------------- Seventh, outside Directors. Many organizations benefit from outside Directors. The schemes we have been discussing prevent us from hiring or finding volunteer outside Directors. I find myself troubled by that. ----------------------- Eighth, and last for now, the issue of Probationary Periods. Right now, the Board allows for probationary periods, and requires active reconfirmation of new Directors at the end of their second meetings. There are both positive and negative aspects to this. For example, it prevents new Directors from charging in with new ideas which are potentially upsetting, but at the same time it allows Directors who were better on paper than in person to be eased out. Directly elected Board Members, however, might not be as constructively reviewed. It could be a means of thwarting the memberships intent when voting. Comments on this issue? ----------------------- Let's save discussing what the ballots can/could/should/will contain for another posting? I've hogged enough bandwidth for now. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 12:34:43 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 41 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 11:57:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Finnvarr: Tibor's suggestions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >Fourth, issues of timing. One of the "advantages" of the system we have >now, is that directorial candidates are contacted after voting takes place, >and can turn the job down if they like. Merely require them to signal intent to serve before they are admitted to the ballot. >Fifth, an open issue to consider. The role of the Chairman and President >of the SCA are conflated right now, and the powers of the Chair are ill >defined, but potent. >The position is supposed to combine a certain amount of neutrality and >agenda setting, with the normal powers of the Directors. I was wondering if >we ought to concentrate on that portion of the power structure, and if we >might want to make those two positions part of separate electoral positions? If you elect a Chairman (which you'll have to have whether the Chair is President of the Corp or not) then you build in a great inflexibility. Currently, the Board members can pick the chair based on their well-informed judgement of who can do the job. Also, a burned-out Chairman can be replaced quickly, without that burnout case necessarily being lost to the Board. Outside directors: Unless we pay outside directors, will we get good quality ones? The amount of education necessary to understand our organization and its purposes (and the unending controversies thereabout!) is considerable. Even with education, sympathy cannot be presumed (vide the case of Tony Provine). Given all this, I can't see the usefulness of having outside directors -- unless they have nothing whatever to do with administering or regulating the game, a very unlikely scenario in my view. And if much of our general membership distrusts people like themselves as directors, how much can they be expected to trust complete outsiders whose main virtue is business expertise? Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 12:03:55 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: 5381 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 11:41:15 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Supbscription Sufferage:some concrete ideas... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: from "arthur dent" at Jan 15, 96 00:58:41 am Greetings from Tibor. Arthur... you did say "pick this apart"... ------------------------ First. I believe that the issue of quality of Board Minutes is (and ought to be) severable from the issue of voting for Directors. Let us agree to make it so? If we can agree it's a separate issue, I'd like to place it later on the agenda, so as to confuse only one issue at a time. ------------------------ Second, the more I reflect on the Board Minutes/electors issue, the more I come to the conclusion that I am a populist at heart. To that end, what I would suggest doing, is as follows... (or something like it) Any paid donor to the SCA Incorporated above a certain dollar level, and age, may vote for Directors [1]. Proof of membership is required. Ballots will be mailed (on a schedule to be determined) will be mailed to subscribers to the Board Minutes only. [2] A voting period will commence the day the ballots are mailed, and end 6 weeks later. Ballots postmarked during that time (when accompanied by proof of membership) are valid. A quorum consists of all cast votes. Someone needs to check what California Law says about membership notification and voting. If each voting member must receive notification and a ballot, then I would rescind this modification, and move back to a "Board Minutes subscriber = voting member" approach. Footnote [1]: This may be the wrong approach: I'd like to see family or associate memberships also vote, but the language I started with allow anyone who sends, say, 10 dollars to vote. This could be construed as a good, or a bad, thing. Footnote [2]: If we are being exhaustively populist, I could see arranging so that Kingdom Senschals are also sent ballots. Comments either way? ------------------------ Third, Means of voting. Coincidentally, my wife's ballot for the American Psychological Association came this weekend, and its balloting format is similar to what I was considering as a means of voting. Given how many social scientists and statisticians there are in the APA, it gives me a sense of comfort that what they do is moderately valid. APA form of voting: Each ballot can contain up to N candidates, ranked in order of preference. Votes are tallied for each candidate on the ballot, using the first choice of each ballot. The lowest candidate is discarded, and the ballots for that candidate are redistributed for the second choice (if any). Ballots with no further choices are "exhausted" and set aside. Voting continues until only N candidates remain. Those are the victors. I'd like us to adopt this, wholesale. Comments pro or con? ----------------------- Fourth, issues of timing. One of the "advantages" of the system we have now, is that directorial candidates are contacted after voting takes place, and can turn the job down if they like. 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. This also leads into the issue of prior planning: how far in advance of actual assumption of the Director positions should ----------------------- Fifth, an open issue to consider. The role of the Chairman and President of the SCA are conflated right now, and the powers of the Chair are ill defined, but potent. The position is supposed to combine a certain amount of neutrality and agenda setting, with the normal powers of the Directors. I was wondering if we ought to concentrate on that portion of the power structure, and if we might want to make those two positions part of separate electoral positions? Comments, either way? ----------------------- Sixth, without a schedule of Directors and their elections and replacements, this scheme is meaningless. We have 5 to 7 Directors, who serve 3 year terms right now. As a software and math person, I find prime numbers a bit disconcerting when attempting to set up a rotating schedule. Yet, I am not too interested in changing the numbers of Directors. That was the real question about the Chair of the Board, and the President issue. Comments or ideas on how we can take the current numbers and rotational schedules, remove the ad hoc means of replacement, and still have something that works? ----------------------- Seventh, outside Directors. Many organizations benefit from outside Directors. The schemes we have been discussing prevent us from hiring or finding volunteer outside Directors. I find myself troubled by that. ----------------------- Eighth, and last for now, the issue of Probationary Periods. Right now, the Board allows for probationary periods, and requires active reconfirmation of new Directors at the end of their second meetings. There are both positive and negative aspects to this. For example, it prevents new Directors from charging in with new ideas which are potentially upsetting, but at the same time it allows Directors who were better on paper than in person to be eased out. Directly elected Board Members, however, might not be as constructively reviewed. It could be a means of thwarting the memberships intent when voting. Comments on this issue? ----------------------- Let's save discussing what the ballots can/could/should/will contain for another posting? I've hogged enough bandwidth for now. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 13:47:27 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 13:15:37 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Supbscription Sufferage:some concrete ideas... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: (message from arthur dent on Mon, 15 Jan 1996 00:58:41 -0500) Arthur writes: >1) ammend the by-laws to create a voting class of members specifically >definded as subscribers to the BOD minutes/newsletter and set up an >effective date that gives enough lead time to get the publication in >proper shape AND get the word out so people can subscribe. PROBABLY >should delay first balloting for an issue or two UNLESS you want to use >"Subscribe now and VOTE!" to try and start a marketing stampede. Well, yes, but I think this is almost a given. No new scheme should be suddenly introduced overnight. I think we're going to need at least six months' of gear-up time for *any* scheme that gets the populace involved in selection. Hell, we need most of that just to get the word out... >2) Hire a qualified person to take verbatim notes and extracts thereof. I *thought* we were already doing that; I have this distinct (although possibly incorrect) recollection of the Board specifically bringing a secretary to the meeting they held here to do just that. I'll admit that I don't see much sign of the results, though... >4) While board meetings are quarterly , my best guess is that a useful >Publication should be published about twice per quarter, one the month >after a BOD meeting (so subscribers can see what HAS happened) , and the >other a month BEFORE (so subscribers can SEE and put their two bits in on >whats GOING to happen) I'm not at all sure this is particularly necessary. I know plenty of clubs that work in essentially the way we're talking about; most seem to manage just fine with just a quarterly newsletter. There's probably *some* benefit in this suggestion, but I doubt it's worth the cost... >IF vote fraud is considered an important concern then the ballot should be >on the outside back cover of the newsletter so that the Scanner/OCR can >tie the votes and the info on the mailing label together in one pass, and >scream when it gets invalid or duplicate member numbers (or something like >that) Maybe. I'm not sure vote fraud is such a big deal, though; simply having a space for the membership # is probably adequate... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: Re: The 1990 Mass. elections "This is our state. This is our state on politicians. Any Answers?" -- Keenan Ross From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 13:59:11 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 13:24:37 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Supbscription Sufferage:some concrete ideas... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199601151641.LAA08806@abel.math.harvard.edu> (message from Mark Schuldenfrei on Mon, 15 Jan 1996 11:41:15 -0500) On Tibor's comments on Arthur's ideas about Tibor's idea: >APA form of voting: >Each ballot can contain up to N candidates, ranked in order of preference. >Votes are tallied for each candidate on the ballot, using the first choice >of each ballot. The lowest candidate is discarded, and the ballots for that >candidate are redistributed for the second choice (if any). Ballots with no >further choices are "exhausted" and set aside. > >Voting continues until only N candidates remain. Those are the victors. > >I'd like us to adopt this, wholesale. Comments pro or con? It's one of the common voting methods; as I recall from the debate in the Carolingian election, it's not a bad one. I think it's certainly reasonable, and might provide a little implicit information about what issues the populace find particularly interesting... >Seventh, outside Directors. Many organizations benefit from outside >Directors. The schemes we have been discussing prevent us from hiring or >finding volunteer outside Directors. I find myself troubled by that. Hmm. It's an interesting point. I'm used to substantial Real Corporations having outside directors -- is it all that common in the non-profit world? I can't think of any instances in any of the clubs I belong to, although I haven't researched it carefully. I do think there's a real group-culture issue here; Provine demonstrated quite well how easy it is to Miss the Point. Here was a man with considerable experience in non-profits, who managed to clash with our values disastrously and fairly quickly. I think that bringing an outside director in naively is likely to repeat that experience. Not all non-profits are alike, and it's important that a director understand what he's directing decently well. (Bear in mind, in the real-money Corporate world, the purpose of an outside director is generally to guard shareholder interests. This makes sense in that environment, where those interests *are* typically similar from corporation to corporation. But we got a vivid example of the fact that understanding the AARP does not mean you understand the interests of the SCA.) I'm not dead-opposed to the idea, but I do need some motivation to believe that an outside director would worth the bother, before I worry about this issue... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: Re: The History of the Babylon Project (not) "They said I was daft to build a Babylon station in neutral territory, but I did it anyway ! And that station blew up. So I built another Babylon station, and that one was sabotaged. So I built another Babylon station, and that one was sabotaged, fell over, and blew up. So I built a _fourth_ Babylon station, and that one was hijacked, taken through time, sabotaged, and _then_ blew up. So I built a _fifth_ Babylon station, and that one _didn't_ blow up !" -- Dennis O'Connor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 14:59:10 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: 1924 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 14:13:42 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Tibor: Outside directors To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Tibor. (Stealing another minute from work...) The first two responses to my long list of ideas and issues were unanimous on the notion of outside directors. Using longstanding Internet trend analysis, that makes me think that it's unanimous against. (:-) Hence, this explanation and defense. When I started looking seriously into forming a non-profit exempt corporation, I found a lot of support in the literature and in the real world, of the notion of having an outside director. In fact, there exist non-profits that do nothing but PROVIDE free outside director services to new organizations. I'd point out that Tony Provine was a single datum point: if a particulary effective negative example. But let's not confuse the issue: he was the Executive Director: not a real Director. And, I don't like to reason too much from limited data. I think that some outside perspective would be quite useful to us, at some times. Someone who could say: "We tried changing the way we vote for Directors, and got sued." Or, "Of the 3 non-profits I've served on, we all used the same donor management software to good results." Or something like that. We may, or may not, want an outside Director. That would be another debate altogether. But I did want to point out that we would be RULING OUT the possibility with the methods under discussion at this time. One thing I'd really dislike, is if we spent 3 consecutive Board meetings changing things about the election of new Directors... It would feel a bit like the waiver situation under Provine. First we add elections, then we change them to allow outside directors, then we change them to allow more Directors, then we change them to remove Directors, then we change them... What I feared about Tony is coming true: we may, for many years, reject any idea or thought that even smells like him... let's keep a more open mind, shall we? Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 16:04:52 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: 1495 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 15:03:23 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Finnvarr: Tibor's suggestions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <30FAB398@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> from "Steve Muhlberger" at Jan 15, 96 11:57:00 am Greetings from Tibor. I had written, re: Changing how we elect Board members: Fourth, issues of timing. One of the "advantages" of the system we have now, is that directorial candidates are contacted after voting takes place, and can turn the job down if they like. Finnvarr answered: Merely require them to signal intent to serve before they are admitted to the ballot. Clearly, I was too oblique. Right now, people who are nominated for years, before they can be chosen. Exactly who do we ballot for, and do we recycle old ballots? Sigh. More issues to work out. I'd asked about the issue of electing a Chairman, and Finnvarr replied: If you elect a Chairman (which you'll have to have whether the Chair is President of the Corp or not) then you build in a great inflexibility. Currently, the Board members can pick the chair based on their well-informed judgement of who can do the job. Also, a burned-out Chairman can be replaced quickly, without that burnout case necessarily being lost to the Board. The flexibility is an asset, sort of. We have no real means of removing or replacing Chairmen now. I do agree that it is nice if the Board selects its own chair, and that is what I prefer. But I think visiting the issues of responsibilities of the Chair might be a nice thing. Running the meeting is one thing, and calling them is another. Utter control of the Agenda (which was our fear for our own organization, remember) is quite another. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 16:06:26 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 15:31:28 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 In-Reply-To: <199601151913.OAA15266@abel.math.harvard.edu> (message from Mark Schuldenfrei on Mon, 15 Jan 1996 14:13:42 -0500) Tibor writes: >We may, or may not, want an outside Director. That would be another debate >altogether. But I did want to point out that we would be RULING OUT the >possibility with the methods under discussion at this time. Well, okay -- do we have any idea how other non-profits handle it? I mean, most non-profits *do* seem to elect their directors in some fashion; if a substantial number also have outside directors, then clearly some clubs have dealt with this particular apparent conflict. Do we have any data on what compromises they made in order to do so, and how well they worked? I can see a few ways in which one could tweak these processes in order to make such directors possible... -- Justin Who *is* cautious about the outside- director idea, but always in favor of flexibility... Random Quote du Jour: "I always thought like Mencken, that if I had been around at the creation I would have had many helpful suggestions, and when I write my books on God's Thousand Worst Errors, the first and greatest error I will charge is that 'He' (or 'She' or 'It') gave us such marvelous brains and forgot to include the operating manual." -- RAW From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 16:22:32 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: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 14:45:27 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: Board elections and removal To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >is this a good summation? > >alban > Good summation, it does however leave out the specific idea of NOT changing the election process and instead having safety valve for removal as one or more of the combos above. We could also decide that modifying the selection/removal procedure does not adress the true problems and therefore should be left alone. Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 16:45:15 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: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 15:02:38 -0600 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "James D. McManus" Subject: Re: Supbscription Sufferage:some concrete ideas... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >Theres lots of space on even a half page ballot, and thats GOOD, becasue >many of the ideas for reform we've been discussing would HAVE to be >passed by referendum to gain any acceptance... The ability to regularly >and easliy conduct referendums and polls on a steeady basis will be an >asset to the BOD and to the corporation, let lone the ability to allow >for nominations and elections on a regular and routine (and paid for ) >method rather than any "special" mechanism... > > This is something which should be avoided. It should NOT be easy for some group to revamp the Society. Once this "fixing" session is accomplished, their should be no issues that the BoD or the Electorate should need to fix or screw up. Let's make things simpler not more complex. SCA BoD shouldn't be the new political game we invite everyone to play. If we (The GC and the current BoD) can address glaring erors and ommissions and allow for minor fine tuning I would rather we set up a BoD that had no Need to meet more than once per year. The Kingdom structures could handle all that is required after this. Is there currently anysupport for a KISS approach to the reforms requested? Magnus From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 17:35:29 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: 2312 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 16:46:44 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Galleron Re: Tibor Re: Supbscription Sufferage:some concrete ideas... (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwareded for Galleron, by Tibor. Please Note: Normally, I don't edit or respond to posts I forward. In this case, since Galleron has asked me a direct question at the end, I have made an exception. -- Tibor Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 16:38:52 -0500 To: schuldy@abel.math.harvard.edu Subject: Galleron Re: Tibor Re: Supbscription Sufferage:some concrete ideas... Please forward to GC Commenting on Arthur you (Tibor) suggest: Any paid donor to the SCA Incorporated above a certain dollar level, and age, may vote for Directors [1]. Proof of membership is required. Ballots will be mailed (on a schedule to be determined) will be mailed to subscribers to the Board Minutes only. [2] A voting period will commence the day the ballots are mailed, and end 6 weeks later. Ballots postmarked during that time (when accompanied by proof of membership) are valid. A quorum consists of all cast votes. Let's see if I've got this right. Suppose I'm an associate member, not receiving the Board minutes. I discover that Duke Flapjack, who I know from personal experience is a clueless incompetent, is nominated for the next Board election. Would my associate membership meet your "Paid donor above a certain dollar level" qualification? Under your proposal, can I send in an envelope with proof of membership and a SSAE, and request a ballot so that I can vote for the other candidates? If so, I like the idea. [Tibor here: I'd envisioned something more like getting a photocopy of the current ballot, and sending it in with proof of membership. And yes, certainly associate members should be able to vote. I'd like to see family members voting too, but the "stated dollar figure" would be 10 dollars. What I suspect we DON'T want, is for someone to send Milpitas $10 and claim they can vote. We may want to use the current "non-membership" categories.] 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. Will McLean/Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 17:43:40 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: 1836 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 16:42:26 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Galleron: Election and Director Replacement Schedule (was Sub. Sufferage) (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 16:38:51 -0500 To: schuldy@abel.math.harvard.edu Subject: Galleron: Election and Director Replacement Schedule (was Sub. Sufferage) Please forward to GC In a message dated 96-01-15 11:49:44 EST, you (Tibor) write:: >Comments or ideas on how we can take the current numbers and rotational >schedules, remove the ad hoc means of replacement, and still have something >that works? How about this: 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. Example: Suppose such a system was in place now, and two directors were scheduled to end their terms in 1996, two in 1997, and three in 1998. In January of 1996 we would elect four directors. If everything went as expected, two would take office in the course of 1996. In 1997 we would elect three to fill the expected vacancies for 1998, and second two we elected back in 1996 would take office. Now, suppose 1996 is a bad year. The two directors scheduled to complete their terms do so, plus two other directors burn out early and resign. In that case, the directors scheduled to take office in 1997 do so early, in 1996. Then we would elect five directors in 1997 instead of three, to restock our spares. Between their election and the time they would take office, the directors-elect would receive Board minutes. Many, of course, would already be serving on Board committees. This system would allow a fairly long electoral cycle and still leave provision for unexpected attrition. Will McLean/Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Jan 15 20:19:22 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: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 19:39:37 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: Tibor: Outside directors To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L in the abstract, i like the idea of having at least one outside director on the board. in the real world, however, recruiting one would be a bear, because our culture is rather different from most other groups. chess organizations can be described simply; mineral collecting groups, ditto; civil war re-enactment groups, ditto. 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. there may be people willing to serve, but it might not be worth their while for us to bring them up to speed on the S.C.A., Inc., and on the sca. alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 03:46:48 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: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 09:26:18 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Supbscription Sufferage:some concrete ideas... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Magnus says: >If we (The GC and the current BoD) can address glaring erors and ommissions >and allow for minor fine tuning I would rather we set up a BoD that had no >Need to meet more than once per year. The Kingdom structures could handle >all that is required after this. Hear, hear. This might even solve a big part of the international problem: = on=20 a Board that met once a year we could afford to have a Drachenwald member o= nce=20 in a while, maybe splitting the cost between SCAInc and the Kingdom; on the= =20 other hand, if most organizational stuff was handled by the Kingdoms, there= =20 quite possibly would be no *need* for a Drachenwald BoD member.=20 We may be able to fix the current BoD system temporarily, but in the long r= un=20 I don't think we can avoid looking into the issue of the Board's workload a= nd=20 the extent of the Corp's authority. /Catrin=20 Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 04:26:05 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: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 09:58:55 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Tibor: Outside directors To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >Tibor writes: >>We may, or may not, want an outside Director. That would be another deba= te >>altogether. But I did want to point out that we would be RULING OUT the >>possibility with the methods under discussion at this time. Justin asks: >Well, okay -- do we have any idea how other non-profits handle it? I mean, >most non-profits *do* seem to elect their directors in some fashion; ... Having access to an informed outside opinion might be very helpful so we=20 don't go repeating other peoples' mistakes.=20 The present election debate is a good example: we may very well be running= =20 around re-inventing the wheel. To get back to one significant detail, the=20 international issue, there seem to exist various US-based non-profits with= =20 elected directors and/or presidents, rather infrequent Board meetings and a= n=20 international membership. The TeX users' group that my husband belongs to i= s=20 one example; ballots show up at the house, I think, once a year, with quite= =20 brief presentations of the various candidates and their ideas; nobody in=20 their right mind could call that excessive electioneering. On the other hand... Alban commented on it and we've seen one horrid exampl= e,=20 an outsider willing to learn and respect SCA culture would take some findin= g.=20 Just take a look, a club where grown men hit each other and an occasional=20 woman with big sticks, then they put on tights or dresses and go to a party= =20 with no megabass-amplified music, what, hardly even electricity, and=20 practically no smoking, and people call each other Sir Prothall and Lady=20 Alienor on e-mail, while seriously discussing the latest decisions of the=20 King and Queen of Drachenwald...=20 But then... if we separated the medieval and the mundane as much as is=20 feasible, and only let the Corp and the BoD handle the necessary minimum of= =20 the modern side of things, the risk of cultural shock to a potential outsid= e=20 director would diminish considerably. /Catrin=20 Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 11:22:16 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: 1269 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 10:48:39 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Finnvarr: Tibor's suggestions (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 17:06:30 -0500 To: schuldy@abel.math.harvard.edu Subject: Re: Finnvarr: Tibor's suggestions Please forward to GC: Tibor: In a message dated 96-01-15 15:45:12 EST, you write: > >Clearly, I was too oblique. Right now, people who are nominated for years, >before they can be chosen. Exactly who do we ballot for, and do we recycle >old ballots? Sigh. More issues to work out. Here's how I see it: Current "List of Nominees" remains as before, but is renamed "Submissions for Nomination" or "Candidates for Nomination". The Board (or its nominating Committee) put at least as many candidates, chosen from that list, on the ballot as there are openings. Unless it thinks the aren't enough qualified candidates it puts a number of candidates on the ballot that is somewhat in excess of the positions to be filled. Anyone else who gets sufficient signatures also gets on the ballot. ( I think 1% of membership would be plenty, and may actually be too high) Each new ballot is a fresh start, but the "candidates for nomination" continues as the reservoir from which the nominees are drawn. Will McLean/Galleron From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 14:25:27 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 13:34:54 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun: on the board stuff To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Alysoun: On outside directors: what are we really talking about? Earlier in the year I explained that a good many non-profits have outside members on their board in order to connect with communities or fields of expertise. Gareth took this as meaning celebrities and I let it go--but this is not who I mean. If we were in fact what we say we are, this would make good sense--we would want as prominent a medievalist as we could get; someone recognized for supporting informal adult education; a respected member of a mainstream faith community; and some business and law types. The board would balance these outsiders with insiders. This type of board would work on a more theoretical level, translating the broad goals of the organization into more specific direction statements--it would not do the detail, micromanaging sort of thing. It would also do high powered trouble-shooting. While I see many, many advantages to this kind of set-up, the SCA does not seem ready for it. We are not in real congruence on our broad purpose, have no clear goals, and by and large members don't give a flying fart for the rest of the world. If on the other hand, we are talking about getting someone knowledgeable about running a non-profit in on the running of the SCAinc, there are distinct advantages and potential dangers. First we are extremely naive: the fact that we equate non-profits is an example. Provine did not have experience in a field-service organization. While I assume that some of his concerns would be the same as any professional (or we were doubly rooked), his understanding of how to address those concerns would have been off base. This would not be so likely with someone whose experience was field-service. Any professional will have a major fit over the way we do things--but it is not the medieval names and games that will bother them. It will be over the lack of concern with public image, the ad hoc policy formation, the tangled communication system, etc., not to mention the lack of goals. Any professional will want us to consider things we don't want to fool with and we will resent that. Given our lack of sophistication, we can be too easily co-opted. In other words, we will either ignore what we should pay attention to or follow too readily that which we should ignore. To quote a former board member we are a backyard group. The question is whether we are willing to grow up. My estimation is no. We would rather stick with the familiar and ignore those things we aren't comfortable with. This means that we do not have the political will to deal with a number of concerns which will come up at the board level and have to be addressed. We will not have political parties so to speak, so that a vote for a director will not have any substance. We will not be voting for Sir George because we know he will tackle a particular issue in a certain way--we will vote for George because we like the way he approaches things in general and we think that approach will be trustworthy on whatever comes up. See the difference? If this is accurate, 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. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 15:34:57 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 91 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 14:39:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Finnvarr: Re Alysoun and role of Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Alysoun: >>> This means that we do not have the political will to deal with a number of concerns which will come up at the board level and have to be addressed. We will not have political parties so to speak, so that a vote for a director will not have any substance. We will not be voting for Sir George because we know he will tackle a particular issue in a certain way--we will vote for George because we like the way he approaches things in general and we think that approach will be trustworthy on whatever comes up. See the difference? >>> It is true enough that there is no great cry from the membership to expand central services, and quite a bit of suspicion from some quarters that any central services beyond the bare minimum will be paid for by unacceptably high fees and loss of control to distant authorities. This is a shame, because I feel that this suspicion saps the ability of any Board to make any investments or any changes that might make things more efficient. I'm not arguing for a radical increase in central activity. I am perfectly happy with a central corp that (outside of its regulatory duties) simply provides resources that people in local and regional groups can pick up or leave alone. However, as A. points out, there is not much political will, or articulated political will, to even improve these kinds of services. Alysoun: >>> If this is accurate, 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. >>> The problem with this method -- a slight but perhaps important improvement on what we have been doing for years -- is that it assumes that there are no political issues, no basic disagreements on goals. The very existence of the GC tends to show the opposite is true. Two years ago the Board made some big changes that proved immediately unpopular. They did not approve these changes because they wanted more power for the Corporation (I have no idea what Provine wanted). They did it because rightly or wrongly they perceived a number of threats to the SCA's existence that had to be dealt with in a radical manner. The radical cure did not work -- and this is separate from whether it was necessary or not -- because the Board did not have a mandate, and found it impossible to get a mandate post facto. Too many people thought not only the policies were illegitimate, but that the Board and the Corporation were illegitimate, too. There is only one reason to monkey around with Board selection procedures -- that is to give the Board the legitimacy to deal with unexpected problems, and perhaps problems unperceived by the ordinary members problems, perhaps by radical measures. If we don't want the Board to be able to change much of anything, then there is no need to worry about elections. The method we've used for more than a decade has not got us such bad people (some bonehead decisions, yes, but not bad people). I wonder, however, if we (any we outside of the Board itself) are willing to give the Board a mandate beyond watching the money and enforcing rules that already exist. Even a mandate subject to referendum or whatever. Alongside all legitimate, principled criticism of the Board and the Corporation, there is a large amount of whining. If the Board, or the SCA Officers, or whoever does not make real-life problems go away, then those problems are the fault of the Board, which is obviously happily scheming away in fancy hotel rooms at the membership's expense. Such whining is so loud that I sometimes wonder if any sensible discussion in the SCA as a whole is possible on these aggravating problems. Finnvarr From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Jan 16 16:22:32 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: 17585 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 15:08:09 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Galleron: Review of Board Selection Methods (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 13:54:16 -0500 To: schuldy@abel.math.harvard.edu Subject: Galleron: Review of Board Selection Methods Please forward to GC Since Alysoun asked for a review of the Board selection discussion, it seems like a good time to post this. 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. This is a revision of my earlier posting on the subject, edited to reflect discussion since then. I apologize to anyone I omitted. Thanks to everyone for your ideas Most of these approaches, including the current method, received significant support.That is, all but 7) were commented on favorably by at least one councilor. There was also significant opposition to both 5) and 6), as well as significant opposition to any form of election at all. There has not been a large enough response yet for me to attempt to quantify levels of support or opposition. My feeling is that most people have several they could live with, and several they detest. (unfortunately, not the same ones for everybody) 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. If a consensus emerges for one or more method, it can be expanded if needed, and a summary tacked on the beginning. When the final report is done, you get one last chance to change your vote. SELECTING THE BOARD This report examines a number of methods of selecting the Board, including both direct and indirect election, with their expense and implications. While a number of proposals have been made for a less centralized structure for the SCA, most envision an umbrella organization with important functions, so that the content of this report would be relevant to them as well. Electing the Board would probably not greatly improve the caliber or quality of Board members selected. However, an elected Board might be more responsive to the needs of the members. If the Board was elected with the consent of the membership, controversies between the Board and membership might be less polarized and divisive in the future. Most organizations roughly similar to ours use some form of direct or indirect election, and prefer it to any other method. Direct election would be the slowest and most expensive method. If the board is elected indirectly, the smaller the number of electors, the cheaper and faster the elections will be. Indirect election is used by at least one large re-enactment organization. The Revolutionary War re-enactors choose their Board by vote of the heads of the local groups/units. If all Directors served their full term the length of time to complete elections would be relatively unimportant. In practice, Directors are frequently unable or unwilling to complete their entire term. It is not unknown for several to resign in a brief period. The longer it takes to complete elections, the more advance notice a resigning director must give, or the longer their post will remain unfilled. One way to reduce the impact of unexpected resignations if election cycles are long is to elect "spare" directors. For example: 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. Example: Suppose such a system was in place now, and two directors were scheduled to end their terms in 1996, two in 1997, and three in 1998. In January of 1996 we would elect four directors. If everything went as expected, two would take office in the course of 1996. In 1997 we would elect three to fill the expected vacancies for 1998, and second two we elected back in 1996 would take office. Now, suppose 1996 is a bad year. The two directors scheduled to complete their terms do so, plus two other directors burn out early and resign. In that case, the directors scheduled to take office in 1997 do so early, in 1996. Then we would elect five directors in 1997 instead of three, to restock our spares. Bear in mind that 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. The prizes aren't that attractive (first prize, a year on the Board, second prize, two years on the Board) and we are unlikely to see a flood of campaign contributions from the Rattan PAC. Usually, in other such organizations,the recommendations of the Board/Nominating Committee is accepted with little fuss. Means of change are, however available when needed. However, if we do recommend elections it will be very important to make sure that the general membership is happy with the idea. Throughout this report I have used "member" in the sense of "paying member of the SCA". I respect the fact that some may have a broader definition of what it means to be a member of the society, but I have chosen this usage for clarity and simplicity. 1) Current Method Directors appointed by current Board. Names of candidates are published and comments solicited. Pro: Relatively speedy, inexpensive and flexible. Board is able to familiarize itself with the candidates and select with an eye for creating a Board with an overall balance of knowledge, skills, and experience. Avoids the inconvenience of electoral politics. Con: Members feel disenfranchised and powerless. Decisions of the Board lack the legitimacy that comes from the explicit consent of the governed. Elections: Basic Assumptions Elections , direct or indirect, are assumed to involve the following steps: The Board, or its nominating committee, announces one or more vacancies. It publishes its recomendation(s) and calls for other nominees. 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. This would mesh well with annual elections, since it would be easier for the Board to find three qualified candidates for two positions once a year than two qualified candidates for one position twice a year. Cariadoc has proposed an expanded nominating committee, which I suggest be considered as a separate issue. Any candidates meeting certain thresholds are added to the ballot. For example, a nominee might 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, or 1% of the membership. You might also say that no more than 2/3 of that minimum may come from a single Kingdom. Or you might set lower thresholds. Ballots are distributed to the electors with thumbnail resumes of the candidates. Electors send in their votes, which are verified and tabulated. Cariadoc has proposed that non-Board proposed candidates need the signatures of 2% of the membership to get on the Ballot. I gather that the petitioners in late 1994 had some 800 signatures in hand (more were collected, but reportedly lost in the mail). So 500 signatures would certainly be achievable in times of crisis, although it seems to me that 1% would be a perfectly sufficient hurdle. Currently, a Director's term is scheduled to expire every six months. To preserve this schedule two elections would be required per year. While two directors might be chosen in a single annual election, holding election any less frequently than that is likely to create problems with bringing several new Directors up to speed at the same time. 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. 2) Direct Election: All paying members can vote Pro: Gives every member the greatest potential input in the electoral process. Con: Expensive and slow. Awkward for non-US members. Most members are unfamiliar with most Board candidates. In practice, the recomendation of the Board would have a great deal of influence on the process. Denies voice to non-member participants. Board is less likely to be a balanced mix of skills and abilities. Cost and Duration: If announcement of vacancy, call for nominees, and ballots are distributed in kingdom newsletters, they might be expected to consume at least a page in total. With deadlines, printing, mailing and time for response, assume at least two months each for both call for nominees and for ballots. Three months each would probably be more realistic. So assume at least one page in every Kingdom newsletter per election, plus the labor of verifying and tabulating votes, and not less than six months from start to finish. The cost of one page in every Kingdom newsletter or a half page in TI is estimated at about $300: printing and postage divided by number of pages per year. (TI's more expensive stock is roughly balanced by economies of scale in a longer print run) This is not exact, since postage cost is not a linear relationship to the number of pages, but gives a rough approximation: a few cents per member. Printing in TI is simpler, but requires more lead time between issues. The poll that ran in TI on "Knighthoods for Laurels/Pelicans" got just under 800 responses. That was a hot issue: it is likely that response to ordinary Board elections will be lower. 2a)Direct Election, Limited Suffrage All members who subscribe to Board Proceedings can vote. Ballot and position papers distributed with Board proceedings. Pro: Informed electorate. Self funding. Con: Disenfranchises members who are unable or unwilling to subscribe to Board proceedings (currently $15) but who may have strong feelings on Board Candidates or the direction of the Society. Tibor has suggested a modification of this plan where ballots are distributed with Board proceedings but all members can vote with proof of membership, either with a photocopy of the ballot or by requesting a ballot from SCA. As framed this seems to be essentially a method of direct election by the membership. The principle advantage would then seem to be avoiding the cost of printing the ballots in TI or Kingdom newsletters. An alternative would be for Ballots to be distributed with Board proceedings, plus to every member that checks off a "Please Send me Ballots" box on their membership. Depending on the number that did so and the length of the ballots, the Board could either mail them or print them in TI (which might be cheaper, even if less than a thousand check the box) 3) Indirect Election by Local Seneschals. Pro: Can be faster than direct elections. Allows non-member participants an opportunity to have some influence on the process. A smaller electoral body might be more familiar with the candidates. Con: Less direct input for members. Board recomendation would still have great influence. Still relatively expensive to distribute, although less trouble to tabulate. Cost and Duration: As for direct election. Or ballots could be mailed for $200-300.This is roughly the same order of magnitude as printing a page in every Kingdom newsletter, but much faster. Ballots could also go out by e-mail where possible. Distributing such information by mail might reduce the electoral cycle to a few months. 4) Indirect Election by Regional Group Every Kingdom, Principality, or associated organization (if SCA, inc. recognizes such organizations) receives a number of votes proportional to its paid membership. Each such regional group elects, directly or indirectly, one or more electors to cast those votes. (one elector casting all, two each casting half, etc) One method that seems particularly attractive would be to to give the electoral vote to Kingdom or Principality seneschals elected by the seneschals beneath them (either local seneschals, or regional senechals elected by local seneschals). This method of selecting seneschals has a number of advantages, promoting legitimacy and responsivness at the Kingdom/Principality level, and should be considered on its own merits even if it is not used to select the Board. Elected Kingdom Seneschals could also have a useful role on an expanded nominating committtee under other proposals Other methods for choosing electors might include: Election by local senescals as per 3). Regional Board directly elected Electors directly elected for two year terms. Acceptable candidates for electors would include "The Crown" or "The Kingdom Seneschal" so that monarchist Kingdoms who really wanted to do so could give their choice to their monarch- as long as they affirmed it by vote every two years. Any other method of direct or indirect election acceptable to both regional group and Board. Pro: If total number of electors is small, this is the cheapest and fastest method. A few dozen electors could be polled by phone if necessary. Gives greatest scope to Scadian diversity. Allows easy transition to organization of affiliated groups if desired. Con: Less direct input for individuals. Requires each regional group to choose electoral method. If electors have no other duties, creates another layer of offices to be filled. Cost and Duration: If number of electors is small, cost of Board election itself is minimal. However, the electors themselves must be elected. If electoral powers are given to elected local officers with other duties, there is no additional cost to elect them. If the electors have no other duties, the cost to elect them is similar to the cost of Board elections described above. However, such elections might be held less frequently. 5)Election of One Director per Kingdom (by any of the methods described above) Pro: Electors will be more familiar with candidates Con: Virtually doubles expenses of Board for Travel, etc. Board is likely to become unwieldy as number of Kingdoms increases. Board is far less likely to be well balanced in terms of skills and abilities. Disproportionate influence for members of smaller kingdoms. Board members more likely to see themselves as advocates for their region instead of Society as whole. Several Kingdoms have not put forward a single candidate for the Board, and others only one. Costs of elections could be somewhat reduced, since each kindom would vote only once every three years instead of once a year or more. Each Kingdom, however, would have a narrower choice of candidates. 6)Appointment of One Director per Kingdom (By Monarch or unelected Kingdom Seneschal or other unelected officers) Pro: It's simple Con: All the disadvantages of 5) above, plus: power vested in unelected leaders, extreme erosion of role of Board as check on Monarchs and Kingdom Seneschals, lack of consent of the governed. The size-of-Board objections to 5) and 6) could be dealt with by retaining the seven-member Board and having each Kingdom choose one member in some set rotation, or somewhat mitigated by having a 13 member Board that meets once a year, which selects a seven member executive committee to do most of the administrative work now done by the current board. The regional advocacy and talent pool concerns could be somewhat reduced by allowing and encouraging each Kingdom to select Board members from outside its borders, and by retaining the current system of not making directors ombudsmen to their own kingdom. The other objections remain. 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. Will McLean/Galleron de Cressy From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 07:03:13 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: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 10:26:22 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Finnvarr: Re Alysoun and role of Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >... >Alongside all legitimate, principled criticism of the Board and the >Corporation, there is a large amount of whining. If the Board, or the SCA >Officers, or whoever does not make real-life problems go away, then those >problems are the fault of the Board, which is obviously happily scheming a= way >in fancy hotel rooms at the membership's expense. Stop a while and think why all this whining focuses on the Board. =20 Under the current setup, the Board has the right to regulate and intervene = in=20 all sorts of details, even those of the medieval game. It exercises this ri= ght=20 in frequent meetings that are only partly open to the general membership, w= here=20 you have to know the right people to find out about the agenda, and that it= =20 costs extra money to get the minutes from. It issues directives that are=20 irrelevant and unintelligible to groups outside the US. Most local particip= ants=20 have no idea who the Board members are and how they got there (the other da= y=20 I explained to our Crown Principality seneschal that the Board is self-=20 appointing; surprise!).=20 Of course this makes the Board a nice anonymous whine-target!=20 If the Board didn't have the right to micro-manage stuff, people would lear= n to=20 take their whining elsewhere. If the Board could and would show that it was= =20 doing its job correctly and responsibly, people wouldn't suspect it of sche= ming. =20 /Catrin =20 Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 08:45:02 1996 Return-Path: Encoding: 20 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 08:14:00 PST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Finnvarr: Galleron's summary To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Finnvarr here: I strongly support the following idea. I also think we are close to being ready to try this. Anyone else? > 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. If a consensus emerges for one or more method, it can be expanded if >needed, and > a summary tacked on the beginning. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 09:21:19 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 08:58:14 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun: Response and reply To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In response to >>> To quote a former board member we are a backyard group. The question is whether we are willing to grow up. My estimation is no. We would rather stick with the familiar and ignore those things we aren't comfortable with. This means that we do not have the political will to deal with a number of concerns which will come up at the board level and have to be addressed. <<< Rosalyn MacGregor (Pattie Rayl) wrote: If it's true that the society doesn't want to deal with matters in a business-like way, making the board do it seems an injustice. It's like telling someone that they're legally responsible for paying the bills, but we don't want to hear about it, and if something happens where you pay the wrong bill, we'll be on your back with hobnail boots in a hurry. It seems a very awkward position to be putting people into. They're in charge, but heaven forfend that they do something viewed as infringing on one's play. . . . the main thing that your message evoked is the idea that perhaps because of the way philosophies are, perhaps smaller units are better than an all-encompassing one? If by "better" we mean more acceptable to the majority of members, then yes, this is what I am saying. Personally, I think this is wrongheaded. Smaller units will require players to devote more attention to mundane considerations (and thus less time to the game). I think a better option is to go for smaller kingdoms to maximize the individual's opportunities in game participation and strengthen the central organization around clearly stated goals. These goals would provide a rationale by which members and/or kingdoms could evaluate direction statements and policy orginating in the central body--something we do not have now. Without such goals, it is difficult to impact the board effectively or hold it accountable. I do not see how elections alone will change this. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 11:19:38 1996 Return-Path: X-Sender: fiacha@premier1 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: Nigel Haslock Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 07:40:17 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Nigel Haslock Subject: Fiacha - Re: Galleron's summary To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <30FD2248@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> Greetings from the Chair, While the summary is good, and we are in the second half of the month, I still do not feel that we are ready to produce a concensus. Instead, I encourage the supporters of each scheme to privately contact the other supporters of that scheme to work out the rest of the details. 1 For Elections, How does a candidate get onto the voting form? Who is responsible for the form? Who is responsible for the campaign statements? What is the time lag between submitting a statement and the form being printed? Who counts the votes? When do the electees take office? What changes are needed to Corpora, ByLaws, Articles of Incorporation? 2 For Status Quo, Show how this is better than holding elections. 3 For Hybrid Schemes, Produce answers to all of the above. 4. The Issue on the floor is the selection and removal of Board Members. I have seen virtually no discussion of the latter issue. If we are not comfortable with booting Board Members (and such an attitude is not surprising) can we at least produce a formal means for a popular veto. Fiacha, Chairman From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 13:21:24 1996 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 12:49:18 EST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Finnvarr: Galleron's summary To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <30FD2248@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> (message from Steve Muhlberger on Wed, 17 Jan 1996 08:14:00 PST) Finnvarr writes, with respect to Galleron's informal-poll suggestion: >I strongly support the following idea. I also think we are close to being >ready to try this. Anyone else? I concur that we're close, although I want to give it a *little* more time, since ideas still seem to be percolating through. And yes, I think this is a very sensible next step, to try and get a "sense of the Council"... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "(Sanjiv Sarwate) writes: > Gaiman should be very thankful that not a lot of fundies read Sandman, > because he makes Lucifer into almost a sympathetic character. I guess we should also be thankful that not a lot of fundies have read PARADISE LOST, as Milton does the same thing." -- Chris Jarocha-Ernst From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Jan 17 15:21:19 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: 729 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 14:45:52 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Galleron: Ballots in Board Proceedings (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L 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? 2. Say a Corporate Officer gets the Board Minutes for free as part of the position. Can they vote? 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? Tibor