SCA politics

[cellio]

Last month, the officers of my local SCA group proposed changing the way we hold elections to restrict who can vote. The proposal was controversial and they had to have know that. I wrote then about why I thought this was a bad idea.

Last night was the next officers' meeting, where these changes were to be ratified. As it turns out (I'm failing to surpress cries of "I told you so"), the notion that these restrictions were now required by the kingdom and/or corporation was baseless. Someone got a ruling from the kingdom seneschal that our open policies, as they stand, are fine.

In addition, many officers (and other people) present spoke in favor of retaining our current policy on this point. Almost everyone in fact voted that way. One officer voted to restrict voting anyway.

My estimation of a couple people who were involved in this has dropped (not surprising). One of them is probably saying the same about me, but that's not my problem. At least that bit of ugliness is over now. (And hey, my estimation of some other people has risen, so it all balances out I guess.)

Now, onward to getting the officers to agree to structure events in such a way that the new, objectionable corporate tax can be avoided. (Early signs on the group email list are leaning positive, but there is also correlation between those who support the corporation in this matter and those who are email-averse, so that doesn't necessarily mean much.)

Comments

[alienor.livejournal.com]

Now, onward to getting the officers to agree to structure events in such a way that the new, objectionable corporate tax can be avoided.

How? I guess don't understand how you can structure events to avoid the NMS?

[jducoeur]

My sympathies on the vote issue. Carolingia went through this in a big way around 6-7 years ago, when we had to elect a new Baron (for the first time in 20 years). It probably says something about Carolingia that we spent eight mildly rancourous months designing the voting process, and then had a completely pleasant and quick 2-month election.

(The process we wound up with is essentially a representative democracy. The Baron/ess is selected by Great Council, which has one seat for pretty much every formal interest group in the Barony -- each guild, household, canton, borough, office and so on. The result is that an individual citizen's "voice" is roughly proportional to how active they are, since more active people are typically represented by multiple interest groups in Council. The selection is then ratified by the paid members, to comply with Kingdom law, and cross-checked by any non-paid members who care to do so. Works well, although it's a bit peculiar to the social dynamic of Carolingia.)

As for the NMS -- yeah, I'm on the committee that is formulating responses locally. We're proceeding pretty typically: we're going to have an open brainstorming session next week, then the committee will formally draft up a list of options, along with their pros and cons, to present at next month's Council. Then everyone gets a month to discuss the matter with their constituencies, and we vote on a plan of action in January.

Dunno how it'll come out in the end. Folks are proposing a wide variety of options, from using the latitude provided by the rules as you describe, to outright civil disobedience. I think it's unlikely that we're going to implement the NMS in its naive form for most events, though -- it's far too damaging to the group dynamic...

-- Justin
Who conducted a serious survey of the Barony while the NMS was brewing up, and concluded that the thing is really-and-for-true damaging...

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

I have to say, the whole "extra three dollars for non-members" thing does not encourage me to start coming to the occasional event again. I go up and down on that question periodically. The policy you are suggesting would encourage me to come, and to kick in a bit extra for the sake of the poor college students, since I was one when I was active :-)