there must have been a better way to do this...

[cellio]

The following from the corporate seneschal's report of the latest SCA board meeting left me scratching my head:

Motion by Gabrielle Underwood to revoke and deny the membership of Clarence Womble (Eoin Mac Lochlainn) effective January 26, 2007. Seconded by Jeff Brown. In favor: None. Opposed: Jeff Brown, Heather English, Tom Hughes, Hal Simon, Gabrielle Underwood. Recused: Shawn Reed. Motion failed.

Motion by Gabrielle Underwood to revoke and deny the membership of Clarence Womble (Eoin Mac Lochlainn) effective January 27, 2007. Seconded by Jeff Brown. In favor: Jeff Brown, Heather English, Tom Hughes, Hal Simon, Gabrielle Underwood, Opposed: None. Recused: Shawn Reed. Chairman Williams exercised his option to vote and did so in favor of the motion. Motion carried.

I had to read it a couple times to spot the difference. They changed the effective date. That's all. There has to have been a better way to do that, no? Doesn't standard parliamentary procedure permit both amending and withdrawing a motion on the table?

When I read the first one my reaction was "wow, the case for this was so weak that even the person making the motion recanted". But (and noting that we do not have access to the actual discussion), that appears not to have been the case.

Comments

Re: Banishments

[cellio]

Either they're following a different system or they're incredibly inefficient at running meetings.

Why choose? :-) The SCA board is, or at least used to be, remarkably bad at doing things correctly or consistently. The most egregious example that I have personal knowledge of is when they made an illegal bylaws change, made policy based on that change, stirred up a firestorm and a lawsuit, and ended up undoing the policy change but refusing to undo the bylaws change. I just don't get that. I can see accidentally making an illegal change, and I think that's probably what happened, but then to be so uninterested in going back and fixing it... boggle. (That said, it's not just the corporation either. My own local group recently made, or quasi-made, an illegal change to its policies. When I pointed it out, the reaction of the officers was "shrug, it doesn't matter anyway". I wasn't inclined to ever be a local officer again anyway, but that would make me even less inclined.)

I don't think the people running the SCA are, generally, malicious. I do think enough of them are inept to cause problems for the rest. This is a spare-time activity for everyone and most are ameteurs; mistakes are bound to happen.

Ok, I'm curious enough to check. SCA governing documents say the board follows The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure by Alice Sturgis (except as stated in the bylaws).