Grand Council Mtg @ Estr

[Galen Bevel]

Greetings,

The first meeting of the Grand Council of the SCA was held at the Estrella
War, February 18th.  For those of you unfamiliar with the council, it is a
group of people tasked with studying the structure and organization of the
SCA and making recommendations on how it could be restructured to operate
more efficiently and to avoid the recurrence of problems such as those
that occurred last year. Only 4 members were present, but the meeting
served as a good sounding board for some basic ideas.  Three main areas
were discussed, and I shall cover them in turn.

The first item was membership on the council.  At present, approximately 7
seats on the council remain empty.  The initial seats were filled by
chosing one representative from each Kingdom, and then setting up a
nominating committee to fill the rest of the seats.  Although there are
currently about 100 applications on file with the nominating committee,
they are unable to decide who should fill the final 7 seats.  It was
agreed at the meeting that it is necessary to fill the seats as soon as
possible, and to avoid any unconscious "filters" that may color the
selections of any committee when reviewing applications.  The idea was
forwarded to simply choose the remaining members by lot from the current
applications.  This idea will be put to the council.  It is necessary to
fill the seats as quickly as possible as it was a fairly unanimous opinion
that no substantive discussion of issues should begin until the GC is at
full strength.

Which brings us to the second point of the meeting.  The question was
raised whether the Couincil should begin disscussions right away, or wait
until we have a full set of ground rules for preparing options for
submission to the board (basically, a full set of operating instructions).
 It was decided that since the subject matter we are discussing is likely
to be very "organic", i.e. constantly metamorphosing, that the rules were
likely to be much the same, and to wait on a set of concrete guidelines
would be self defeating, nothing would ever get done.  Instead, we plan to
get immediately to work as soon as all of the members are seated (no later
than the end of the month).

The most important topic of discussion in my view was the question of
where to start on our task.  Sir Nathan of Calontir proposed that we begin
by writing a "mission statement" for the SCA.  The purpose and goals of
the society have never been officially set down in writing, this will be
our first task.  If we cannot say precisely what the SCA is supposed to be
accomplishing, it becomes very difficult to design a structure tha will
let us reach those goals.  Tentatively, a time period of 2-4 weeks has
been set for discussion of this topic before writing the statement and
submitting it to the populace and the Board for comment.  Of course those
of you who are reading this are welcome to comment to me at any time, and
I will pass on the fruits of our discussion to the Council.  

It is imperative that the council recieve input from all people in the
society, member and non-member alike.  The council is going to great
lengths to see that is has as broad-based a makeup as possible, but beyond
that we need input from as many of you as we can get.  If you have ideas,
suggestions, or opinions, *please* make them known.  We want to make the
society work for you, not on you.

Sir Galen Kirchenbauer
sir.galen.k at dobharchu.org
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