[Ansteorra] [Southern] CLOSED MEETINGS

[estarkey at camalott.com]

Yes, it is simplier to close the meetings.  But throughout my time in the 
SCA as an officer,  I found it was much better to invite the populace to the 
officer meetings, and set aside a time after the meeting for general 
discussion and comment.  The first few times, I had to remind the populace 
to save their comments until the set discussion time, but not very many 
times.  It was all good. Everyone realized that they could come and see what 
was going on, that there were no plots or dark secrets.  There was just 
boring business stuff that they could put their two cents in about later. 
They got to learn a bit more about the paperwork and what an officer did, 
how things were decided.  We actually got better imput from the populace 
during the open discussion time as they had a bit of time to think about 
what they wanted to say, didn't just repeat stuff we'd already mentioned, 
and they didn't think we were keeping anything from them or having secret 
meetings.

HE AmaRyah
Mendersham

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jean Paul de Sens" <jeanpauldesens at gmail.com>
To: "Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA, Inc." <ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 9:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] [Southern] CLOSED MEETINGS


> Honestly, in my experience it's not transparency as much as simplicity 
> that
> makes it benificial to have these meetings closed.  The GOofS talk and
> correspond with each other quite a bit, but there is some face to face 
> stuff
> that needs to be discussed.  An hour before the day *is* enough time to 
> get
> it done, but not if we are asked a lot of questions by people who are
> interested in delving into the details. The things that are discussed are
> the same one discussed at the meeting later in the day.
>
> If state law (Texas or Oklahoma) does require open meetings, I'd be
> interested to know.  My research a decade or so ago in OK makes me think
> that you can have closed meetings so long as you are not the government.
> There are a buncha caveats, but that was the basic.
>
> JP
>
>
> On Jan 14, 2008 9:35 AM, Richard Yeager <chuymonstre at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> As was previously posted, other than personnel matters and pending
>> litigation, there is NOTHING that should be closed to the membership,
>> sensitive or otherwise.  It may prove "inconvenient" or "troublesome" for
>> the officers involved to have some matters brought up in public but that 
>> is
>> the nature of the beast.  If there is not transparency in our decision
>> making process then we have problems.
>>
>> Cuan mac Niall
>>
>> Pug Bainter <pug at pug.net> wrote: > On the schedule of the upcoming Round
>> Table (Saturday January 19) is
>> > a closed meeting of the Financial Committee and Great Officer. What's
>> > the deal? Why isn't the populace not allowed to attend it? Why can't
>> > the populace be allowed to at least sit and listen to the meeting? I
>> > can't be the only person who would like to know the state of kingdom?
>>
>> There is a closed session because of sensitive topics that are not and
>> should not be discussed in an open venue. Previously these were two
>> different sessions (closed & financial) but with a busier schedule for 
>> the
>> Crown and me, we had to consolidate them into one meeting and hope we 
>> have
>> enough time. The state of the kingdom will be disclosed in the 
>> Crown/Great
>> Officers State of the Union from 1 to 3pm.
>>
>> In Service,
>> Master Phelim Gervase called Pug
>> Kingdom Seneschal - no longer Acting
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> "Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The 
> adjective
> hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight
> place."
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