[Sca-cooks] Re: What would you do?

[Terry Decker]

Point one, usually it is stupidity rather than cupidity, but it pays to be
cautious.

Point two, avoiding volunteering for the "autocrat" is more of a personal
thing.  For real screw-ups in my group (as incipient shire, shire and
barony), the working core tended to agree that such a person would never
again be in a position of authority and the autocrating and officering
duties would go elsewhere.

Many years ago, when I was seneschal, we had a couple autocratting our major
event who reported everything going well.  At the populace meeting four days
before the event, I found that some of the details had been overlooked, got
to checking and found out the autocrats had been painting rosy pictures
without doing the work.  Immediately after the populace meeting, I spoke
individually with members of the baronial service order, and with the
baroness acting a co-ordinator, they went out and organized various pieces
of the event.  The event went off successfully, the autocrats were thanked
for their service, and they were NEVER allowed to handle anything major
while they were with the group.

It was an interesting experience.  It also reminded me that the
organizational qualities of people vary and unless you know the person can
deliver, there needs to be regular checks and oversight, and if they are
proven, the project still requires spot checks.

Bear

>The first thing I'd do is make sure that I knew where the money was,
>because the kind of person who would stick the volunteers with such large
>expenses rather than admit to having gone over budget might also embezzle
>the money.
>
>The second thing is that I would recommend to the whole group that nobody
>ever, under any circumstances, volunteer to help that steward/autocrat with
>any project that could possibly cost money.
>
>--
>Alex Clark/Henry of Maldon