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

[Bill Fisher]

I had a similar situation where I was the co-autocrat for a large
event, I was in charge of
the logistics (kitchen, hall setup, royalty wrangling, etc) I was not
in charge of arranging
the site and had nothing to do with the contractual arrangements. (I
know some people
on this list were at that event)

My co-autocrat forgot to get a signature on the contract.  When the
site owner saw how many people showed for the event, he decided he
wanted more money, per head instead of the flat fee for the site.  We
didn't have a contractual leg to stand on so-to-speak.

The owner barred the exit to the site till the shire coughed up the
per head fees.

I turned in my reports to the seneshal for the event because I was
going to be out of town for the next shire meeting, when I came back a
week later, I had e-mail from several senior members of my shire with
things like "you are never allowed to autocrat an event again!"
being the nicest of them.

I did some checking, seems that when the issue was raised on the
contract for the site,
my co-autocrat said "oh, Cadoc forgot to get a signature for the
site."  Took me
a year to get the whole thing straightened out, fortunately I had a
copy of the event proposal and who was handling what at hand to use as
a bludgeoning device.  Hardest part was my
co-autocrat was the seneshal's best friend (and the seneshal had
arranged the deal for the
site).

Never did autocrat anything again for that shire, did a few feasts,
but no more events, and this was after autocratting successfuly for 8
years previous to the event.

Cadoc

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:17:37 -0500, Terry Decker
<t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> 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
> 
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