[Steppes] Business meeting minutes was Re: Fall Court

[Vicki Marsh]

Xene here,

I'm not sure why it should fall to the Vicaress to post the minutes. I would
think that the Seneschal or a deputy seneschal-secretary would be the best
one to keep minutes of the meeting, especially because the seneschal has to
write a report once a month on the happenings in the group anyway. It's due
the 10th of each month. He/She might as well write one report and post it to
the list with a copy to the Vscribe and the Chronicler for posting. They
also have an End-of-Reign report due in June and December.

The Baron & Baroness / Vicar and Vicaress work as a team with the Seneschal
to award bids, but the busines communication within the Barony on the
day-to-day legals workings of the barony should fall to the Seneschal.
Autocrats are deputy seneschals and the bid is not completely official until
the autocrat's warrant is signed. This applies to off-calendar events as
well as on-calendar events.

Steppes is a barony in the midst of flux right now - Things are changing.
When new seneschal is named, but not yet warranted, and the old one is on
the way out, but still has the responsibility, is a time when things
sometimes fall through the cracks.

We also have a lot of new folks who have played SCA in other places.
It's wonderful that they are stepping up to volunteer and bring in new
blood, so let's not shoot them down before they start.

And, if you have a better idea, submit your own bid *in writing*. I had
thought to put in a bid for Fall Court, too, and may still do it. If not,
I'll help whomever is awarded the bid.

When the dust settles after Coronation, the leadership in this Barony will
have a better idea of what direction to take with the group and the upcoming
events. It's only a month away.

BTW, the new Seneschal's handbook is online at:
http://seneschal.ansteorra.org/forms/Seneschalhandbook2006.pdf

and Page 19 says:

Event bids and planning
Bids to steward an event should be solicited from the populace six months or
more
before an event. All bids should include a proposed budget, Event Steward,
and basic
event crew. If someone is stewarding an event for the first time, it's a
good idea to
assign them a mentor to answer questions and give advice. Remember that
Event
Stewards are Deputy Seneschals, so they must meet all the requirements for a
local
Seneschal.
<snip>
Once a bid is chosen, it's the Seneschal's job to monitor how things go and
to offer help
and suggestions as needed. Consider using ACCEPS to allow for prepayment of
site
and feast fees online.


Mistress Xene Theriane, OL OP
Seneschal to the Canton of Lindenwood
Barony of the Steppes.

-----Original Message-----
From: steppes-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
[mailto:steppes-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org]On Behalf Of Susan Hill
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 11:47 AM
To: steppes at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Steppes] Business meeting minutes was Re: Fall Court


As of this date, I have received minutes for only the April Business
meeting. I got none for May and June's have not yet been posted. In April
there was no mention of Bids being taken for Fall court, but they were being
taken for Artisan and Twelfth Night. As to whether or not the bid was
awaarded properly, I don't personally have an opinion on that, but would
rather like to address the issue of minutes.

Communication is vital to keeping our membership active and involved. I am
very glad to see that the posting of minutes has begun since the suggestion
was first made at March's populace, but it has been erratic, thus far.
Perhaps it would be an idea to designate someone to be a sort of scribe at
the business meetings who's function would be to take minutes and transcribe
them and post them. This would take the pressure off of Her Grace, who first
volunteered to do this and has plenty to do already. These should be posted
within a couple of days after the meeting. The April minutes took 9 days to
be posted, no doubt due to Her Grace's busy schedule.

It might be valuable to also submit those minutes to the V-scribe so that he
could make minutes for say the current month and two or three months
previous available so that we could follow continuing business via the
website rather than do deep searches of our inboxes to find them. Some of us
have limited storage capabilities and cannot keep all of the emails we get.
Others have a lot of space and end up with some of the things we'd like to
access occasionally so deep in the inbox so that it takes serious searching
to find them. By having a place on the website to post them, most of us can
keep current of ongoing issues more easily.

Just a couple of suggestions...

In service to Steppes, Ansteorra, and the Dream,

Lyneya de Grey