just wondering ...

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Lilith Ivory
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just wondering ...

Post by Lilith Ivory »

Do we know already when there will be a RA inaugural meeting?

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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Kyoko »

Swearing in is June 1, 2021 @4pm slt. Usually the RA meets briefly to pick their officers and to set a time for the first regular meeting.

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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Rosie Gray »

It would have been nice if whoever decided this day and time had put it onto the CDS google calendar. 4 pm isn't a great time for me to be in SL, but I can probably make it. I wonder if the rest of the new RA have been asked if it works for them, or if they know about it.

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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Kyoko »

Laure and Tor know. Tailsworthy can't be there. Obviously I know. You now know. That leaves Almut.
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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Almut Brunswick »

June 1, 2021 @4pm slt is in Germany 1am at night!

Considering this, I'm massively wondering what is the idea behind. I have to insist on a repeat at a more convenient time in an appropriate frame!!! That is simply a matter of respect to the new Chancellor and the RA members.

Proposal: Saturday, June 5, 2021, 11:30 AM SLT, at the Praetorium. The constitutive first RA meeting could follow then directly.

Thank you,

Almut

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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Kyoko »

Almut, I completely understand your response.

Yesterday Tor and I were sworn in. Tailsworth and Laure had scheduling problems that Delia knew about. You and Rosie were affected by the time choice.

The time you suggest for the first RA meeting conflicts with the Inaugural Ball, which will take place on June 5, 2021 from noon to 2pm SLT. Delia may decide to swear you in during the ball, which has been done before, but the first RA meeting will need to be on another day.

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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Rosie Gray »

I did mean to come, even though it's not a great time for me, but I forgot. It wasn't on the calendar and that's where I look for these things since I can't remember without it!

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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Almut Brunswick »

Kyoko wrote: Wed Jun 02, 2021 5:16 am

Almut, I completely understand your response.

Yesterday Tor and I were sworn in. Tailsworth and Laure had scheduling problems that Delia knew about. You and Rosie were affected by the time choice.

The time you suggest for the first RA meeting conflicts with the Inaugural Ball, which will take place on June 5, 2021 from noon to 2pm SLT. Delia may decide to swear you in during the ball, which has been done before, but the first RA meeting will need to be on another day.

There is no conflict with the Inaugural Ball. The informal gathering will take place half an hour earlier, so the only issue that might happen is nobody of the SC or not enough elected people will show up. And I hope that both won't happen. When we will become too short in time, the first RA can indeed take place on another day, but currently with just one RA member sworn in (and that not witnessed by the public), we don't have even the minimum strength of three RA members in office.

I personally regard a swearing on a ball as another makeshift, but at least it is on a public and well-announced event. It should be pondered by the coming RA to change or to amend the legal regulations in a way that such a sudden "swearing of the random few at a random time on an abandoned airfield" can never occur again. It is by far not appropriate to the importance of the institution and does not show the respect for the offices and their bearers they deserve. Besides this, there should be a regulation that a public swearing can only be performed when the Chancellor elected and at least three RA members elected can make it to the scheduled date. Furthermore, a swearing ceremony without invitation in due time should be forbidden by law. That all should actually be self-evident, but apparently it requires precise regulations to observe.

The informal gathering on Saturday will take place and I would highly appreciate when all swearings - there or on the Ball - will be repeated in public even when there is (currently) no constitutional need for.

Almut

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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Han Held »

Almut Brunswick wrote: Wed Jun 02, 2021 10:42 pm

It is by far not appropriate to the importance of the institution and does not show the respect for the offices and their bearers they deserve. Besides this, there should be a regulation that a public swearing can only be performed when the Chancellor elected and at least three RA members elected can make it to the scheduled date.

a)Having served on the RA multiple times and been Chancellor I'm totally not seeing how the swearing in was an insult much less the disaster that you are portraying it as.

To the contrary; the practical needs to always been the first consideration. The airport swearing in got the job done. For a community of less than twenty (our population is sixty-something, but of those who participate? between 10 to 15) it's fine.

b)The regulation you propose would lead to terms where the budget would never be passed because those conditions wouldn't be met until 2 or 3 months in. That leads to tier not being paid, and that is unacceptable.

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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Kyoko »

I swore I wouldn't reply but . . .

First, thank you to Han for her clear thinking. Re: the Budget -- the problem isn't tier, the problem is that the chancellor is without the ability to pay for events and for advertising.

Almut. There is a lot I could say, but I will limit it to one item. It was not a random time nor a random place What was unfortunate was inadequate publicity for the event. We actually did have a guest witnessing, in addition to the necessary presence of The Dean of the SC.

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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Han Held »

Kyoko wrote: Thu Jun 03, 2021 9:23 am

Re: the Budget -- the problem isn't tier, the problem is that the chancellor is without the ability to pay for events and for advertising.

Either I'm confused, or the procedure has changed -or possibly both; so I'd like some clarification.

I thought that the process was that the Chancellor drew up a budget, which included advertising, events and also the money needed to pay tier, and that that money could not be touched until the RA approved the budget. So I guess I have a couple of questions:
1)Is tier part of the budget, or is it separate?
2)If it is part of the budget, what will happen if in the future we are unable to reach a quorum and pass the budget (because we don't have enough RA, because we have enough RA but can't reach consensus)? I can't imagine we'd just like the tier go -but do we have a continency plan outlined for that (and if we do -what is it)?

EDIT: I realized after I hit "submit" I may be confusing the budget with the financial reports; but I'd still like clarification! 8)

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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Sudane Erato »

Han, all good questions, because in principle, you're right. Like RL "Governmental Entities", the government can't spend any money at all until the budget is approved. Of course I'm not sure what OUR law says, but in general that's assumed.

BUT... our tier payments are not a matter of our CDS payments office writing a check and sending it to the LL landlords (as you know of course). LL extracts that money from Rudeen's pocket with only a regard to whether her US$ account has sufficient funds. If the budget wasn't approved, sure... I could remove the US$ money from Rudeen's pocket so that LL couldn't extract the money. But that would provoke an unhappy legal crisis of a different sort, whereby residents of our 6 sims would rightly claim that we had violated the underlying pac of living in SL, whereby people pay tier to the Estate Owner with the clear expectation that the Estate Owner pays THAT tier to LL.

And THAT would throw us into a whole territory I think unanticipated in our considerations of CDS Budget Law. So... for better or worse, I agree with Kyoko on this. SL tier gets paid to LL regardless of whether a budget is approved, and any other expenditures are paused unless it is.

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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Han Held »

So it's a question of de facto vs de jure -that makes sense to me! Thank you for taking the time to clarify that, Sudane. 8)

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Re: just wondering ...

Post by Callipygian »

Almut wrote:

There is no conflict with the Inaugural Ball. The informal gathering will take place half an hour earlier, so the only issue that might happen is nobody of the SC or not enough elected people will show up. And I hope that both won't happen. When we will become too short in time, the first RA can indeed take place on another day, but currently with just one RA member sworn in (and that not witnessed by the public), we don't have even the minimum strength of three RA members in office.

I personally regard a swearing on a ball as another makeshift, but at least it is on a public and well-announced event. It should be pondered by the coming RA to change or to amend the legal regulations in a way that such a sudden "swearing of the random few at a random time on an abandoned airfield" can never occur again. It is by far not appropriate to the importance of the institution and does not show the respect for the offices and their bearers they deserve. Besides this, there should be a regulation that a public swearing can only be performed when the Chancellor elected and at least three RA members elected can make it to the scheduled date. Furthermore, a swearing ceremony without invitation in due time should be forbidden by law. That all should actually be self-evident, but apparently it requires precise regulations to observe.

The informal gathering on Saturday will take place and I would highly appreciate when all swearings - there or on the Ball - will be repeated in public even when there is (currently) no constitutional need for.

Almut, I am hoping that you did not mean to sound so fractious, officious and confrontational in what you wrote here. When English is not the mother tongue, the tone of written communication can be quite different than what is intended, so if English is not your first language there is perhaps some excuse for the general sour and accusatory tone of this post; I hope that is the case, otherwise you are just demonstrating an unfortunate level of arrogance and rudeness.

Let me share a little history with you Almut. Until a few years ago the date of the first meeting of the incoming RA, intended to allow swearing in, the election of the LRA and the scheduling of the first official meeting of the new term was set by the SC when scheduling the rest of the election season. It was traditionally set for the Saturday following the announcement of the successful candidates or the Saturday immediately before June1, Saturday being the most universally accessible time for our global community. The date was published with the other important dates, giving 7 or 8 weeks of notice of that date. Invariably, even with that much notice, some RA members or the Chancellor found themselves unable to attend; this has led to a tradition of multiple swearing-ins, to accommodate the schedules of RA members for the most part.

Then there were complaints: why was this being done before the 1st of the month when the term actually starts??? why was the SC scheduling RA meetings, something they have no right to do?? You get the idea; while it made perfect sense to swear in and have the new RA able to schedule their first meeting quickly after the 1st of the month, and easy to accomplish that if the SC established the date of the meeting, technically it *was* the SC scheduling a RA meeting. So for the last few years the practise has become that the incoming RA figure out amongst themselves when they can meet for the first time to be sworn in and to elect their LRA; they would then invite the Dean of the SC to attend , swear in members and conduct the LRA elections. This is why there are times that the swearing-in was done by another member of the SC when the Dean was unavailable - the meeting was not called to suit the SC's schedule, but was handled by the members of the RA.

In this case, I suspect that since this had not happened, the Dean was concerned that our laws be followed and that the incoming RA and Chancellor had the opportunity to be sworn in on June 1, the Constitutional beginning of the new term. Was it planned far ahead, no; was it well advertised, apparently not; however, neither of those things give you the right to post that harrangue aimed at the Dean. We all have lives outside of CDS and SL - and one could as easily question, since you and your RA colleagues have known you are the incoming RA for 3 weeks and that you take office on June1, why one or more of you hasn't thought to address this. It's easy to rant about disrespect and failures of others, but the truth is we all have moments of action or inaction that are less than stellar.

Abandoned airfields and " It is by far not appropriate to the importance of the institution and does not show the respect for the offices and their bearers they deserve." Seriously, get over yourself. Traditionally we announced the winners of elections at the Thermae, with citizens, candidates and observers in various states of undress! Swearing in has been done in garden meadows, the amphitheatre and yes, the Inaugural Ball - the spot where more citizens are actually likely to witness it than any other time or location. Respect for the offices has little to do with the location of swearing -in, and much to do with the day to day conduct of those holding office. If you really believe a seat on RA is all about the pomp and glory and creating a law every time your feelings are hurt or you presume some unintended insult, then we have a very different view of what a role of service to the community is. Throwing a tantrum and scheduling your own swearing-in meeting, without checking that anyone can actually attend and scheduling it for 30 minutes before the Inaugural Ball - you know, that event meant to demonstrate the respect and thanks we have towards our elected representatives - is a rather ironic and childish way of dealing with this. I have told Delia that I will gladly swear in RA members at the Ball, but since I am handling the music and need to be there somewhat ahead of start time, I will not be able to do so before that.

Instead of yet more laws why not do something practical and just as effective; there are a couple of options. We could go back to the process of making the swearing-in/LRA election meeting an official part of the election process with a published date as before, and an expectation that Chancellor and RA members will mark their calendars. Alternately you could amend your RA Rules of Procedure to identify that the incoming RA should talk to schedule their swearing-in/elect LRA meeting and notify the SC so that a member can attend to conduct the activities. This would be a respectful way of proceeding, imo, since adults are quite able to do such things with a little guidance - they don't need the hammer of the law waved at them over every little detail of their position.

Calli - English is my first language so if the tone of this sounds angry and admonishing .. yeah, you got it.

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