New Guild Meeting, Saturday 1st October 2011 at 10am

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Ceasar Xigalia
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New Guild Meeting, Saturday 1st October 2011 at 10am

Post by Ceasar Xigalia »

There will be a meeting of the New Guild on Saturday the 1st October 2011 10am at the School in NFS

I have been asked to put the following on the agenda

From Arria Perreault, LRA on behalf of the RA

Hi Caesar,

The RA has voted a motion on 25th september 2011 to direct the New Guild to set the rebuilding of Locus Amoenus as their first priority.
For more details about our discussion, you can read the transcript of the meeting:

http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3530

Kind regards

Arria Perreault, LRA
***************************************************
Proposal from Alexia Carnell

The RA stated that Locus Amoenus is the 1st PRIORITYin NG activities, so the NG agenda should be focused on this subject.

Hereunder follow my proposals for LA
=====================
1) a PLAN contest for the development of the sim.

The contest should define the sim general look and the activities we plan to enhance.
I remind, generally speaking, the need of low cost residential units, commercial development and leisure activities as a general goal, butwe are open to other proposals . And we don't need to rebuild LA from scratchwe need just to retouch it (more water namely)

Each participant should:
a) build up a general plan layout, using and modifying the attached scale model
b) attach a project description NC

NG has to define:
- criteria of participation (open to all builders,or just to Cds..i suggest the widest participation).
- how to promote the contest)
- a jury (criteria and names)
- if citizens have to vote too
- a prize for the winner (s) (is there an available budget for this?)
- state a DEADLINE for projecst presentations (i would suggest one week)

Here i attach again the scale model

=======================
2) to follow, a 2nd contest for the definition of BUILDINGS

After the approval of the PLAN, NG will have to acquire either "catalogue" buildings or "rezzed settlements", + possibly a few landscaping.

The contest will be open only to skilled builders, they will have to demonstrate their landscaping and building skills.

NG will define this second step after the PLAN approval (goals, criteria, budgeting)

======================
alexia
****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
josjoha Resident: (Saved Tue Sep 27 06:31:39 2011) Hi Ceasar, is it OK that i register the following topics for the NG agenda: 1. That the NG charter is redone from scratch (I put a paragraph in the RA last meet). 2. The idea to change the modern soccer pitch in NFS into a med-eaval form of football, which was played between entire villages as a way to avoid war - and we can do this by texturing a ball as an inflated pig stomach or somesuch and furning a rough pitch consisting only of 4 poles representing goals on an uneven unedited non-land-edited area that it is at least flat enough for the ball not to roll downhill. 3. Ideally as a last point: a motion of regret for what happened with Rosie the previous NG Secretary. ty
****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
If anyone has additional thoughts or agenda items please post them on this topic thread

thanks Ceasar

Ceasar Xigalia,
“I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
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josjoha
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Re: New Guild Meeting, Saturday 1st October 2011 at 10am

Post by josjoha »

Helloo,

NG Secretary asked the finance person of the New Guild (me) about funding for NG projects. Tier would presumably act as taxation and trickle into the NG at the pleasure of the RA, but we can always ask people to donate their money to a project that the NG is engaged in. Perhaps people would be motivated to donate to a project they have a particular interest in, for example because it is near their home. Usually such tip-jars do not generate much or anything, but it could be tried. I build a crude 10 prim demo, which could (once properly finished) channel money into various project-accounts. We could discuss this, whether it is worth the 10 prims to try if it would get us any money, and if so where to place it (or them). They could be near the tier boxes (since ppl are busy with money already), at the RA, at the NG ...

best regards,
josjoha

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Trebor Warcliffe
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Re: New Guild Meeting, Saturday 1st October 2011 at 10am

Post by Trebor Warcliffe »

As due to RL commitments I will be unable to attend the New Guild meeting scheduled for Saturday the 1st of October I will post what I would have addressed at the meeting. First I direct you to my recent posting in the Ideas for Locus Amoenus thread in the forums. http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php? ... 005#p18005
I find Alexia’s scale model really cool and I have it set up for display at the Warcliffe Retreat if you don’t have the space available to rez it where you own. All are welcome to stop by and check it out for themselves. To be honest I don’t know how to use and modify the scale model so my proposal will probably be done in Paint like my last work.

My second point of interest is a response to josjoha’s first topic for the NG agenda, that the NG Charter be redone from scratch. My immediate response is “There is absolutely no good, well thought out reason to throw away the Charter of the New Guild and start a new one from scratch.” I feel this is a knee-jerk reaction resulting from the very unfortunate incident that resulted from Rosie’s election to the Chair of the New Guild while also being a member of the Representative Assembly.

I have been a CDS citizen for almost 16 months, a relatively short time in the history of the CDS. My first couple of months in the CDS I spent many hours researching the history of the CDS and its many trials and tribulations it has been through. If you, meaning everyone in general and no one in particular, haven’t read about our history I invite you to spend a little time and learn a little bit about our history. I have no problem with change, especially in areas that are in need of change. What I am against is change just for the sake of change.

My point is many hours, probably hundreds, went into the drafting and the ultimate creation of the Charter of the New Guild. Currently it seems the New Guild is in a state of revival with Ceasar Xigalia the Chair of the New Guild and a strong, community wide interest in the remodeling of Locus Amoenus. It is this type of vibrant activity that spurred our forefathers and mothers to draft the charter in the first place.

Start right at the beginning of the Charter, the rationale. What we as a community are about to embark on, the remodeling of LA, improvements of our other sims, and the eventual expansion of our community as a whole is exactly why this charter was drafted in the first place. It’s becoming active once again, we are considering changes to the development of the CDS territory that will require the New Guild to fill the role of both consulting/certification and contractor, and the amount of work involved now and in the future will demand a structured organization including separation of tasks and functions. A well oiled machine will get more done in a timely manner than one hard working individual.

Some feel that Section 2, the mission of the New Guild, to be rather cumbersome. I admit it is heavy in the word department but once it’s broken down it’s not that intimidating. The New Guild’s first and fourth mission is simply to physically develop the sims, infrastructure, and public buildings of the CDS once mandated by the RA and to provide technical advice and service to the CDS as needed.
The second and third mission is simply to educate and help develop the skills of interested parties in the areas of content-creation and/or building skills. Granted, to the best of my knowledge, this mission hasn’t come off the planning table yet but look at the possibilities that may soon present themselves to us. Linden Lab’s discount extension that they granted last year for non-profits and educational communities is soon coming to an end. What an opportunity for the CDS to open our arms and welcome some of these people to our community. With the simple purchase of a parcel in our community and subsequent tier, many less than $5.00 a month, a citizen has the use of our many public structures and areas where they may educate or perform work for their cause. An educator could come into our community and possibly bring this mission into existence. If I was to change anything about these two missions I would probably suggest the elimination of non-citizens paying tuition. I believe there are many areas throughout Second Life that doesn’t charge people to learn things. We can always have a tip jar available if the attendees would like to show their appreciation.

The Organization of the New Guild is a well thought out plan that from what I can tell covers about every possible scenario. As the New Guild grows in membership as our citizenry grows hopefully these departments will be filled by valuable contributors. In closing, time spent on drafting a new charter will take away from, in my opinion, more productive work that will benefit our community to a greater extent.

Thank you,
Trebor Warcliffe

Let us move away from all of the "us" and "them" and turn our attention to "we."
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Re: New Guild Meeting, Saturday 1st October 2011 at 10am

Post by josjoha »

Hi Warcliffe,

Thank you for your reply & interest in the topic.

First of all: I am not proposing "change for the sake of change," but for reasons (I hope at least).
- The New Guild currently is vague collection of duties between "the board" the "faculty" and the Secretary. I think first that since this "board" appears to be no more then who participates with the New Guild and shows up for voting, that this adds pseudo-complexity to the organization, it adds jargon for jargon sake ? Jargon and unnecessary complexity can be "fun" for who have been somewhere long and who find the strangeness and weirdness of how things have developed and can be found back in the little quirks and names of a system through history amusing, and who find a sense of comfort in the idea that they know exactly what is going on while new people would be excluded from knowing how to operate the many weird quirks and names. That will give the 'old guard' more power then new people, secondly it may repel new people. With 'new people' so injured in their ability to be a full citizen capable of excercizing their share of power, the "old guard" may feel more comfortable. I think general effect that would happen to - presumaby - everyone in a given situation (who isn't attached to some history ? who isn't amused by certain quirks that came about ?) this may be something to consider when becoming too attached to the past and no longer seeing what the past was doing: charging forward to make things happen as best they could, making new charters, organizations, structuring themselves. I would think that redoing the New Guild charter from scratch would be furthering the history of the CDS, improving the current situation where the past likewise wanted to improve the situation in their day. If they had been looking to their past, they would not have set up a New Guild, nor provided it with a charter, or set up the CDS Democracy at all.... History is being creative... !

- The New Guild *should* be an effective transparent organization, for which reason it needs to be simple. You mention the need to "separate powers," I think separation of powers is necessary to prevent abuses of power, especially near the Sovereignty (RA, SC, Executive). In the New Guild we are far from the Sovereignty: we are under the power of the RA mandates. It may be relevant to remember that 'separation of powers' is also a mechanism to ensure the will of the people is done by injuring the organizational effectiveness in the top. However you can - and this is already practice - have general votes by who is active with the New Guild. If you then "separate" that general power, don't we risk creating more confusion then 'separation of power' is worth ?

- I was thinking about the New Guild and its secretary, and it went through my mind that there is something like the law of Democracy, but then there is something like the practice or culture of democracy as well. Let's take a truly democratic people, which does not exist in the western world or perhaps anywhere on Earth. You would give them a tyrannical system, but the tyrant would all the time do what the people wanted - that is their culture, it does not easily change. On the other hand - and now I am for example thinking about our Real-World Governments and the war for greed they fight: give a people used to dictatorship a democratic law, and they will turn it into another dictatorship anyway. The parliaments are supposed to represent the people, but we in the west are a culture of tyranny of a long long time, and that does not change merely because the law changed. This occured to me when thinking that the Secretary of the New Guild seems to have a function which is of - in my opinion - excessive powers and burdens. Why can't the New Guild not be a group of people who love to build, get together to look at various needs, the current RA mandates and requests, talk about who does and wants to do this or that, and then goes on to do it ? The NG Secretary can then be a simple chair person who more or less gives the whole creative energy a little bit of structure and routine by chairing the meetings, keeping the agenda and minutes. Not getting builders together and having a major influence, as if it was a 'boss.' On the other hand such a more true democratic culture also requires an active base, but I think we have that already ?

I propose something like a charter like this, I have renamed it "Building Guild," because it is relatively different from the existing 'New Guild:'

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Building Guild: building of the CDS sims.

Charter

The Building Guild is a publicly chartered organization, which does not have a profit motive.

Purpose: To organize the citizens of the CDS for effective simulator building (prims and land editing in general).

Organization: The Building Guild is comprised of citizens of the CDS. Membership of the Building Guild is an assumed right of all CDS citizens, participation is neither an obligation or prohibited to any CDS citizen. The Building Guild is chaired by a chairperson elected by the general assembly of the Building Guild. Decisions of the Building Guild are made by majority, within the constraints and guidance of the Representative Assembly, and the previous decisions of the Building Guild itself.

Meetings: The chair of the Building Guild calls together the Building Guild for regular meetings. If there is no such chair the Building Guild may be called together by a citizen, but the Representative Assembly must be informed of such action. Meetings take place in the Building Guild building, or wherever the chair of the Building Guild so directs.

Transparency: minutes of the Building Guild are public, the meetings are open to all.

Invitation: inexperienced and non-experienced people are invited to join the activities of the Building Guild, to learn by participation.

Projects: The Building Guild can form project teams which handle specific projects. The organization of a project team can be stipulated by the general assembly of the Building Guild. The Building Guild can organize simulator-local maintenance teams.

Funding: the Building Guild is obligated to spend its funding fairly for the benefit of all, beholden specificly directed funding.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The role of education is not in the charter as a separate mission so that there would be classes organized for test-prims, but in keeping with the 'New Guild' I put it in there as a participatory learning way. That is also how guilds worked back then: you would start doing menial jobs and become a second rate assistant (hold this, hold that, dust the floor, get those planks here, get me a sandwhich, good boy now you've learned a few things by watching and doing....).

A class-room education, being taken out of this 'Building charter,' would be done by a separate organization such as a 'school.' I would for example imagine that people who like to tutor people on building in a classroom setting, to do better in their own school organization and building then that this big task is another burden on the shoulders of the New Guild Secretary.

I think something like this would be rather simple, wouldn't it ? You merely have a chair, and the ability to form project-teams, within RA mandates: simple, therefore efficient and understandable ?

- The charter of the 'New Guild' seems to reflect social conditions which do not currently exist; I think it is a charter that ...<i>leaves room for improvements</i> hehe : ).

- We have the unresolved issue that there is a small active population, so that there may be issues finding a NG chair because the current charter excludes several groups of people to be that Secretary. I note that by reducing the importance of the Secretary of the NG that there is less reason to separate this 'power,' because there would not be 'power' attached to it (as much).

The existing charter is long, it wants to do much; it seems to describe a social condition of the past but does not seem to fulfil the purpose of a charter to act as an organizational back-bone on paper to fall back on when in doubt. "The faculty appoints itself and rules the NG with the 'board.'" That does not provide direction when in doubt, but seems to be a recipe for confusion when you need a charter most. I think the current charter injures the New Guild its ability to be an effective organization, and only by the 'grace of god' have we found a new Secretary and can move forward now, not thanks to the charter which on the contrary caused serious problems recently (with the exclusion of RA members and the Secretary of the NG).

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