Received: from ATHENA-AS-WELL.MIT.EDU by po6.MIT.EDU (5.61/4.7) id AA19082; Tue, 19 Apr 94 01:21:51 EDT Received: from BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU by MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA00963; Tue, 19 Apr 94 01:21:48 EDT Received: by bloom-beacon.mit.edu (5.61/25-eef) id AA29807; Tue, 19 Apr 94 01:13:10 EDT Received: from news.std.com by bloom-beacon.mit.edu with SMTP (5.61/25-eef) id AA29778; Tue, 19 Apr 94 01:13:03 EDT Received: from world.std.com by news.std.com (5.65c/Spike-2.1) id AA04019; Tue, 19 Apr 1994 01:12:43 -0400 Received: by world.std.com (5.65c/Spike-2.0) id AA27282; Tue, 19 Apr 1994 01:12:42 -0400 Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 01:12:41 -0400 (EDT) From: Tom R Courtney Sender: Tom R Courtney Reply-To: Tom R Courtney Subject: Re: Unofficial Event Kit To: Margo Lynn Hablutzel Cc: David Schroeder , Outbound News , antir@kwantlen.bc.ca, sca-west@ecst.csuchico.edu, carolingia@bloom-beacon.mit.edu, e5@uriacc.uri.edu, sca-reform@MIT.EDU In-Reply-To: <9404190424.AA17245@MIT.EDU> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Hi folks, On 19 Apr 1994, Margo Lynn Hablutzel wrote: > Oh, great, Instead of working to fix what is wrong, > Bertram is suggesting that we just make it worse. > > WHY are you being so divisive, Bertram?? > > When did you become a secessionist? > > ---= Morgan I don't know the day Dave became a secessionist, but I certainly know the day I did - it was the day the Society Marshall butted into how the kingdoms run their fighting and banned hardwood spear shafts. I tried, unsuccessfully, to get the monarchs, heirs, and earl marshalls of the East, Midrealm, and Atlantia to tell the Society Marshall to stuff it, and that if anyone tried to force us to change our ways against our wills, we'd break off on our own, always offering hospitality to anyone who wants it. Not only did I not succeed, I couldn't rightly be said to have started. Of the 15 people I thought I had to convince to get such an action started, I only got 3 to even think about what I said. The rest thought I was an impractical dreamer. As long as they thought so, of course, they were right. I was not convincing enough in trying to show how negative over-centralization is for the SCA. I am a secessionist in that I think the corporate structure is here to serve us, and not contrariwise. If it turns out tomorrow that the structure doesn't meet our needs, and we can't change it because the rules got screwed up while we were napping, I'm all for walking, starting over, and trying again. Dave currently thinks the corporate structure doesn't serve him. He put out an announcement asking for help, which, if he gets it, will come from like-minded or sympathetic people. How does that make the situation worse? Either he will be successful, and the national level of our organization won't be responsible for so much, or he will fail, and we will see that finding alternatives is harder than one would first suspect; or he may be partially successful, and folks can think about whether all the trouble is worth all the effort. Rather than make things worse, I think it would be worth knowing how much the rank and file think of decentralization. If they start holding unofficial events in droves, then we will have learned a lot (for starters, that we are overinsuring ourselves, if nothing else.) If Dave's efforts die on the vine, we'll also learn a lot (though of that I'm less confident. I find it strange that folks aren't taking a hard look publicly at what the failure to generate enough petition signatures means.) There are lots of things I think Dave has done recently that are ill-considered, but trying to provide knowledge, information, and alternatives are not amongst them. Tom Courtney aka Vissevald Selkirksson