From: bchapman@spartan.ac.BrockU.CA (Bruce Patrick Chapman)
Subject: Re: Management styles vis a vis SCA (getting long)
Followup-To: sender 
Organization: Brock University, St. Catharines Ontario
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 09:43:29 GMT

on the subject of management styles:

i recently autocratted ealdormere's coronte tourney.

1) the ultimate decision was invariably somewhat autocratic - although our
	local canton has a tradition of voting on EVERYTHING (and believe me,
	thi includes a _lot_ of trivialities) - ultimately, most decisions
	were made on a purelyu autocratic basis - this is what *i* think is
	a good idea and thus it shall be done in this maner.

	this method had several drawbacks, the most major being the difficulty
	of attempting to decide *who* the autocrat _was_ - significant changes
	were requested on several occasions, usually *months* after a previous
	decision had been made - inevitably on trivial items.

	a certain ammount of communication problems *did* exist (although i 
	would suggest that in the event of difficulty in contacting the
	autocrat, leaving a message on the auto-scribe, no matter *how* much
	you hate it is frequently helpful) many of the communications problems
	seemed to stem from "gossip", which is to say, while the problem wasa
	cited on a semi-regular basis, *all* calls were returned 

2) in a related point to 1, concensus decisions were basically impossible,
	as the decision would never be made if it was left to the group.
	local politics unfortunately were frequently of more importance
	than getting the event done well (apologies to the toes of any
	who may have been trampled)

3) delegation was rampant - mostly with great success!
	feast, serving, troll, bar, games, fighting were all 'farmed' out.
	of all of the many jobs (also include herald...) for which 
	responsibility was delegated, only *one* was a notable failure -
	and a good gentle filled in at the event!

4) here i must mention the fact that there _is_ a skilled pool to draw
	upon - i must thank the senechal of the local group for stepping
	in at need, when troll turned out to be somewhat more chaotic than
	intended, likewise when the bartender backed out at the last minute.

	i feel that the pool of willing and skilled volunteers at any event in
	the sca is one of the greatest gifts and strengths that *any* 
	something*crat can draw upon

	*digression*
		this past summer i had occasion to work on a s/f con. there
	was a notable *lack* of the sca "trained volunteer" corps which i
	(shows who i usually play with) am familiar with - ther was *no*
	safety net in the sca sense - we usually have *somebody* who is
	capable of taking over in the event of *major* disaster...

5) to summarize what has become rather a rambling article, whatever the
	decision method used, i feel the strength of the sca management 
	system lies in the willingness of the populace to support and work
	towards a given goal - we are a volunteer organization with a 
	valuable backbone of trained personnel, capable of working independantly
	with minimal supervision (this is *not* to say that some do not *need*
	supervision) - in a very real way, we *are* communists...<duck>

just my several lines worth - if there are any out there who had occasion to
attend this event, i'd appreciate your opinions, be they good/bad/indifferent.

in service from the barbarian lands,
gwendolynn ferch elydyr
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