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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seds-l
Date:         Sun, 10 Jan 1993 13:52:54 EST
From:         DJKALMAN@COLOSPGS.BITNET
Subject:      CBL PART 7

SEDS PROJECTS LESS THAN ONE YEAR OLD, cont.


6.  IDM (Individual Memberships, for those unfamiliar with the acronym).  After
some debate (what debate?) of this issue, and little posting to the board, the
vote appeared to have come down entirely on idealogical lines, passing by a
mere one vote.  Few people posted on this issue until the debate came up at the
tcon.  After the tcon, a few people posted on the issue (I tried to be as
in-depth as possible), but the major opponents (the MIT-UAH axis) did not post
anything to the board for further discussion, despite a promise to do so.

Since the vote was to allow CalSEDS to run this program, I would like to see a
progress report on this as well.  I know Bob Summergill was bitching about not
receiving his Nova, and there was some talk about a lost check (John, are you
sure you didn't buy all of your textbooks with that $20? :)  Anyway, he is the
only individual membership to complain about that issue, although Jeff
mentioned something about one or two others.   What I would like to know is the
following:

A.  Was the vote legal, since at least one of the aye votes was from a board
member pro-tem?  What is the status, now that this people is no longer on the
board?  Do we need to re-vote?

B.  How many IDMs do we currently have, and who are they?

C.  What are the current plans for advertising the IDM option?

D.  How much time has been dedicated to IDM so far?

E.  What are the initial funding requirements for a campaign to promote IDMs?

F.  What about IDMs from people in Canada, UK, or other places outside the US?

G.  How much money has come in from IDMs so far?

H.  What is the status of refunding some money to people who have had SEDS
expenses by instead giving them free IDMs (and taking $25 off of what SEDS
Natl. owes them)?  This was brought up, and was agreed that this would be a
good idea, but no votes were held, and no further details were posted/approved.


7.  Chapter Hunt.  Yes, it is now time to delve into the regions of dementia
and start to bitch myself out as well (oh no you don't ... oh yes you do ...
damned these split personalities, neither wants to take the blame of
controlling me ... :)  Anyways, back to reality.

The plan from this spring was that since we now had a fairly stable chapter
list. we would start to find all of the chapters that we had not heard from in
over one year.  These chapters were marked on my chapter lists as being (last
update - old chapter list).  Anyway, there are around 50 US chapters or so
(yes, I know, I promised to do an exact count as well).

At the start of this fall, when I still had time, I offered to do this.  I said
I would post a copy of the letter I was going to send out for it, and a total
count of how many letters there would be.  Furthermore, I said that I would
investigate the cost of printing these on postcards and then mailing them, or
the cost of envelopes and stamps.  I can use the school's laser printer for the
letters (they haven't yelled at me this week yet :), so paper costs us nothing
unless I am requested to use official SEDS letterhead (which someone would have
to send me).

Furthermore, this search would be limited to US chapters only.  However, when I
inquired about a potential refund for this when it was all done, I was bluntly
told that SEDS had $0 in the bank.  Then the UNM fiasco arose, and this got put
on the back burner.

If I post the letter over break, and get the research done for the costs,
should we proceed with this?  Does the rest of the board agree that this is a
very important SEDS undertaking?  And if so, when can I know about a refund?
And is MIT ever going to send me any new updated contact information, or are we
just going to wait for the missing SEDS chapters to walk into CalSEDS's ice
cream socials?


8. Tcons.  The SEDS Haven (courtesy / blame of Mark Fister ... don't ask me
about any line wrap :) is a very useful tool for tcons if it is used properly.
However, there have been many problems at the few tcons that I have attended
this semester.  So here we go:

A.  Scheduling.  The current time appears to be a conflict time for many of the
board members.  Can we hold it later on Sunday (early evenings), or maybe on
Saturdays?  what about possibly a week night?   We need to be able to get as
many people there for the entire tcon as possible, and have they stay for the
entire tcon.

B.  Agendas.  The agendas do not seem complete enough, nor do they seem
prioritized.  We need to know exactly what will be spoken on, and when, and not
be confused by not knowing what to discuss next.   I also suggest that a person
be put in charge of conducting the entire debate on one subject, to control its
flow.  Maybe the person whose subject it is should be put in charge (i.e. Drew
in charge when talking about the business plan, etc.).

Furthermore, we need to limit the discussion topics to those matter which are
truly pressing and need votes, and are not just updates.  Updates can be posted
to the L for reading by all (or SEDSEXEC, if kinda private).  Policy decisions
that need immediate board approval, or vital current affairs (like what
happened at UNM) are appropriate at the tcon.  Treasury reports. SEDSAT
updates, and Business plan outline presentations should be done on the L.
Maybe this way we can actually get done with a tcon on time, and cover the
important stuff (namely, the money issues, since refunds require a vote!).

C.  Haven Etiquette.  The first tcon of the fall had the problem of everyone
talking over everyone else, and this makes it extremely difficult to read what
is being typed.  Add to this the problems of people coming in and out, send
mail to other members in the middle of the tcon (mail message notifications
write over what was just typed), line wrap and other problems, which
make the messages unreadable even to seasoned haveners (who deal with 60
people havens regularly  :).  Here are my general haven etiquette
guidelines to talk about:

I.  ARRIVE ON TIME!!  I am FED UP on waiting for people who walk in 10-15
minutes late, wasting my time!!!  You wouldn't walk into church 15 minutes
late, or to work, or to a restaurant, why do you do it here?

II.  First thing on, type /n and your name, that way everyone knows who you are.
After that, you can send out your personal greetings.

III.  Allow the co-chair to start the meeting, have him/her assign someone in
charge of the subject, and then let that person speak.  Only type responses
that are directly related to what was just said, and wait til that person is
done before presenting your broad view.  While one person is typing/speaking,
the only questions that should be brought up are points of clarification, not
debate.  Wait til that person is totally done and asks for someone else to
speak before starting any debate on the point (kinda like yielding the floor in
a Senate debate).

IV.  Type in short spurts (50 characters), and then hit enter.  For those people
who are on Vax terminals, the line wrap is normally off.  By doing this, not
only do you show that you have more to say, but none of the message gets lost.
If you can, get on a unix terminal before coming to the haven, to prevent this
problem from arising.  Maybe there is a Caltech or hoshi account one can use
for this purpose.

V.  If you wish to have a side conversation with someone, use the /p command.
This way, the flow of the main argument is not interrupted.  Personal gripes
should be conducted via this forum, instead of interrupting everyone else (got
that, EVERYONE!!?)    Note: don't send /p messages to the person currently
speaking, because it take his time to respond to you, and everyone else is
waiting for him to finish ... wait until he is done, and then send it, or if it
is a clarification, send it out openly, instead of by /p.

VI.  Do not idle for huge amounts of time.  Do an occasional /w command to see
who is still on, and to reset your idle time.  Idles of 10 minutes or more
imply that you have wandered off, and are not paying any attention.

VII.  Do not constantly exit/rejoin the haven, or send email to people involved
in the debate while it is on going.  Leaving/joining leads to lots of garbage
lines on the screen and makes in hard to follow what has been said.  On my
terminal, the notification of new mail writes OVER the last line of typing
received from someone else.  I know that it is good to shell out and send the
mail before you forget, but please instead just write a note to yourself, and
then send the mail after the tcon.

VIII.  Don't constantly bitch about your line wrap being off.  Ask once at the
start if Mark or someone is there who can help you.  After that, send a
reminder /p to the person in charge of speaking at that moment that your line
wrap is off, and to shorten the inputs.  Once again, this is to prevent a bunch
of garbage on everyone's screens.  Sometimes, you just have to PUT UP WITH IT!

Well, these are a good start, and I am sure Bill Blum and Mark Fister (who are
also haven veterans) can provide some more tips.  But please, lets try to make
the tcons work better by following these simple guidelines.
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