Election of a Head Coordinator for 2003
Open Votes
1. Cass Whittington
As many of you probably know, my grandfather, Robert Bashe, died Friday around 5:00 AM. I've spent the weekend thinking about him, and its proving difficult to get his death, and death in general, off my mind. However, this has led me to some insights, that work into what I've been thinking about OWbN recently, and I'm going to share what I've been thinking here.
In the middle ages, philosophers and scholars would often keep a human skull on their desks as a reminder to them that life was short. Its purpose was to draw them out of trivial thoughts and activities by continually reminding them of what their essential values and goals were. It was supposed to anchor them amidst life's distractions.
I think reminders like that are important in life, because the things that distract us from what's central are abundant in the world. Its easy to lose sight of goals, and to drift without any clear focus or intention at all. That wastes our time and our life.
This can happen to organizations too, and I believe that OWbN needs to have its focus drawn back to its core values, and work on clarifying those values much more.
In the last few months, I, as HC have had to break three ties. That's notable, because I don't think I broke more than two ties in my entire first year as HC. I think that, and the ferocity of the recent debate we've seen, point to a lack of consensus amongst chronicles.
It may not mean that we don't still share values across the majority of chronicles, however; I believe what it actually means is that we've lost sight of our shared goals to some extent, and to some extent that the goals and values we do actually share have changed from those we've held in the past.
I think the greatest and most vital challenge facing us in the coming year, is to examine and contemplate what we want our network to be---what we want our community to be. What do we, as a community care about? To what do we wish to give priority? What types of diversity do we value, and what do we view as harmful to the cohesiveness of our community? We need to work on answering these questions and formally clarifying them in a way that gives solid guidance to our future progress. If we won't do this, we leave our
future to chance.
I've decided to focus my "speech" on this necessity this year, because, even if I'm not re-elected, this is the one thing I want OWbN to know: this is what I feel we need most.
2. Rory Frederick
Many might ask why someone such as myself with little
experience in the administration aspects of our organization might want to run for an office such as
Head Coordinator. The answer to that is simple enough,
though.
I am interested in seeing solid changes in the
structure of this organization, especially in the ways
of accountability. We do not, for instance, have a clear and concise set of guidelines that define how genre Coordinators and STs are supposed to work with one another. Nor do we have a definition of what steps can be taken when either STs or Coordinators fail to abide by these terms.
We also have bylaws, which have many poorly worded
sections, and fragmented logic that I would like to see revised or removed. This will clear up many incongruities and redundancies within our most important set of "house rules."
It has been a project that was started some months ago, but has yet to see much in the way of application.
These are, I think, the most important things that need to be worked on over the year that can be anticipated by someone who is newly coming into the position. Anything else that comes up I will deal with on the best basis that I can.
As for experience, I don't think it's necessary to go into the details of what I have and have not done in this organization. People who know me and I know the views I have can answer their player's questions far better than I can.
I will say that I am a Storyteller in this organization, I am a Council Member in this organization, and I am a player in this organization.
Those are all the credentials I feel I need.