[Ponte Alto] A humble suggestion re: fundraising

[Mary Bowles]

Thanks Luce,
 
I will put this on the docet. Please remind me populace as you know how my situational althimer's kicks in when I'm having to think. :)
 
See you at the business meeting April 24th.
 
YIS,
Lady Maria-Therese de Normand
Seneschal, Ponte Alto

egeorges <egeorges at cox.net> wrote:
Yes, a lot of inbox space is being taken up with the fundraising issue, but
I'm going to add a little bit here in the interests of (hopefully) bringing
this conversation full circle and to a productive place.

If there are issues out there concerning how fundraising was handled at
Bloodbath they should be dealt with. My suggestion here is regarding the
manner in which they should be dealt with.

This Barony has spent the last few years working very hard to create an
atmosphere where people's enthusiasm is encouraged, where people feel
included in decisions, where people feel welcome and where every member
feels valued and part of what we as a Barony are doing. We have made a hell
of a lot of progress on that front, and I think most of you would agree that
this Barony has gained much from that effort.

Nothing would be more detrimental to that progress than a discussion on a
controversial issue that contains fingerpointing, recriminations or blame.
I'm not saying that that has happened yet. But given the high emotion
involved with the issues here, we all must be careful. Just sayin'.

That said...

As much as Bloodbath was a resounding success, no event is ever perfect.
Putting on a event of any size, even a small one like Bloodbath, is no mean
feat, and despite all the hard work an autocrat and their staff do,
sometimes things happen. As such, any time we have an event there are
always lessons to be learned, things that we would do differently had we had
the opportunity, things we know now that we didn't know then that will
benefit us in the future.

My suggestion is this: Rather than have a very emotional and extremely
unproductive conversation about people's motives and feelings and actions
that are past and therefore done, let's have a different conversation
instead -- a conversation (hopefully at the next Barony meeting which
hopefully anyone with an interest in this WILL attend) where we discuss the
"lessons learned" from Bloodbath -- highlighting the things that worked and
the things that maybe we could have done better. That conversation will
hopefully keep everything in perspective, allow any issues that are out
there to get heard, and assure that we as a Barony thrive from this
experience, rather than become divided over it.

I bring this up now on the list, because as important as such a discussion
will be, and as much as I would like to participate, I will be in Chicago at
Passover Seder during our next Baronial Business Meeting. So I won't be
able to participate. I have nothing really to say substantively about the
matter, but I do have this to say: Stuff happens. Feelings get hurt. This
is usually purely unintentional. The best thing for all of us is to learn
and grow and get better from the experience. If we keep focused on that as
we discuss this, we as a Barony will benefit. If we lose sight of that, we
will all suffer for it.

My 2 cents, FWIW. Take it to heart or use it to line your birdcage. I
leave it up to you.

In Service,

Luce Antony Venus



_______________________________________________
Ponte-Alto mailing list
Ponte-Alto at atlantia.sca.org
http://seahorse.atlantia.sca.org/mailman/listinfo/ponte-alto


		
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://seahorse.atlantia.sca.org/pipermail/ponte-alto-atlantia.sca.org/attachments/20050329/699f31cb/attachment-0005.htm>