Proposed changes to constitution for regionalisation

nzLARPS
#41

It won’t make much difference to the existing Wellington branch whether the national committee is the Auckland committee, or is a decentralised committee. I don’t see any need for caution on this, there is no risk. If the society just wants Aucklanders on the decentralised committee for the first year, it can just vote them in. But by passing the more flexible decentralisation motion now, it means that we don’t have to pass more motions later.

If a region gets the minimum 15 people together who want to form a branch, and there is some larp activity in the region, the national committee will probably okay it. So it’s just a question of numbers. It’s not really predictable, but personally I think the sooner the better.

Hamilton, being an example of a region with members and gear and events but no regional branch, raises an interesting question. Will the gear pool in Hamilton right now belong to the national society, or a branch? Where will the proceeds of games go? I think it might be best if not-quite-regional-branches like Hamilton belong to the national society, so that they can be more easily split into regional branches and gifted the gear they already have stored when they eventually form a branch. Their projects could be projects of the national society, rather than (for example) projects of the nearest branch. Their Regional Representative could manage their gear on behalf of the society in the meantime, so that there’s still no need for a national gear person.

For me, this also raises the question of winding up regional branches. We should add a clause saying that if a regional branch closes due to lack of membership or interest, the equipment and funds of that branch pass back to the national society. The national society could then decide whether the region can just have a Regional Representative again until such time as there is sufficient local interest to form a branch. Who decides when a regional branch must be wound up should also be covered.

A regional branch needs 15 people to incorporate, by law. That’s probably enough to get a 5 person committee. I’m not sure whether committee roles must be separate people, best to check the societies laws I posted in the “National body” thread for that.

#42

What’s your definition of a Regional Representative exactly?

I disagree. I think it’s better for a ‘satellite’ group to work with an existing regional committee - it means that the regional committee can feed them gear from its own pool, and talk to them about games and that all according to its regular schedule. (Basically, like what’s happening now with the Hamilton games working with the Auckland committee.)

Since you really want the national committee to be detached from gear pools and the minutiae of running games, in favour of working on issues of national interest, it seems silly to have build in all the administrative load of game running just for those groups. Also, practically speaking, you’re probably going to find that groups that start up in areas away from Auckland and Wellington are probably already going to have strong ties to one of the existing regional groups, anyway, so they’ll already have a working relationship.

#43

Dunno - it’s something the committee have defined in relation to Hamilton. I gather it’s the society’s contact person for Hamiltonian larpers, who also manages the gear pool there.

[quote=“Ryan”]I disagree. I think it’s better for a ‘satellite’ group to work with an existing regional committee - it means that the regional committee can feed them gear from its own pool, and talk to them about games and that all according to its regular schedule. (Basically, like what’s happening now with the Hamilton games working with the Auckland committee.)

Since you really want the national committee to be detached from gear pools and the minutiae of running games, in favour of working on issues of national interest, it seems silly to have build in all the administrative load of game running just for those groups. Also, practically speaking, you’re probably going to find that groups that start up in areas away from Auckland and Wellington are probably already going to have strong ties to one of the existing regional groups, anyway, so they’ll already have a working relationship.[/quote]

You may be right. My main concern with that approach is that when the region decides to form its own Regional Branch and break away from its parent branch, it needs to be able to do so cleanly and retain its gear pool and presumably some of its project earnings. It seemed to me that the national society would part with a break-away branch more easily than a “parent branch”, because the national society is not running games. And again, from a perception perspective I wonder if Christchurch and Dunedin would really want to fall under the Wellington branch until they grow enough to form a branch.

Also, as Bryn pointed out, will the Wellington committee want to have the whole South Island under it? That’s not what a regional branch committee have necessarily signed up for.

#44

In a sense, larps in new areas that don’t have a regional branch fall between the cracks (both under a decentralised model and under the Auckland-in-charge model). The national committee is perhaps intended for for national administration (not event running or gear pooling) and therefore not suitable, as you say. But equally, the regional branches are intended specifically for running larps in their own city, and therefore not suitable either, as I just pointed out.

On balance, given that there are pros and cons on both sides, I’d be inclined to give the job of managing projects and gear in new areas to the national society, because it seems to me that encouraging the growth of larp in new regions falls more under the remit of the national society than the regional branches, which are more about maintaining and growing larp in their own city and towns immediately around it.

I think that the funds for such projects in new areas could come from the national budget (and be repayed, as usual), and the gear could be funded from the event budgets and stored in the new areas by a local society representative, as has been in the case in Hamilton. In terms of added work for the national society’s committee, it would only be a matter of signing off event budgets, and I think this could be done online. Such projects would have to be approved remotely no matter what, it’s not like a project organiser in Christchurch can be present at Wellington committee meetings to put their event budgets forward.

#45

Sorry, I’ve tried to read all this, but all I see is a wall of words. I struggle to absorb lengthy text in any meaningful way. Am I correct that we’re effectively looking at two options, the first a kind of hierarchy, the second, more like set theory?

I personally think the second works better, because nowhere falls through the cracks. The definition for the areas that the nzlarps committee covers effectively all the areas in Aotearoa that aren’t covered by a specific regional group. It also means we have one less committee and probably one less bank account.

#46

In terms of the two big options that the committee wants to put to the SGM, those diagrams don’t really describe them.

The option that I proposed in the first post of this thread is what’s being called decentralisation. Basically, there is NZLARPS and there there are a number of branches, each of which is a legally incorporated entity. It’s like your right diagram, but with an Auckland circle inside the NZLARPS circle. What Steph has just suggested may be slightly different (Hamilton might be inside Auckland until it becomes a branch), but it’s still similar to that.

The other option, which I think is a bad idea, is essentially making the Auckland committee also be the national committee. That’s not really represented in either of your diagrams, although perhaps it what you meant by the second option (the Venn diagram). To truly represent it, you’d have “NZLARPS/Auckland” instead of just “NZLARPS” as the parent set in the diagram. Auckland would dominate it for the foreseeable future, so it’s misleading to depict it as a generic body. It would be almost entirely made up of Aucklanders, with a committee almost entirely voted in by Aucklanders, and would spend most of its time dealing with Auckland-based larps. Calling it something other than Auckland wouldn’t change that fact that it would, in practice, be Auckland, plus a small amount of activity in other locations.

Fundamentally, if Wellington can benefit from having its own regional branch voted in solely by its local membership and dealing solely with local issues, why can’t Auckland benefit in the same way?

#47

[quote=“Derek”]Sorry, I’ve tried to read all this, but all I see is a wall of words. I struggle to absorb lengthy text in any meaningful way. Am I correct that we’re effectively looking at two options, the first a kind of hierarchy, the second, more like set theory?

…(image)

I personally think the second works better, because nowhere falls through the cracks. The definition for the areas that the nzlarps committee covers effectively all the areas in Aotearoa that aren’t covered by a specific regional group. It also means we have one less committee and probably one less bank account.[/quote]

Actually both options imply a sort of hierarchy, it’s just that in one of them NZLarps and NZLarps:Auckland are synonyms The hierarchy is implicit in Wellington being a branch of NZLarps, and not really anything to do with either of the options presented. Another way to view the two options:

Option A
vs
Option B

…and alternatively, Option A as hierarchical:

In either model a group who isn’t big enough to be their own entity can be covered by either the parent branch or the closest branch.

#48

[quote=“Adrexia”]Option A

Option B

[/quote]
From what I understand and from what came through in the AGM and proposals so far…

On a basic level, Yep

In One, the national commitee only deals with national stuff and is seperate from the regional commitees. So no one region has more “power” in the national commitee than another, but this leads to a national committee being based nation wide and having to conduct business by correspondence (net or something).

In the other the regional commitee of one of the regions (doesn’t have to be auckland could be hokitika or where ever and could even change when we wanted by vote) acts as the national commitee so that the national committee is all based in one city, meaning national commitee meetings are able to be conducted in person.

#49

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]Also, as Bryn pointed out, will the Wellington committee want to have the whole South Island under it? That’s not what a regional branch committee have necessarily signed up for.[/quote][shrug] It doesn’t have to be Wellington - it could just as easily be Auckland, or if Hamilton incorporates, them as well, and would probably be just as likely determined by who has the strongest ties to the people in the new region rather than straight geography. What we’re talking about here is providing starter gear, the use of a bank account, and advice on running games. And presumably it’s to cover situations where a group is too small (or new) to incorporate itself, so it oughtn’t be a huge workload, because as the regional group grows in size and complexity it would probably want to incorporate as a regional centre in its own right.

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]My main concern with that approach is that when the region decides to form its own Regional Branch and break away from its parent branch, it needs to be able to do so cleanly and retain its gear pool and presumably some of its project earnings.[/quote]You could, if you like, set it up so the regional society acts as a manager, and gets money paid to it by the national society to cover the fair cost of donated gear to the new group, plus starter funds. It just seems silly to me to set up a national committee that doesn’t manage its own games so it can focus on national level stuff, except when it does. Or have it maintain its own special gear pool that doesn’t get used for anything but be around to gift to a hypothetical new group, who we won’t the needs of until they show up and become unhypothetical.

#50

Dunno - it’s something the committee have defined in relation to Hamilton. I gather it’s the society’s contact person for Hamiltonian larpers, who also manages the gear pool there.[/quote]Maybe change the name to Subregional Rep to avoid confusion with our new term of Regional Committee? Eep. This is making my head hurt.

#51

Regarding Derek’s concern about places falling through the cracks…

Am I correct that the concern is that members of NZLARPs who are not in a particular region may be disadvantaged?

The way I see it is that any NZLARPs member is primarily a member of NZLARPs. With the region they are in being slightly secondary. Any member, no matter where they are, has access to the usual resources that any other member has. At least as far as information, resources and advice goes. Physical items are more problematic.

Assuming that a LARPing group wants to affiliated with NZLARPs in some way, it seems best to put them in touch with the closest group to them.

As an example: If in the short term some people in the South Island wanted to become affiliated with NZLARPs, then perhaps they would start off being in the Wellington Region…

However, this shouldn’t be required. I see no problem with a non-regionalised group of people asking for NZLARPs help in running a LARP. If there is money left over, then that could simply go to NZLARPs as an organisation. It’s a little bit more money for NZLARPs. And when there are enough people in that area, they could form a Regional Branch.

None of this needs to go in the constitution. But best practices should be documented.

#52

[quote=“Cameron”]
In the other the regional commitee of one of the regions (doesn’t have to be auckland could be hokitika or where ever and could even change when we wanted by vote) acts as the national commitee so that the national committee is all based in one city, meaning national commitee meetings are able to be conducted in person.[/quote]

This would be impossible without setting up NZLarps:Auckland as a specific entity. What you are describing here is a system where the NZLarps committee is piggy-backed onto a regional committee (and members could vote for what region would host NZLarps for a given term). It’s not the same thing as being the same financial/legal entity. It’s just option B, with an added clause about annual committee members all needing to be from the same place in any given year. Is this really what option A is?

Also, would everyone vote in this committee (effectively replacing a local committee), or would the committee be a local appointment that was then voted in by NZLarps members as a whole?

#53

After some consideration and discussion, Diatribe has taken the following action in response to the original contents of the above quoted posted: User Xcerus has been issued a formal warning for his behaviour. If he repeats the behaviour by making another personal attack, he will be subject to a two week ban from the forums. Another attack after that will may result in a permanent ban.

It is made abundantly clear on Diatribe that this is not a place for personal attacks and hateful abuse. Discussion and debate is encouraged, but everybody is expected to remain civil.

#54

After some consideration and discussion, Diatribe has taken the following action in response to the original contents of the above quoted posted: User Xcerus has been issued a formal warning for his behaviour. If he repeats the behaviour by making another personal attack, he will be subject to a two week ban from the forums. Another attack after that will may result in a permanent ban.

It is made abundantly clear on Diatribe that this is not a place for personal attacks and hateful abuse. Discussion and debate is encouraged, but everybody is expected to remain civil.[/quote]

Adam, you were clearly out of line in the post you made before, and you are lucky you didnt get banned from the site. Regardless of your opinion for the changes that Ryan is suggesting, you have no right to swear at any person and attack them personally.

#55

After some consideration and discussion, Diatribe has taken the following action in response to the original contents of the above quoted posted: User Xcerus has been issued a formal warning for his behaviour. If he repeats the behaviour by making another personal attack, he will be subject to a two week ban from the forums. Another attack after that will may result in a permanent ban.

It is made abundantly clear on Diatribe that this is not a place for personal attacks and hateful abuse. Discussion and debate is encouraged, but everybody is expected to remain civil.[/quote]

Adam, you were clearly out of line in the post you made before, and you are lucky you didnt get banned from the site. Regardless of your opinion for the changes that Ryan is suggesting, you have no right to swear at any person and attack them personally.[/quote]

I didn’t swear at any one nor did I attack any one personally.

#56

[quote=“Xcerus”]

I didn’t swear at any one nor did I attack any one personally.[/quote]

This is the last post Im going to make in this forum because it’s off topic and the discussion here is very important, but Adam do you seriously believe you weren’t attacking Ryan personally in the post you made? If you have it saved somewhere you should reread it.

#57

#58

Roll on the SGM then - it seems like were getting an idea of how things would work for us

  • Decentralisation, in that Auckland should form it’s own branch under the NZLARPS umbrella. The catch here is that it will take the majority of the current NZLARPS resources with it, gear/accounts/etc. It seems that even with this move, the first NZLARPS committee will be formed largely by the Auckland committee, which personally I think is a good foot to start with but I do agree with Ryan that perhaps setting ourselves up for a bit more flexibility in the long term is the way to go.

  • All members subs are to go to the NZLARPS pool for national endeavours, website, forums, advertising - and even national projects as they arise. Surplus funds could be redirected as seen fit by the national body.

  • LARP groups wishing to join NZLARPS but unable/unwilling to set up their own regional branch could fall under the nearest branch for funding etc, similar to how Hamilton operates under Auckland right now.

  • To that end; gear, while falling to the local branches for building and maintenance, overall would belong to the whole of NZLARPS, would it not? At the moment, the Hamilton gear library certainly does, and gear from it has been brought along to Auckland based games for exactly that reason. If not, and it is to belong to the regional groups instead, then the gear currently based in Hamilton should be considered part of the Auckland gear library until Hamilton forms it’s own branch. New branches breaking away would need some sort of financial “seeding” - an allotment of gear and props for running games would surely fall into that category, and it may be this comes either from a parent branch or from the national body.

  • Projects/project approval would be managed by the national body. I don’t know why, but this seems like the best idea - in my mind, it means any project can run a game with the assistance of any single regional group, and/or with the help of the national body itself. Best practice here would be that any regional office that supports them for a given event or whatever, also gets the profit. Maybe this doesn’t need to be part of the constitution, or maybe it should be scaled down so that the regional branches do t but with national committee input.

Anything missed?

#59

Yes, a lot of the gear and funds will have to go to Auckland because they have been gathered from Auckland projects. I think that technically, at the time when the Auckland branch is formed it won’t have anything. Then the national society will have to gift it an appropriate allotment: all of the gear stored in Auckland (apart from the printer and any other national office stuff), and probably all of the funds in the account apart from this year’s take of membership fees. The national society will also have to officially give various Auckland-based projects to Auckland.

Personally, I still think that unless a new group is geographically close to an existing branch, it should operate under the national society until it’s ready to be a branch. I think it is part of the strategic mandate of the national body to help larp in new areas, not that of regional branches which should be concerned with larp in their own region. However, I agree that it doesn’t need to be in the constitution, we can try various arrangements and see what works.

I see it belonging to the local branches. Or at least, being under their control so it cannot be taken from them. Again, that gear and funds has been raised from the efforts and contributions of local larpers, and should be to their benefit. They should be able to gift or loan it to other branches if that suits them, but it shouldn’t be taken from them. If a local branch closes, then the gear and funds should go back to the society - we should make that clear in the constitution. The regional branches need to have a sense of self-governance to work.

Personally I’d be inclined to have Hamilton larp directly under the national society, not under Auckland. But that wouldn’t stop the gear being shared between Auckland and Hamilton if those controlling it wish to. I think that seeding for new branches can come from the national society (it can be one of the purposes of surplus membership fees) and from gifts from regional branches. Probably that seeding will come even before a branch is formed, as with Hamilton.

I have to disagree very strongly with this. It would essentially take the main source of local authority out of the hands of the regional branches, and put it in the hands of a national committee that would then have to rubber-stamp every single project in every region, which would remove the local agility that comes from fully empowering local branches and cause a beaurocratic bottleneck. Decentralising is about devolving authority so that the people closest to the action can take responsibility and make decisions, which allows the society’s activities to grow without having to pass through the bottleneck of the central committee.

If everything had to pass through the national committee, the advantages of decentralisation would largely be lost. We should plan for the future we desire: when there is too much activity across multiple regional branches for the national committee to possibly follow it all, let alone try to exert authority over it.

I think that regional branches should have complete authority over projects that run under them. The national society will have complete authority over all other projects, like Diatribe and projects running in areas that do not have regional branches. All the local branches will report their activity (in minutes from their meetings), so the national body can scrutinise regional activity without impeding it.

#60

I have to disagree very strongly with this. It would essentially take the main source of local authority out of the hands of the regional branches, and put it in the hands of a national committee that would then have to rubber-stamp every single project in every region, which would remove the local agility that comes from fully empowering local branches and cause a beaurocratic bottleneck. Decentralising is about devolving authority so that the people closest to the action can take responsibility and make decisions, which allows the society’s activities to grow without having to pass through the bottleneck of the central committee.

If everything had to pass through the national committee, the advantages of decentralisation would largely be lost. We should plan for the future we desire: when there is too much activity across multiple regional branches for the national committee to possibly follow it all, let alone try to exert authority over it.

I think that regional branches should have complete authority over projects that run under them. The national society will have complete authority over all other projects, like Diatribe and projects running in areas that do not have regional branches. All the local branches will report their activity (in minutes from their meetings), so the national body can scrutinise regional activity without impeding it.[/quote]

Ok, so what happens when a project from Auckland wants to run an event in Wellington, for the enjoyment of Wellingtonians? It seems illogical to have the Auckland based larp operate through the Auckland branch when it will be run using Wellington gear, attended by Wellingtonians, and any coin that would benefit the Wellington coffers doesn’t end up there.

My understanding of this regionalisation thing is that regional committees will manage what’s happening n their region. Run games, generate fuss, woohoo. Projects, regardless of the locale, to my mind are national no matter what and should always be to the benefit of the society as a whole, just as the regional committees should be reporting back/answerable to the national body - isn’t that the point of the national body? To oversee the regions? While autonomy in running games and local advertising etc is definitely the way forward, there has to be a point where the national committee can step into any region - Auckland included - if it looks like things are going sour in any way. Perhaps complete veto is extreme, but surely a modicum of input?

I don’t mean to offend anyone with negative or disparaging implications, but the fact is sometimes bad calls happen, road to hell and all that, and the last thing we want is a region suffering because noone intervened at the right time.

Or am I just worrying too much and need to shut up?