Current Policies of Carolingia can be found here: https://carolingia.eastkingdom.org/baronial-policies/
Proposed Amendment #1:
Change “autocrat” to “event steward” in all instances, to achieve consistency with the recent overall change in EK Law and with the Barony’s Financial Policy.
Proposed Amendment #2:
Financial Policy should be capitalized throughout the Policies document, as referring to a specific named policy document.
Proposed Amendment #3:
Revised Language:
Section IV.C.
“Prospective autocrats event stewards shall submit or present a “proposal” for the event to the Great Council and a budget to the Finance Committee for consideration. A site contract for the event may not be signed until the proposal has been approved by the Great Council and at least a preliminary the budget reviewed and accepted approved by the Finance Committee.”
The Financial Policy, section 15.a., specifies that the Finance Committee must *approve* the event budget for the proposed event to become official, so the Policies wording should not imply otherwise.
Proposed Amendment #4: – WILL BE RANKED CHOICE VOTE
Reconsidering a structural irregularity — In last year’s Policies review, the Barony’s Great Council approved a pair of changes that should be revisited and resolved.
When I prepared last year’s Policies document revision* for publication on the barony’s website I didn’t include either of these in the final document because there was no indication of where in the Policies they were intended to reside; and after several months of intermittent back-and-forth (we were both managing too many projects) I recommended to Aaradyn that the updated Policies be published as-is and we’d figure out those last lines at some point, which we then didn’t manage to get back to.
I think we could resolve this by choosing one of the options, or choosing both and combining them, or choosing to not have this wording in the Policies.
Option 1: Add to Section VI. Policies Amendments
1a – “I. Carolingia has a Financial Policy. Non-administrative changes to the Financial Policy require approval of the Finance Committee.”
*OR*
1b – “I. Carolingia has a Financial Policy. Non-administrative changes to the Financial Policy require approval of the Great Council.”
*OR*
1c – “I. Carolingia has a Financial Policy. Non-administrative changes to the Financial Policy require approval of the Great Council and the Finance Committee.”
Option 2: Make no changes; don’t add any wording in the Policies to address Financial Policy revisions.
A relevant note: Adding wording into the Policies that attempts to control the Financial Policy is always subordinate per FP section 18.a. so FP section 8.b. (which commits to “discussion” but not GC “approval”) will override any GC action.
(https://carolingia.eastkingdom.org/baronial-policies/ and scroll down to the Financial Policy, or
https://carolingia.eastkingdom.org/wp-content/uploads/Financial-Policy-Carolingia-2023.pdf)
Within the present structure, the only way to achieve a commitment for GC approval of any type of change to the Financial Policy is to include the appropriate wording in the Financial Policy itself. I’m not proposing here any change to the Financial Policy; that’s an entirely separate matter.
*(Background note: I’ve been the revisions editor for the Carolingia By-laws/Policies document since the Sept 2015 edition. After the GC votes on revision proposals, I update the document I have, resolve any ambiguities with the Seneschal, create the pdf, send the updated master doc and the pdf to the Seneschal for file, and either the Seneschal or I send the edits to the Webminister to update the barony’s website. I volunteered while Margreta was Seneschal, since the work is comfortably within my skill set and it’s one less task for the Seneschal, and I’ve just kept on…)
Proposed Amendment #5:
Proposed Change to Section VI.B.1
Current Wording:
“If the wording of the amendment changes during the discussion at the Great Council meeting where the proposed amendments are distributed, the revised wording is due to the Seneschal no more than 24 hours after that meeting ends.”
Revised Wording:
B. The proposed amendment will be published on the website and via official channels within three calendar days of promptly following the Great Council meeting where the proposed amendments are distributed.
1. If the wording of the amendment changes is revised during the discussion at the Great Council meeting where the proposed amendments are distributed, the revised wording is due to the Seneschal no more than 24 hours after that meeting ends.
2. If the wording of the amendment is revised after the Great Council meeting where the proposed amendments are distributed, the revised wording is due to the Seneschal no more than one week after the meeting ends.
2 3. Discussion on the amendment will take place at the Great Council meeting where the proposed amendments are distributed and after Council on the Barony email list.
3 4. There will be time allotted for discussion and final questions before the vote at the next scheduled Great Council meeting
Reasoning:
Rewriting and possible negotiation of a change should be given more than 24 hours. The window is too small as we assume a working populace with a life that may not allow such extra work within a 24 hour period. A week guarantees a weekend and still time for distribution and discussion of the update wording.
Proposed Amendment #6:
Proposed Change to Section VI.G
Add the following text: The seneschal may allow amendments outside of the annual period. These would follow the same basic timeline of publication, review and voting as per the annual period.
Reasoning:
While we don’t want to have constantly changing policies, we should have an open avenue to clarify and improve these policies at any time rather than being strictly constrained by the traditional annual review period. Note: This does not compel the seneschal to do so, but rather makes clear that they have the agency to do this.
Proposed Amendment #7:
Section VII: Baronial Orders
Remove the “History” section from each order.
Reasoning:
This is a policy document not a historical record. Such history should be kept by the historian or herald, not tracked in policy.
Proposed Amendment #8:
IV. Events
H. Each Event Steward shall compose a general report about their event by the second Great Council meeting after the event takes place. Copies of this report should go to the Seneschal and the Historian. This report should cover matters of interest to the Council or to future Event Stewards, which may include information about the site, planned activities, the schedule, publicity, how it all worked, and how any problems were dealt with.