OK, been stimulating to read more discussion in two days than the list has had
in months....
IF you make the ST competitors run during their respective Stock groups, AND
you eliminate the PAX'ing within ST, then it doesn't matter a whit whether it
rains / gets better /gets worse. They're not competing against other ST
folks, any more, just against each other. Whether that was carefully thought
out or not, it makes a ton of sense _IF_ S.T. is eliminated. If competition
between base classes is kept as some sort of ST overall ranking, then it's not
very fair to spread the competitors over the day, however.
I wasn't at the SC meeting, but I agree with some of the comments that few
readers here on the List, and presumably not many folks outside of the
Committee, even knew that this was an issue. Sure, balancing run groups is
always a problem, but generally there have been VERY few announcements
mid-year that groups are being reshuffled, there's just Chairs being told that
"the Groups do not balance today" and emergency action being taken: Combine
groups, or ask for volunteers to fill in work gaps. I did the latter fill-in
just last week.
So my point? That the SC announced this as 'fait accompli' and the discussion
here is a spectrum from those to whom change without consent is annoying at
best, to those who honestly disagree with the change, to after-the-fact
explanations of a poorly documented decision process. Maybe it's not a bad
decision, but I can't tell from here.
Certainly, if one is attending SC meetings, one has a maximized voice; but
don't call that democracy, Jerry! Sure, it's not a representative process
unless we get to give our opinions to a representative. But it's not one
member, one vote either. It's more like a city council meeting where only
those in the neighborhood affected show up to bitch, and few from the side of
"it's better for the City as a whole" will show. (Been there, done that.)
Democracy is when the Committee puts both sides on a ballot, and then the
Membership gets to vote on it. Not that this is always the way to go, just
making the point.
Whereas: ST was BIGGEST:
-Slush, 6 trophys, SIXTEEN people who qualified for trophies!
-And also the largest number (tie) of trophies in the regular season.
Therefore: ST is the largest "group" in the Region, on AVERAGE if not every
single event. The SC pretty much made a big difference in their next Season,
without any notice as far as I can tell.
Our decision-making process is disconnected, if not broken, when members at
large don't know what the issues are, that are going to be brought up at a SC
meeting. As one who's lived through most of a career in a large bureaucratic
environment, I believe that the principle of including those who:
are affected by a decision,
who are to some extent stakeholders in the outcome,
and giving them some sort of voice in said decision, is not a bad idea. I
don't believe that we need to go as far as the State has tried to go (Brown
Act?) with its legal disclosure requirement for agendas and openness. OTOH,
this particular decision is pretty far-reaching in terms of members who it
affects, and I am not aware of any way that ST participants could have known
that the issue was coming up as part of proposed solutions to the Run Group
Problem. Said problem not being one that someone who hasn't tried to lay out
a schedule, would have a clue about.
For a decision that affects this many, I suggest that it might be a good idea
to at a minimum announce it at the event, maybe right after Brian takes a few
minutes to congratulate himself on his noteworthy elevation to Regional
officer or whatever. Or put it out here on the ba-autox list, which although
not the official organ of the Chapter has a pretty wide exposure. You want to
get more people involved at the SC level? Let them know what is going to
happen there. "We're thinking of eliminating your class!" will get a lot of
attention.
PaulT
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