Re: Brochure - Potential Change

DCR,

I applogize if you felt I had any intention of leaving you out. I assure you that I did not and nor did anyone else that attended the 8/24 meeting.

Following the 8/24 meeting Sycamore did a real good job of sumarizing what was discussed in our over 2 hour long meeting. I have my doubts if you read the "Meeting Feedback" post that she made on 08/26/02, but maybe you did. By no means do I consider you a "paper member" as several of us can vouch for you. This issue was discussed during the meeting because it was proposed that we vote via this website and I reflected the issue that you raised that we did not want fictitios people voting or one person voting under several names. For that reason we discussed that it would be best to discuss improtant issues that require the 2/3 rule in person and after anouncing the meeting and agenda where notified two weeks in advance. However we have not even addressed the list of those issue yet. I agree with Naked Man that we will end up with some system of proxy votes, but we are not there yet.

I would like to repost the last part of Sycamores' coverage of the Decision-Making Method. "Of course, we did decide that really big decisions such as a change in name or Mission Statement should be decided by the full membership body. We also discussed the fact that our decisions at this meeting could not fall under that rule unless the full membership body agreed, so we will need feedback from those who could not attend."

This does not apear to be the statement of a group that is trying to exclude anyone. On the contrary, one of the reasons it took us so long to come up with a name was because I was extremely careful to avoid alienating anyone and keep the process as democratic and transparent as possible.

At that meeting six of the potential members of this group agreed to the wording of the brochure I presented to them with only minor changes. After the meeting Naked Man sent me the wording that I reposted at the begining of this thread as I felt it was better than mine but wanted the rest of those that attended to agree. The only reason I asked for the input only of the people that attended, is that they had the original to compare to.

I did not mean to exclude anyone. On the contrary, after the meeting I posted the P.O. Box the group asked me to open and assked anyone that wanted to receive a copy to send me a self addressed envelope. To this day I have not received a single request. If you wanted a copy why did you not take me up on my offer? In my recent post regarding the Group Update I repeated this offer and threw in an email I set up for this purpose at naked Man's suggestion. So far I have not received a request from you at this email address either. Even up above when you ask me to email you a copy you do not give me your email address. Please give me your email and I will be delighted to email you a copy.

Finally, at this time we don't have any members. In the Group Update post I request those that which to participate to complete and send in this form. The point is for now we are still considering everyone's opinion, so the decisions are not limited to only members as we have no official members yet. However at some point I think we will need to decide when and which decisions will be based on the opinions of only registered members.

Please read the post following up to the meeting and share your opinions on what was discussed, that way we will know you are still with us on this and don't feel left out. Welcome back to the discussions and look forward to continuing working with you as part of the group.