[Board] URGENT README GERALD PENGUICON

[Eoghnved Mmrkuudnen]

On Nov 8, 2007 2:18 PM, Matt Arnold <matt.mattarn at gmail.com> wrote:
> Gerald,
>
> Sorry to label this as if it were an emergency, but it's genuinely
> important that you read this and respond.
>
> I've been hearing from Molly, Jer, Chuck, Allison, and others who are
> central and very active in Penguicon, about your lack of
> responsiveness to email during the past six months. Many people in the
> convention committee are starting to tell me that they go directly to
> me as if I were the Conchair, because I'll talk to them. I tried to
> discourage them from that, but they tell me that you don't answer, so
> they are increasingly giving up on looking to you for leadership.

The first thing we're going to have to do is have all currently open
requests sent again, to this address (Eoghnved at gmail.com) rather than
the other one.  The chair at penguicon.org address draws in 100 to 200
spam messages on the average day, and I usually only have time for a
quick scan of the headers before deleting each batch.  Since the
Penguicon address forwards to my other gmail account, I'll have to
start using this one for my primary communication channel.

> After I discussed this with Jer and Chuck, we've decided to approach
> you about this. We don't say this to disapprove of you, but to make
> you understand what Penguicon expects from the role of Conchair and
> the effect on the Concom's morale, with the confidence that we can fix
> this.
>
> Between now and the time when Chuck and I asked you to be Conchair,
> the circumstances of your life have changed. Because you were pressed
> for time and were no longer able to use a cellular uplink from your
> laptop, you have been functioning not as a driving force, but as a
> bottleneck for giving permissions. Pretty much every question or
> answer is late when it depends on you alone.
>
> It's understandable how this happened, but the solution is for you to
> put other people in charge of pieces of the leadership. Give them the
> budget, or give them the guests of honor candidates, or give them some
> aspect of your job that you look at and realize you aren't going to
> get to. When life circumstances prevent you from reliably doing
> something that must get done, has to happen, and cannot be allowed to
> fail, it means you have to delegate. You have a core team of energetic
> and motivated people who are ready and willing to take specific
> Conchair areas of authority off your shoulders when you can't finish
> them in a timely manner.
>
> Conchair duties are to make decisions, get commitments from other
> people that they will do things, clarify the more-or-less-exact scope
> of their authority and responsibility, and decisively resolve disputes
> between them. All of that is communication work.
>
> For instance, you should be asking Lady Sarah what she has
> accomplished as Head of Programming in all this time, and seriously
> asking yourself and the team whether to replace her with someone who
> has the availability and energy do that job.

I'll be going down the list and looking at multiple positions.  There
are a few positions in need of some work.

> Other tasks, like room parties, are not central to the Conchair job,
> and should be delegated. You have been doing a lot of bursts of work
> when you can, but so far as I can see, you're doing mostly physical
> on-the-ground labor. You need to spend the time learning about
> Penguicon's budget, GoHs, and organizational structure. Then hunt down
> knowledge about it which you don't have access to. I'm here for that,
> and so are a lot of people. Relentlessly ask people to give you the
> knowledge you need, or assign me or someone trusted, to get the
> knowledge. Then make decisions with that knowledge. Other tasks are
> good things to be done by somebody, but are not Conchair tasks.

It'll be easy enough for me to drop the Cafe Penguicon I had planned
for Midwest Furfest next week.  It's not too late to cancel that room
reservation.  That leaves just the one for ConFusion.  What you (Matt)
can do about this is to hit the mailing lists with requests for
someone to take on that job and get me a proposed plan to replace the
one I had.  If we're short of people for that, it's one more item that
can then be trimmed from the budget.

> The Board of Directors expects to see a draft budget from you on
> November 17. Jessica has been responsive and has been talking to us
> about meeting with you to get this budget work done. I gave her your
> phone number. Please respond about the status of it and when you plan
> to do it. We would be happy to be there and help. Please come to me,
> Jeremy, the Board of Directors, and others in your committed core team
> to ask us to do anything that would help you.

I am leaving for Midwest Furfest on Thursday, November 15.  The board
can expect to see the draft budget by that date for discussion at
their November 17 meeting.