This is a re-cap of my monthy report to the RA.
First, on APPOINTMENTS:
All announced in the Executive Branch forum thread as usual. We have the benefit of our usual kind volunteers, thank heaven. I have not yet announced the reappointment of Brian and Rose as co-PIOs; they are (again, thank god) willing to continue to serve as well, but I plan to implement a title change and in one case a duties change.
1. I plan to change Brians' title slightly from PIO to CIO, that is, Chief Information Officer, which has a slightly broader meaning in business and seems better to suit his role. "CIO" is meaningful in a US business context - a nice title to have. Comments welcome to the forums. We'll announce it once it's finalized, after a little time to consider any comments.
2. Rose, thank heaven, also continues to be willing to serve in her many roles assisting CDS. I've asked her to take on a new one as well. She increasingly is finding assistance to run events, which helps, because she alreday has in fact been done much for us to develop new citizens. Essentially this has mutated into is a "development" job -- in part because our events are such a draw for new citizen prospects, as we'd hoped.
I might add that her "development" portfolio will not include sim expansion issues; for one thing,
that's my job; for another, she is the principal owner of Al-Andalus, so as we continue those talks she will be on "the other side".
This change will allow us with Rose's help to lift from Sudane a burden she's long found annoying, which is being our real estate seller, as well as treasurer. I believe you all know that I find it VERY important
that we have a fair, transparent real estate market. So, getting some more hands on deck there will matter. Also, as a sheer practical matter, Rose and I *already* are involved in most new citizen touches. If we have the land handy, to sell immediately, well, that will help. Likely we will create another Admin Avatar (like Guilda, Rudeen and MOCASo).
I also promised to get the land management software issue resolved, and am late on that; that'll also be a part of the improvements in this picture.
I see three options for Rose's title change: PIO does not really cover it. As discussed with the RA,
director of development (a little corporate, for us), chief development officer (or chief SOMETHING officer), or deputy chancellor for development (my preference, in the spirit of "deputy mayor for X" which municipalities often use).
Again, comments welcome to the forums. We'll announce it once it's finalized after a little time to for comments.
LAND:
You may have noticed that Locus Amoenus is almost fully sold; once again, our residential space is near capacity, except for some tough-to-sell space in Colonia Nova and a few random turnovers each month. As we've discussed, practically each new event brings prospects and often new citizens.
You will see that I announced and opened the bid process for our open commercial land at the end of last month. We'll see how the reduced-price plan (enacted by the last RA) for commercial land works, now that the SL "real estate market" has calmed down a little. I note that a number of estate sims now do deep discounts or in some cases sell new land for free, just to ensure that their monthly tier keeps coming in, So we will see how that market develops.
We've announced the availability of the first three parcels under this program. They are Pelanor's old corner Marktplatz lot in NFS, and Bruno's two Corda lots in CN. We will announce additional lots on the Forums as they are available.
It continues to be a very important issue to me that CDS offer new or reclaimed land in a fair way, so all interested parties have a chance. I have asked Rose to help with this in two stages -- one to develop a broker-like system so that we always have a visible queue for land opportunities, and the other in the final selection and installation of appropriate neutral software for self-help land purchases. See my comments about her proposed job responsibilities.
EVENTS:
Our first attempt at an inaugural ball was right on the heels of a Neufreistadt sim crash ... as the bumper sticker says, "stuff happens." So we had a fine but informal event, and invited people to come back for the Colonia Nova grand tour.
We enjoyed a successful return of the inter-estate Grand Tour in February. Our Alpine sims hosted a ski event, as the tour's first stop, and many CDS citizens and visitors enjoyed a new ski run -- which we'll talk about again later in this report. A second Grand Tour event, which also served as our inaugural ball mark 2, was hosted in the space renovated by Solomon Mosely on the old commercial site in Colonia Nova, very nicely decorated (thanks Sol). And thanks always to Rose for her matchless help with event administration.
The ski event, well, rocked. We have made some official and unofficial improvements to facilitate our ski runs. I expect to finalize our ski routes during March, for further use in future winter seasons ... and will post that map as well. We can have rousing community chats about stuff like:
- is the hill above cindy's AM house a death jump?
- should we keep a ski run over Pip's amphitheatre land?
- are you all appalled by the temporary bridge I put on the AM path?
Note that snow is "expected" to leave CDS on 15 March. This is the Alps, not Caledon :)
But we have a lot of ski fans, so let's get the public feedback
EVENTS BUDGET AND PROGRAM:
Last term we were extremely conservative, spending only 1/4 of our operating monthly surplus AFTER expenses, and I told the RA then that I expected to do more this term. And that has turned out as expected.
We spend (per our September 2008 RA chats) an average of about L$11000/month on event and culture programming. This is about a fourth of the funds available AFTER reserving at the level Sudane recommended. So for this term I plan to triple that (spend three-fourths of the surplus after reserves).
But actually, we hope it won't be the government doing it :) We plan to have CDS citizens do it .. as follows:
1. I plan to appoint a standing Culture and Art Council -- a permanent executive branch advisory group, not a limited-duration 'commission' of the kind defined in CDS law -- of at least 3 members, who will allocate event funds for cultural and art activities in CDS. Let some interested citizens (with appropriate conflict of interest rules) bring us the stuff they think suited, let's see if they can out-do Rose and I .. which would be great ... and I think they can. I will nominate members in March, and ask for suggestions from the community. We have a number of creatives here who would do a fine job.
2. I plan to give EACH sim (we have four) be given, through a simple consensus panel of landowners in that sim, a budget for LOCAL in-theme events. If CN and LA want more saturnalias, well, Godspeed. I think we will need to permit any and all of a sim's land owners to chat about what that sim wants. I expect that I will end up going to a bunch of horrid town meetings :D But that's consistent with our goals, which are to facilitate what makes our citizens happy.
While both of these methods will be essentially simple, town-meeting selfgovernance, on a limited topic, and NOT a big rule-laden formality, they still must be subject to administrative supervision. (in other word, Sudane and I still will get involve in sign-offs like we do today - a check on people paying themselves.)
3. We still will have a current budget for CDS-wide events, but some of the concerts and fun stuff we have done in the past can be "downstreamed", to the locals and specialists.
I might add that a local-control fund also would coincidentally probably solve the biggest single current concern of Al-Andalus residents about a merger -- which is retention of local control of programming of interest to them.
Regards JBC