mkhandr wrote:Hi Cindy--
Thanks for your facilitation of the meeting last Sunday. Being new to the way things happen in CDS and in the RA, I was wondering if it is possible to have some discussion on agenda items on this forum before RA meetings--and then also wondering if what is said, questioned or answered here can be linked to the minutes of the meeting--the recording? In other words, it might be helpful regarding time limits to allow this board to be a semi-official conversation. Maybe that already happens, and I am just stating the obvious, but if not, is this possible?
Thanks for all your good work as our Leader!
--Micael
Hi, Micael -- sorry for taking so long to answer this. I am out of town this week staying up way too late in an effort to cram three weeks of music and dance into just one 
So about the agenda and the relationship between the agenda, RA, and the forums. For the first meeting our agenda was mostly pre-determined: we had to get through the affirmations and the chancellor's election, and I squeezed Sudane's presentation in there because I thought it would be a helpful orientation for everyone. But that won't be the way it works on an ongoing basis. Anyone can propose an item for the agenda either by posting it to the forum in response to the LRA's request for agenda items (I will post the request early in the week before the meeting) or by dropping me a notecard. Obviously there is only so much time available, and we will have items that carry over from meeting to meeting and need to have priority. So I'll do my best to prioritize the requests I receive and either ask for them to be deferred (as I did with Sonja's request last meeting to add an "embassy update" to the business list), or have them brought up as new business.
One thing I am going to do a bit more consistently than we have in some past terms is ensure that before an item is placed on the agenda there is an RA member who is prepared to act as proponent for that item. For instance, Carolyn brought up at the last meeting the idea of an in-world system that could allow everyone to identify RA members and see when they are in world. As part of that discussion, she was asked to go take a look at specific tools that might be available. I expect that when she's had a chance to do that, she'll come back and request that a report on this be added to an upcoming agenda. Similarly with Sonja's request for an embassy update: I asked her to act as proponent, identify the "embassy opportunities" that are out there, and either find out the status and report to RA herself or arrange for Jamie (or whoever is involved) to report. If someone had an idea for a piece of legislation the process would be similar.
The forums play a key role in developing new ideas and possibilities that may eventually require RA action. Anyone can float an idea ("election reform" anyone?) and any citizen can weigh in on that idea on the forums. If it appears there is consensus in the community, I would expect that a proponent would develop a piece of legislation and propose it on the forum. Other RA reps (and citizens too) can then express their opinions, recommendations, etc. and the proponent can use that feedback to improve the legislation. By the time it comes in front of RA for discussion, hopefully many of the major issues have been resolved. We have time limits on discussion of any one item to help ourselves sense when an item is still in need of additional changes before a decision can be made. It makes no sense to vote down legislation because of one small flaw that could be negotiated to a better resolution, so better to recognize that more discussion is required and table the issue until the next meeting. Between meetings some discussion should take place on the forums, and hopefully a resolution will be reached that will allow us to use our RA time relatively efficiently.
That's my view of how these things interact, and I see that Sonja has posted related explanations. I'll be interested to see how we do with 13 RA members generating ideas for the community rather than just 7. If the way we've handled things in the past doesn't seem to be working properly we'll have to take another look and perhaps generate some new ideas on process.
Cindy
