I coudn't find this in the forums so I thought I'd repost it. Sudane, as I understand it, is neutral about implementing this. I feel it has a great deal of merit. -Pel
[quote:2nr1bh5l]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neualtenburg
The Guild
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Constitution of Neualtenburg
Article II - The Artisanal Branch (aka The Guild, AC)
Section 1 - Artisanal Collective
The Artisanal Collective (AC) is group of productive citizens who provide revenue through sales and infrastructure support. Its governmental role is to act as treasury and its service role is to provide goods and infrastructure.
Section 2 - Artisanal Collective Body
The AC is open to all participant citizens provided they create goods and services for the city. The collective is a four-tier system of apprentices, journeymen, masters, and a guild master. Site specific names may be substituted provided roles remain the same.
Section 3 - Artisanal Collective Leader
Every election cycle the AC leader or guild master is chosen from the pool of masters. Votes of the masters are weighted by the size of their workshop. A vote using scores generated by Borda-count ranked votes are employed.
Section 4 - Powers of the AC
In regards to the Representative branch:
The leader of the AC may veto a revenue bill or resubmit a modified revenue bill for vote.
The leader of the AC can call an emergency session of the Representative branch.
The AC can seek impeachment of members of the Representative branch for failing to act with fiscal responsibility.
The leader of the AC sits as the leader of the Representative branch if the Representative branch seeks to impeach a member of the Philosophic branch.
In regards to Philosophic branch:
The Leader of the AC provides a vote of confidence on candidates to the Philosophic branch. This vote is in regards to their perceived likelihood to uphold the constitution.
The Leader of the AC can seek impeachment of members of the Philosophic branch for failing to uphold the constitution.
The leader of the AC sits as the leader of the Philosophic branch if the Philosophic branch seeks to impeach a member of the Representative branch.
Section 5 - Limitations of the AC
All goods produced by members of the AC remain property of the citizens and must remain with them if a member departs. Removal of an artisan of any rank can be achieved with a 2/3 vote of all members of the AC for any actions which endangers the goods or infrastructure of the organization.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Proposal for the Artisanal Collective structure as per Article II
The Guild as mandated in the Constitution is defined in terms of powers and limitations, but it is not implemented in terms of structure. This proposal strives to accomplish that. There are three clauses in the Constitutional wording which we will refer to the SC for clarification. Other than that, it is the intent of this proposal to comply fully with the substance of Article II.
It is our reading that, apart from the "governmental role" to fill the "Treasurer" function, the Guild is not primarily an administrative unit. While it may be the case that the Guild Master may be assigned various duties and responsibilities by the other elements of the government, it seems to us that the Guild is most clearly a mechanism for the benefit of its members, principally the Masters (ref Section 3). And, indeed, the Masters are the "commerce" of Neualtenburg.
Therefore, in the following proposal points, I have emphasized the primacy of the Masters, understood as the commercial interest, the commercial entity, of the City. I'll discuss these in the two parts indicated in the Constitution, in reverse order.
"... and its service role is to provide goods and infrastructure."
I trust it is uncontroversial to understand this phrase as including "services", as if to say, "... and its service role is to provide goods, services and infrastructure". I take this to mean that the Guild is the organizational entity representing all those producers of goods and services, provided in the daily course of their doing business. Of course, one recipient will be the City... one client, as it were. But there is no fundamental reason why the "City" client is any different from any other client with which the Guild member interacts in the course of doing business.
Section 1 *does* open with the phrase "The AC is a group of productive citizens who provide revenue through sales and infrastructure support". Thus, there is the question of "provide revenue". Of course, every citizen provides revenue. So, subject to contrary interpretation ( see "Clarifications" below ) we'll assume that the "provision of revenue" by the Guild members is contained within the requirement that every citizen remit their monthly fee for land occupied.
The phrase does include the words "... and infrastructure". We take this to mean that the Guild members not only include the production of infrastructure as among their generated output, but that they in fact provide the infrastructure for the entity of Neualtenburg. This interpretation suggests Guild members are "sole suppliers" of infrastructure. We'll assume this interpretation, but we'll suggest that it be broadly interpreted.
Sections 2 and 3 we interpret without additional comment (Section 3 has one detailed request for clarification, see below). Thus, the following operational structure, in implementation of its "service role", is proposed.
1) A Master of the Guild shall be each business owner, by requirement a citizen of Neualtenburg, and thus in compliance with the laws and covenants of Neualtenburg, who (1) registers or (2) incorporates that business according to the procedures established by the Business Procedures Working Group. These are not "appointed" positions, but rather are held "by right" for so long as the individual is in compliance with the indicated rules. In this context, "business", "house" and "workshop" shall have the same meaning.
2) Apprentices and journeymen, or whatever equivalent terms the Master may wish to apply, shall be appointed and promoted by the Master of the particular business in which they have requested to work.
3) Two or more Masters may join together as one business.
3a) A Master may own more than one business, and therefore be Master of more than one house, but this Master will still be considered a single "person" for the purposes of voting (although her/his "workshop" may be considered to be "bigger" as per Section 3 (see below, requests for clarification).
4) Any apprentice or journeyman, should they so desire, and find themselves with sufficient funds, may leave the relationship with a Master and form a new or other business, subject to the same rules of compliance.
5) In compliance with its special role "sole supplier" of goods and services needed by the City, the Guild Master will receive requests from the City for such services. The GM will supply in a generally accessible list, to all the Masters, all such requests that have been received from the City, and Masters will indicate they wish to perform such services. In the event that two or more Masters wish to perform the same service requested by the City, the GM will assign the work to one of them. It is understood that the GM will use equitable judgment in such assignments, and will seek an even distribution of City "contracted" services among all qualified Masters. (The GM is elected by the Masters at each election cycle, as set by the RA).
6) The Guild, as embodied in the "Assembly of Masters" (the entity which elects the GM, as per the Constitution) will be understood to have in its interest, and therefore as its responsibility, the preservation of the reputation of its houses, the quality of its services, the integrity of its business dealings, and its own self-promotion. Several of these responsibilities have already been initiated....
a) The function of the Chamber of Commerce has been identified and its first director as Kendra Bancroft. The intention in the formation of the CoC was to serve as the promotional effort of the Guild, promoting both the businesses of the Guild and also the City as a whole.
b) The Business Procedures Working Group (sorry, don't have actual name) has been establsihed and has laid the groundwork for the registry and incorporation process for each business. Standards have been set, and procedures set in motion for businesses compliant with NBurg law to form. It is anticipated that this group will develop compliance testing procedures as well.
c) Goods and services standards. This aspect of Guild function remains to be organized. It is anticipated that this group will devise quality standards for the goods and services provided by all NBurg businesses for the preservation of the desired "outside image" of NBurg. And that they will develop systems that ensure compliance. It should be noted that Section 5 of the Article provides for the "removal of an artisan of any rank... for any actions which endangers the goods and services of the organization".
"Its governmental role is to act as treasury ..."
The second function of the Guild is identified in this way. On first glance, this function seems to stand separate from the "primary" function of the Guild, which is to serve the interests of its component businesses, and the City as a whole. Here we have identified its governmental function.
We have described in some detail the duties and responsibilities of the City Treasurer/Estate Owner in another document. The reader is referred to that. "Proposal for the Office of the Treasurer and Estate Manager of the City of Neualtenburg.rtf". The intent here is to show how that function, and possibly one other one as well, integrate into the Guild structure and provide benefit to both the Guild and to the City as a whole.
City Treasurer, Estate Owner, and possibly City Bank, are specific services required by the City in order to function. The Guild functions to supply those services to the City. Each "position/function" is in a sense a component "house" of the Guild, so its leader/office holder/director is "owner" of that "house", and thus a Master. In the case of Treasurer and Estate Owner, these have been described as an office held by a single person. The "position/function" of Director of the City Bank (to be established, and therefore not yet defined), can be either the same or a different person. A different person is preferred.
The City Treasurer has a variety of responsibilities which are accountable directly to the RA, dealing with the budget of the City, the collection of taxes, and the payment of various outlays as approved by the RA. In addition, the Treasurer may be required to provide certain audit services by the Businesss Procedures Working Group. While the Treasurer, Estate Owner and City Bank are houses/Masters within the membership structure of the Guild, theirs, like all Masters, primary focus is the pursuance of their businesses and responsibilities within the framework of performance established by the Guild. They are not "accountable" to the GM. Rather, the GM is accountable to them.
Clarifications
The following three phrases are referred to the SC for clarification as needed to implement the Guild in full compliance with the Constittution.
1) Section 1. " ..... a group of productive citizens who provide revenue ...". As noted above, this phrase needs clarification. Does this phrase refer to the Covenanted duty of all citizens, who, by definition are land-owning, to "provide revenue" by paying their land taxes, or does this phrase establish some additional revenue producing requirement?
2) Section 3. "Votes of the Masters are weighted by the size of their workshop". In this context, what does the word "size" mean? While it could in good usage refer either to the number of people working in that business, or, to the total revenue generated by that business in a given period, it could also refer to nonsensical things like the m2 occupied by the business, or how many locations they had throughout the world. The strong recommendation is that this ambiguity be overlooked and that each Master be assigned the "size" of one.
3) Section 5. "All goods produced by members of the AC remain property of the citizens and must remain with them if a member departs." We would simply like clarification, since the phrase is not clear, that such "goods" refer to goods and services provided under contract or in some way on behalf of the City, and not to all goods and services provided by that business. The latter is nonsensical, but owing to the lack of clarity, the phrase should be clarified.[/quote:2nr1bh5l]
