pennsicdance: An Apology

[Greg Lindahl]

> But one of the things hanging over them is the idea that they have no
> sure sense of *say* in how things gets done.

Tibicien,

This past year, I didn't turn down anyone for anything. All the
teachers got to say how their classes were taught. Nightly
coordinators got a sheet suggesting some things, but could run their
night however they wished. The evening party organizers did their own
things. Adele received advice on the floor from me and Philip, but did
whatever she wanted.

It *is* true that I turned down Zhenya's offer to pick the Pennsic
Ball dances next year. That was because he wanted to radically change
what was on the Ball, and I don't think the community wants the Ball
to go back to being one-sided.

Empowering volunteers is a very important thing. Democracy often works
against that. Octavio volunteered to do something next year. I bet
he's pretty embarrassed by the discussion that happened after he
volunteered. Another way that democracy works against volunteers is
that the voting usually doesn't take into account who volunteers more
-- and thus democracy often works against empowering volunteers.

And finally, we can vote all we like, and the Pennsic event people
will still undemocratically pick whoever they want to run dance. Don't
blame me for stating that fact.

> Then when we got on the list, Greg told us
> that, essentially the decisions we made were null and void (I'm not
> sure that Greg realizes that is what his post meant to us).

I certainly didn't mean that. I just looked through the meeting
minutes and don't see a single thing I made null and void. OK, I did
say that I didn't think we needed more chairs, but that's an opinion,
not a decision.

By the way, the 2nd hour of beginner classes every day comes from a
suggestion at the Pennsic 30 meeting. The extra days of Ball Prep come
from a suggestion at the Pennsic 30 meeting. The attempt to fix
"center set syndrome" came from a suggestion at the Pennsic 30
meeting.  If I looked over the notes for that meeting, I'd probably be
able to come up with more examples.

This is the 3rd time you've raised the democracy issue. I don't think
it has resulted in much constructive discussion the previous two times.

-- Gregory Blount