1.The clause wherein the Members of the Council shall serve as princeps for one season, on a rotating basis, is removed, to be replaced by:
2.The Council of Magi shall elect members of the council to serve the following offices:
The Princeps shall chair meetings of the Council, serve as the face of the Covenant in Hermetic affairs not covered by other Officers, and handle any matters not falling under the purview of other Officers.
The Imperator is charged with the development, maintenance and enhancement of the Covenant's armed forces. The Imperator is also tasked with the development of strategies to safeguard the populace of the Covenant, including Members.
The Scutatius is charged with the design, use and acquisition of the Covenant's magical defenses, including the acquisition of lab texts and items to be used for the Covenant's security and suggesting projects for the members of the Council to enhance the Covenant's security.
The Villicus shall be in charge of the covenant's relationships with mortals without the Covenant (including, but not limited to, craftsmen and traders, nobility, and the Church) and with the mortals associated with or inhabiting the Covenant.
The Aedilis is charged with the oversight of magical resources, including harvesting, storing, and maintaining an inventory of the Vis stores, is in charge of any and all enchanted items that belong to the Covenant, and shall maintain a listing of any members' personal enchanted items that they have volunteered for the Covenant's use, if needed.
The Diocetes shall be in charge of the Covenant's mundane resources, including buildings, livestock, crops, and any other items not magical in nature.
Each Officer shall be elected by a majority vote of the Council, and shall serve so long as he is a member in good standing of the Council, save where he is removed by a unanimous vote of the Council. The Officer may serve as long as he wills, subject to the previously-mentioned restrictions, and may resign his office at any time, by notifying the Council of his resignation.
An Officer of the Council shall name at least one other member of the council to serve as his Deputy to make the performance of his duties go more smoothly, and to act as a temporary Officer in case of the Officer's absence or incapacitation (including Twilight).
No Member of the Council may be forced to hold a particular office (as officer or deputy) against his will.
((For some reason, I thought I could create a poll here...guess not. Anyway, here's a discussion of the proposed amendment, and a place for the magi to vote on it once it gets finalized. I'll make changes to the amendment here so we have it all in once place.))
"... save where he is removed by a unanimous vote of the Council." Presumably we should mean something like "unanimous other than the vote of the officer being removed"? Otherwise a maga could simply veto her own removal.
Suppose Maga A were an officer, and 3/4 of the Council came to believe that Maga B would be better suited for that office; but there were still 2 or 3 people who prefer Maga A to Maga B in that role. Under the proposed amendment, there would be no way to replace Maga A with Maga B, save for Maga A voluntarily retiring. Is this a desired feature? Perhaps so, if it forces either consensus-building or convincing Maga A.
Maybe move "No Member of the Council may be forced to hold a particular office against their will." to after the line about Deputies, and change it to: "No Member of the Council may be forced to hold a particular office (as Officer or Deputy) against [strike]their[/strike] his will." (Might as well be consistent with grammatically sexist pronouns )
Similarly, "... Deputies to make [strike]their[/strike] the performance of [strike]their[/strike] his duties go more smoothly...."
How does the Council want to address the ideal of everyone giving commensurate levels of service to the covenant, if at all?
I've always understood "unanimous vote" in cases like this to not include the magi being expelled, censured, whatever. How does "unanimous vote of the rest of the Council" sound?
The latter is what I was going for. It cuts down on the "I don't like you so I'm going to have you removed from office" potential. And, it allows for more politicking and negotiating. I'm sure if six out of seven members of the Council (just pulling a what-if from my bum, here) went to Fiona and told her, "Hey, it's not that we think you're doing a bad job, all in all, but...with you trying to take every visiting magus to bed, we're kind of getting a bad reputation. Can you maybe dial it back a bit, or maybe let someone else be Princeps so you can do that on your own time, or something?"
Edits made. Thanks.
I think I/Fiona brought this up in the other thread, and it seemed like the general consensus was that the system currently in place was fine. If not, we can revisit it. (Basically, non-officers may be called on to do more covenant service than the officers, merely because they're not doing covenant service as officers.)
Due to both the amount of work involved and the differences in outlook between Isen and Alexei (Neither being suited to what the other does), just like the other posts are usually concerned with mundane/magic, Defensor is best split between:
Imperator, charged with the development, maintenance and enhancement of our armed forces. The Imperator is also tasked with the development of strategies to safeguard the populace of the covenant, including Members.
Scutatius, charged with the design, use and acquisition of the covenant magical defenses. This means procuring lab texts and items to be used for the covenant's security, but also coming up with projects that the covenant members themselves can realise.
So, that would give us six officers; we currently have eight magi, I think (Alexei, Korvin, Fiona, Viscaria, Isen, Jacques, Tranquillina, and Roberto). Does that sound okay to others?
The proposed amendment is amended (splitting the Defensor office into Imperator and Scutiatius), made the naming of Deputies mandatory rather than optional, and did some minor formatting changes.
I know a couple of us are going to be away for a few days. How about, if anyone has any questions, doubts, or wants to vote no on the amendment, we have until next Saturday (the 13th)? Not quite a week and a half, should give us plenty of time to hash anything out. Personally, i'm kinda happy with how it looks now. Then we just need to decide when this goes into effect.
We needs a covenant orchestra, so that every time Alexei walks into the room, it can start playing the Imperator March. Bam bam bam bam de dam dam de dam
'Tis a simple CrIm enchantment, you'll have it next season :mrgreen:
Tranquillina would be happy to put her Intrigue skills to work for the covenant ... what would that be (besides ad hoc) ... deputy Princeps?* Sounds like that encompasses more than just Hermetic relations.
just realized I really want to call it The Princeps Bride 8)
[color=blue]"I'm hoping that it never comes to that, that we will always have at least six members on the council of Mons Electi. As it is, we're one of the larger covenants in the Order, that I'm aware of. But as long as we remain vital, I doubt that will be a concern. But, if the Council feels that one magus is well capable of holding two separate offices, and the member agrees, I see no reason why it should be prohibited. If worse comes to worst, and our membership ever does fall to the point where we don't have enough members to properly fill the offices, we can address the matter then. We may need to eliminate or consolidate offices to keep things manageable, or come up with an entirely new system."
It is not that the council approves of one person holding the offices it is that we have limited magi for both offices and deputies. So, for example, I held the office of Villicus plus was deputy for Princeps and Aedilis. There is a possibility of holding all three. And then who is checking that I am not selling off the vis resources for my own profit? Normally I would say the Princep but that is me in this example.
We should also consider what should happen if both the officer holder and deputy were unavailable.
[color=blue]"Yes, there is the possibility of you, in that case, acting as temporary Princeps and Aedilis. But if you were Villicus, and were offered the position of deputy Princeps and Aedilis, it falls upon both you and the Officers in question to be confident that you would be able to fulfill all your duties. If you were Villicus and deputy Princeps, and were considered for the position of deputy Aedilis, then the Aedilis must not only be confident that you would be able to juggle all three duties successfully, but you must also. If not, then you should respectfully decline the offer, or the Officer should consider someone else."
Fiona considers the other question. [color=blue]"The activities of the Aedilis and the Princeps...or, for that matter, all officers, should be open for inspection and questioning. I think we all know each other well enough and respect each other enough that such an abuse of our confidence would be inconceivable. But if it were to happen, then he should be removed by the Council, could well be censured if not expelled, and may well face being cast out of the Order if the offense is egregious enough."
[color=blue]"I don't want the Charter to pin down what would happen in every conceivable instance. Such a parchment would be hundreds of feet long*, and I don't relish trying to read through that in search of a 'what if.' I think it should be handled on a case-by-case basis, and I think would be handled by the existing process for covenant service. Ask for volunteers, assign it if it's something that has to be done, with possible rewards if need be."
((* Yes, that was a dig at a particular Stonehenge covenant's charter that you needed a Code of Hermes score of 3 to even start to study.))
That'd be awesome
More seriously, we can have backup titles for the deputies. So:
The Deputy Princeps could be the Bride/Groom
The Deputy Imperator could be the Knight
The Deputy Scutatius could be the Wand.
The Deputy Villicus, the Bishop.
The Deputy Aedilis would be the Treasurer.
The Deputy Diocetes could be the Warden
Also, she can be deputy to both the Princeps and the Villicus (that is, Bride and Bishop). As much as I see offices as single duties, I think one could be deputies to multiple offices.
I agree, Imperator is a title too awesome to pass on.
Isen thinks a moment
As I see it, one should hold a single office. He can be deputy to another office, but that's all.
If one holds no office, he can be Deputy to up to, say, 3 different offices.
This should ensure that no magus grasp exceed their reach.
I must also say that, due to her skills and competence, Viscaria Verditii should, in my opinion, be Deputy Imperator, Deputy Scutatius and Deputy Aedilis (that is, Knight, Wand and Treasurer
)
That'd be awesome