Today I received the following email from Myles Capalini, owner of the Cabria Estate which were formerly a part of the Gay Archipelago.
---
Hi Bock,
No worries about the reply issue, I think it is just bad karma between me and Google+
As to the "suddenness" of the meeting, let me clarify my point of view on that. It is true, that there had originally been a meeting planned the previous Sunday, July 5th, but that was rescheduled for July 12th, but with no time and no agenda (other than saying the meeting was primarily to be to discuss Summerfest. I.e., no major business issues on the table). So I waited all week to get a time, though I expected the meeting to be sometime midday, which it has always been for the last many years. Never got a notice, and was out early Sunday for breakfast, but when I got home, I discovered that the first notice of the meeting had been sent at 11:00 or 11:30 on Saturday night (Oh great, missed that one), and that the meeting was set for 7 AM Sunday. I think that may not necessarily fit everyone's definition of 'Sudden', but it was a big surprise, and of course I missed it.
Worse, really, was reading the minutes, and finding that there were Very Major business issues on the table, and little or no discussion of the Summerfest. And the appointment of an entire new leadership team, with no advance notice, or chance to voice any opinions on such appointments is also unprecedented in the 5 or 6 years that I have been involved with the GA.
Sadly, I doubt there is a set of written 'Bylaws', but there is a long history of precedent that was completely ignored. I don't think we are really talking so much about 'legality' here, as we are about a complete disregard for the 40 or more region owners, all of whom have a very large stake in the GA. But it was pretty clear from reading the minutes, that the new team is not interested in any feedback, or what the owners might really want. I fully expect them to fire the entire Membership committee, and establish totally new guidelines that will allow virtually any merchant or club anywhere on the grid to join the GA, which goes against all of the history of requiring only full region owners to join (or people renting full regions).
Without that requirement, there is no incentive for those merchants or clubs to rent land from the many owners already in the GA who like myself depend on renting land to make ends meet. Seeing that, I realized that I may as well just leave.
There was one perk involved, I hear that I have been branded a Bitchy Old Queen award (not said to my face of course, but behind my back). That kind of behavior is another reason to just walk away. I have enough drama in RL, do not need any bitch fights in SL. I would, however, be more than happy to state my case, as I have here, or to answer any charges the new team may have the guts to present to me.
Best regards, and thanks again for watching this,---
Myles Capalini
The first sentence in the email regards a problem commenting on the blog. If anyone else should have a similar issue commenting please send me an email instead at lundamats@gmail.com
I would like to thank Myles for sharing his thoughts and sentiments on this issue with us, and especially for clarifying the question regarding the "suddenness" of the meeting.
It now seems there was a date set, but no time was announced until very late Saturday night for Sunday morning (eight hours or less before the meeting). Although there was no agenda for the meeting the proposed topic for it was the upcoming GA SummerFest not any major issues like a new leadership team.
