Structure

[Purplegoo]

I don’t think that the selection document should become a distraction here. When you cut out the surrounding fluff and examine what it actually dictates, I don’t actually agree that it is an undemocratic relic we should disregard. If you’ll forgive my slight re-ordering in the below summary, the document effectively says:

1. The England captain must have played in a Eurobowl. We select our captain by the end of the year before a EB, and if we have more than one candidate for the post, we select via a blind vote (simple majority). To have a vote on stuff*, you must be English and have played in one NAF tournament in the prior 12 months

2. The captain selects the team subjectively from available candidates based on gaming skill, contribution and participation. It is announced in June

3. It is recommended that available candidates have played plenty, have attended 5 NAF tournaments in the year prior to selection and have made an effort to travel in Europe

I don’t think I’ve left any actual rules out there? I appreciate I've been pretty heavy with the editing of the surrounding text. The bits I’ve highlighted in bold were voted on by the community in 2017. The underlined bits came in during my captaincy (so 2013/4) or later. The bits that have never changed have never really been contentious; when you give the community a vacuum and ask ‘how would you pick Team England’, you are bound to get a variety of responses. However, if it actually came to it, I would defend point two as the best system quite vociferously. It’s certainly never been contentious in the way that the start of point one has been.

So, while the document was indeed written in 1847 by a slack handful of interested parties, it is not unlike Trigger’s mop. It’s not like the actual functional bits have never been challenged, updated or otherwise democratically decided upon.

I am not interested in defending the status quo for the sake of defending it, or because it’s generally quite nice to me. Indeed, I was pro-change in 3/3 of the votes we held last year. That said, just ripping up the last decade or so of democratic process and binning off some very recent votes because we have moved home and there is a bit of a vacuum at present seems somewhat perverse. At the very least, re-writing the document and changing any of the stuff very recently voted upon would seem anti-democratic and pretty insulting to those that voted?

Anyway – that put to one side, back to the topic at hand. The means by which we challenge or add to (the document only deals with EB selection, really) this stuff was the thrust of my OP, rather than what this stuff actually is. While I disagree with Geoff's post in some areas, I think he’s fairly summarised the three options available to us in terms of setting an ongoing structure for TE matters. Do we decide things in future via community vote on the forum, via an elected (?) committee or does the captain just sort things out, ad hoc? Add in timescales (frequency and timing of decisions) and voting specifics and you get to where we need to be.

I think this likely needs some wider input before we sort it out. It’s a narrow thread at present. I’m not saying ‘brilliant, let’s tread water and never do anything’, but I do think it’s worth seeing if we can’t hook in some more views before we think about an actual decision. Two or three loud people and then a vote isn't a comfortable way of leading into setting a framework. I do think it's important to do this stuff the right way around if we can. Yes, some of us are super keen on widening the pool of potential captains, myself included, but that's the sort of thing we can rip into with a bit more confidence and sense when a suitable structure is in place.

*I actually think this decision was 'play one NAF tournament in the previous 12 months to have a vote on anything TE related' and it was transposed into the document into the 'voting for a captain' bit alone. Probably not super-important for the vote over the way, but strictly speaking it should be in play. /dull procedural shizzle

[Joemanji]

^What Phil said.

[campmark]

As a new (ish) member of the Blood Bowl community I am not sure I fully understand the previous history of the Team England make up and how it was governed. I can't be the only one either.

I thought I would put some questions/ideas forward that I have from reading this thread.

I like the idea of a committee being the main people who make the decisions but I do wonder at how that committee would be made up. It seems to me that it is the same people who are involved in most of these types of discussions and i am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I think more needs to be done to try and get new members involved/interested in these things. They can offer fresh and unbiased viewpoints that maybe others have never considered.

If there was a panel of 5, how would they be chosen? I don't know how many people vote in these things or who it is that does the voting. Is it the same group of individuals who regularly vote? If so I can't see how change will come about.

If you do rely on a democratic vote from the community on a whole how many votes would it take to change things realistically? I saw Liepziger mention a minimum vote turnout of 20. I think that would make the 67% ruling a bit difficult and skewed if I am honest. If only 13/14 people could decide things, that in effect could be one gaming club grouping together to rig a vote.

I know having 5 member would see only 3 people being able to decide on things but those 5 members would be put there by the community as a whole. Maybe a ruling should be in place (if possible) that those committee members can't come from one club/league/group. Or 'x' amount of them.

If there were a committee of 5 would it be prudent to give one spot up to new NAF members? People who haven't had years involved in the whole scene and who may just be able to be that balance vote in a panel of 5.

I feel there definitely needs to be a "Window" in which fundamental changes can be made. Rules/plans need to be in place in time to allow the organisation of Team England to run smoothly leading up to events. They may not be the correct ones but it is not the mistakes that matter but how you learn from them that does.

Maybe a petitioning system can be put in place. If someone has a new idea or concept they wish to be raised they can contact one of the panel and petition them to bring it up in window. If the community knew when these things will be discussed and when they needed to get their ideas in by then a lot can be done through Social Media to try and bring new voices into discussion.

I also think that with tournaments like the EurOpen maybe more of a mentoring thing can be done. I know we have some very talented young coaches in England, they are the future of Team England. The EurOpen teams offer the perfect opportunity for an experienced coach to take one or two new/young players with them to guide them. Is there anyway this could be organised or implemented?

As I mentioned I don't really know much about the history. I am unsure as to who is actually going to be making the decision on all this now? For the newbies, who is currently in "charge" so to speak?

[mubo]

I think Phil is spot on above. Existing charter should be the starting point- I don't think there is a mandate to rip it up and start over.

I'd just add that I strongly disagree with the need to bring in someone external to somehow weave differing opinions into a new charter.

I still favour a representative committee though- I think it's far more democratic than a series of referenda on changes proposed by the most vociferous.

[mubo]

For the newbies, who is currently in "charge" so to speak?

This is a good (and welcome) question. In short- noone, every English coach who goes to tournaments has equal say.*

The slightly longer answer is that discourse is dominated by a relatively small number of coaches, generally those who have been selected before. There has been substantive effort to involve more people from outside the camp- but it has proven difficult for various reasons.

* Although captain probably has more influence in terms of proposing votes etc.

[Purplegoo]

I still favour a representative committee though- I think it's far more democratic than a series of referenda on changes proposed by the most vociferous.

I guess I'm thawing on this a little as time goes on and more people seem to like the idea. One of my main issues with it is that I think it's important this is an elected rather than an appointed body, and voting in five members and a captain per year seems a lot to go through. Would a committee still work within a framework regarding when they could review things, or would we vote in one committee next year that decides x on a contentious subject and then another the following year that immediately overturns it? It could all get really lengthy and frustrating, especially with decisions being made opaquely.

There has been substantive effort to involve more people from outside the camp- but it has proven difficult for various reasons.

While wrangling over this stuff, it's often quite easy to give ourselves too hard of a time. We have made an ongoing effort to bring in new people over the years; we're really only debating the finer points of a few procedural things here. We could do with giving ourselves a break, sometimes.

Welcome campmark, thanks for weighing in. Please don't be shy!

[Leipziger]

The committee term could be longer e.g. 2 or 3 year terms? 4 members voted in + the captain for each year gets a vote?

[Purplegoo]

I like that more than the original suggestion of them changing annually.

[mubo]

I guess I'm thawing on this a little as time goes on and more people seem to like the idea. One of my main issues with it is that I think it's important this is an elected rather than an appointed body, and voting in five members and a captain per year seems a lot to go through. Would a committee still work within a framework regarding when they could review things, or would we vote in one committee next year that decides x on a contentious subject and then another the following year that immediately overturns it? It could all get really lengthy and frustrating, especially with decisions being made opaquely.

Elected *not* appointed- totes. Ofc.

I see your point here about the flipping. However- I don't feel it's any worse than the potential of the "petition + vote" plan to get into flip-flopping of contentious issues. I think I would allow the committee freedom to determine what they see fit. If a committee elected to make selection on NAF ranking alone, I think the next one could reverse it without waiting for example. A complex charter describing who can do what when is something I am keen to avoid.

Alex's suggestion seems sound. Maybe with an offset so we don't have to swap 4 at once. ie electing 2 per year on 2 year terms. Add a no-confidence proceedure for people to kick the committee out, and Bob's your uncle.

[Leipziger]

+1 to that (no confidence vote etc)

[speedingbullet]

+1 to Podfrey's a, b, c, summary of the 3 options.

If the elected committee emerges as the community preference then I'd still favour keeping it small but irrespective of whether it is 3 people or 5 people I like the idea of a 2 year term for the committee members other than the Captain. So, for a 5 person committee, we could elect the Captain each year and we could elect 2 others each year with 2 continuing.

With regard to the Charter, many views have been expressed on various threads about a desire for change but there has also been widespread recognition that Team England has been very successful under the current system. Evolution rather than revolution would seem to be the way forward.

[Pipey]

Yep, committee structures sound good to me e.g. elected to preside over a number of years. Stability is important rather than yearly chaos and vote fatigue. Perhaps the committee could be put in place at the end of the year before NAFWC (e.g. 2018) to run until the next WC, so three EBs (e.g. 2020-22)?

Regarding the 2009 policy, we cannot just throw it out, that's not a fair way to change things. However we cannot hold it up to the 67% rule when its democratic basis is very flimsy.

To reiterate and add a little more detail... I wrote the 2009 text with help from a tiny number of others, by convention and with no community vote. Later a policy emerged that 67% majority vote would be required to change it, again that was by convention and never voted on. Votes for change took place down the years (at 67%) on a number of things. One quite fundamental vote "should we change the captaincy requirements? (from just TE capped)" won 21 votes to 11 at a 66% majority, but this was insufficient based on the 67% convention and that result was disregarded. The essentials of the document are today just as I wrote them in 2009: "a Team England capped player picks the team subjectively" (even more of a distillation than Phil's, but that's it in a nutshell).

To me this is not democracy and certainly tells me nothing of what the English community want in 2018. BTW I don't find it insulting to challenge the document (even though I wrote it!).

I think we should have a simple vote to decide if we a) want to continue with the 2009 policy or b) want something new. If a) then the committee uses 2009 as its basis, with 67% for change required by all means. If b) then the committee's first brief would be to find a democratic path towards a new document based on current and future discussions.

Anyone disagree this would be a helpful path forward? Would've thought this was fair on both sides of the argument - change vs status quo. Would give the required democratic basis for change for those who want that, or would give a mandate to those who believe the 2009 method has the community's support.

[Purplegoo]

Hmm. Doesn’t get much more cyclical than this! Yes, that would presently be quite unhelpful. Copy / paste post from the top of the page; this is not a document written in 2009 we’ve ignored for a decade. We voted on a large chunk of it only last year - part of what I hope we achieve here is a structure that gets us away from voting on things over and over again in quick succession when we don’t agree with the outcome.

[Leipziger]

I definitely feel that starting with the selection of a committee rather than the vote you’ve proposed is the way to go. Once that’s in place we can have a framework for the proposition of changes etc.

[Purplegoo]

Actually, I thought the point of the idea as presented is that the committee made decisions for us? At least, that’s how I’d understood it so far.