Truer words

[akirlu]

You know, only last night I had it pointed out to me that roadnotes is a moral coward. Little did I know. I've always been a bit suspicious of her tendency to file all the identifying marks off the transaction when she is badmouthing someone who's been so mean and unreasonable toward her, but being now the object of same, my suspicions are confirmed. The 'debt' she has is several thousand dollars of other people's money -charitable donations- which she misused. She's several payments in arrears on a sum that is only a portion of what she had passed on to her, and several payments at an incredibly lenient rate at that. And now she's very put out at a hint that buying fountain pens on eBay seems profligate when she hasn't made a payment in half a year. Poor thing. And when she complains that there's nothing like being told how grateful she should be for favors she was unaware of, she doesn't mention that she was unaware of them because she has made herself scarce from every forum where she might be forced to be aware of them. But you wouldn't know any of that, because she has erased every comment I've posted. Because letting people see the other side of the story might diminish the number of pity points and amount of sympathetic righteous indignation she can milk people for.

Comments

[ssprince.livejournal.com]

I wonder whether I would have committed a pecadillo or a crime if I had won? (besides the gaucherie of standing at all). I would certainly have leaned on you very heavily.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

There but for the grace, yeah, I know. Although I was just sitting around on [Bad username or site: kate schaefer @ livejournal.com]'s porch last night, and she opined that had you won, you would have been an exceedingly responsible administrator, and that the real chore for you would have been the trip... Me, I'm starting to feel like it really is time to revist the whole process.

[ssprince.livejournal.com]

!! I would have agonized endlessly over every bit of responsibility. On another hand I have recently begun thinking again about what I would like to do in making my own version of such a trip - see moors and fells, and sites from Regency and Napoleonic-war novels, rather than a convention with many fans at close quarters - and who would have thought I could be even more ashamed of my country's government....

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

I think what needs to be revisited is getting voters (and nominators, and people who talk to people who are thinking about running) to consider both halves of the requirements: the delegate must be both someone whom we want to represent our fandom on whatever side of whichever big pond we're on *and* someone who would be a responsible and efficient administrator. I think people get hung up on part A and excuse part B as something that no reasonable fan should be required to do well. Which given how many administrators have done just fine is bollocks, as far as I'm concerned. I think we need to start saying to candidates that being charming is fine as far as it goes but you also have to be able to keep track of donations and run two elections. One would hope we don't generally have to add a caveat about not borrowing money that isn't yours.

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is... disturbing.

And folks volunteer to have to deal with this?

Gah.

Signed,
not running for anything anytime soon.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

On balance, I'd say the good outweighs the bad with the fund, but yeah, sometimes you have to deal with this. One of the floated fixes for fiscal propriety has been to suggest that there be a separate administrator and honoree. Which means that the person dealing with this sort of thing would get the manure without the pony. Maybe it also means there wouldn't be any manure, but that doesn't seem certain.

And I'll understand if you won't run, because administrative hassles are surely enough to put anyone off, but I do have to say that in my opinion you're as close to a perfect candidate for the fund as I'm aware of, because I think you'd be excellent both for the trip and the administration.

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for the compliment.

There is a possibility we would consider 2007. But only a possibility.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Hey there. I can't access those entries of hers, but somehow I'm not surprised.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Me either, now. At a guess, she's put a friends-only lock on them, or deleted them entirely. Whatever. It is of a pattern, but at this point, I'm done being her wingman.

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

TAFF, right?

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Roger that.

[thesideshow.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted to say it's all your fault for not giving her the same treatment Frost got. And at least Frost had the decency to be ashamed.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

I do think that there is a difference between 'borrowing from the till' to pay for rent/food/utilities with every intention of paying it back and spending it on a pen.

[thesideshow.livejournal.com]

I was broke when I ran for TAFF, and I was never tempted to take a penny out of the fund. TAFF winners have frequently been people with low income and this has never happened before it did with Frost.

I understand what happened to Abi, and I don't think she actually stole money from TAFF, either. I think what happened is just what she said: Having no other place to run the cheques through, she put them in her own account, which had an overdraught, and the bank simply appropriated the money and wouldn't let her have it back. It was stupid, but I don't think she anticipated that this would happen. (This problem has recently been solved as British banks have created "club accounts" that TAFF can run through without the costs and difficulties of a business account - although I'm not aware of whether one has actually been set up.)

So what happened this time? What's the excuse, and why didn't she have to suffer the same public opprobrium that Abi did?

Ooops

[thesideshow.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I should have read Randy's explanation first.

[jerrykaufman.livejournal.com]

The difficulty with a double signature has been, I think: who would be the second signer? There are two admins at any one time, but they're separated slightly by an ocean.

One possibility that occurs to me at the moment is to have effectively two admins on each side of the ocean, the current winner and the one just previous. Two signatures could be required for any amount over a threshold, $200 for instance. Advantages to this would be continuity and better financial control. Disadvantages would include, for the administrators, having to do the job for four years instead of two, and the possibility that one of the admins would be a complete failure and one person would still end up doing the job.

Worth discussing, though, I hope. (I should bring this up on the fan funds administrators' discussion list.)

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just have never seen a double-signature plan that sounded viable to me in terms of the potential practical problems of distances and differences in state (and federal) laws in North America. I mean, it's all just ducky if TAFF continues to be the Seattle-Anglo Fan Fund, but at some point some non-Seattle, non-West-Coast, and even non-U.S. North American winner has to be supposed likely. At which point having the current and prior NA administrators be the two signers becomes pragmatically difficulty.

[jerrykaufman.livejournal.com]

Having a threshold amount should mean that the two signatures are only needed on bigger ticket items. That would eliminate the problem for normal costs of photocopying, shipping things to cons for auction, etc. The distance (if not the difference in laws) and the time involved, might be a good thing - requiring better planning and communication to get big things done. The most recent admin would be the one to handle day-to-day activities.

Having a US and Canadian administrator at the same would be harder, though.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

See, I'm not convinced, given the type of problems that people have run into with borrowing from TAFF funds, that having two signatures required for bigger ticket items would necessarily fix anything. I don't think anyone every fell afoul of using TAFF funds to pay the rent. I believe you get in a hole by borrowing a little here and there, now and again, to tide you over this partiular hump, with every intention of putting it back, and that a little bit here and there just builds up into something large over time. Maybe if a second person had electronic access to the fund account, and got monthly electronic statements, they could at least keep an eye on patterns of expenditure. I think that the guarantee of scrutiny (and the requirement of having a separate account) would do at least as much good, if not more, than requiring a second signature on large checks.

[jerrykaufman.livejournal.com]

Sounds feasible. We could still have the two admins on each side be the current and previous delegates.

Another solution, and one that could create months of fun, would be to incorporate as a 501C3 or similar corp, have a board of directors, etc. But we'd have to figure out, among other things, what state(s) to incorporate in (although the 501C3 thingie is federal), who's to serve on the board and hwo the initial board is selected (could be self-selected - whoever's willing to do the work), and so forth.

How about having the TAFF BoD consist of DUFF winners? Me, Janice Gelb, and Janice Murray can run anything, I'll betcha. (Especially if you leave me out.)

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

It may not have escaped your notice that we've had two more U.S. winners since Velma. For all that I will take my share of how addressing the problem was handled, it wasn't, strictly speaking, up to me. And in defense of the handling of the Velma issue, I will point out that the treatment Abi got didn't produce much in the way of practical result. So far, for all that it's not been perfect, the gentler approach has met with more actual money getting back to subsequent administrators, though occasional prods by assholes such as yours truly may also be salutary.

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

I cannot see either of the links.

Did you loan her money?

[jerrykaufman.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking you didn't pick up some of the clues in akirlu's post, like the comments about "charitable donations." It's all about the Trans Atlantic Fan Fund, which is a science fiction fan charity of sorts. It pays the travel expenses of some worthy fan to travel to the other side of the Atlantic to attend an sf con and meet people there and around the host country. It sends someone from North America to Britain/Europe one year, and from Britain/Europe to North America the next. The person sent then pays back the fund by working as the administrator the next two years, until another delegate/fund winner is selected from the same side of the ocean.

Akirlu was a winner and roadnotes was her successor in NA. Read more at http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Taff/wtn-1.html, which is the first newsletter published by the current NA administrator. It'll give you more of an idea of what the fund is about, and the section on finances details roadnotes' debt and payment agreement.

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

Yup, I know what TAFF is and I know Ulrika's past with it.

I figured it out right after I posted, as you can see in my other post on this thread....:-)

[jerrykaufman.livejournal.com]

I did see that other post, but didn't compare the time stamps. It showed up higher on the page, which on first glance, meant it was earlier. So I thought you'd slipped a gear. And I don't know you, so I wasn't clear on your background/knowlege.

Maybe the info will be useful to someone else.

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

Jerry - It was nice of you to talk up TAFF, tho. And I hope that some of your earlier suggestions are explored further. I'm sure there are some web services that could also facilitate electronic signatures or somesuch that may even make it easier on the administrators...