WALAN "Reboot"

The Situation

After a long score card of bad runs, WALAN has been dormant for the better part of two years and has earnt a bad reputation. The few people still involved are no longer involved are no longer actively involved in the gaming community, but want to see the event carry on and get handed back to the community.

For some, it may be a case of too-little-too-late, but there's still a reasonably large group of people who want to see this happen and we do too.

Our Goals

Simply put our goals are:

  • Start running regular events
  • Give the event back to the community
  • Make sure there will be events long into the future

and most importantly...

  • Make the event something people can love again

The rest of this page sections below aim how we're going to go about it.

The Event

Our current event goals are straightforward:

  • 300-600 person event

  • 3 events annually

  • First event back in 2012

But to do this we need your help. If you want to be part of the team to put together WALAN events, please join the forum thead.

Giving Back

We want to give literal ownership of the organisation back to the community. To make this happen, we're drafting changes to the "Rules of Association" to make this happen.

Under the new rules, the following will happen:

  • Establishment of a free and open class of membership to all community members
  • Protection of the rules by requiring majority vote of membership to be changed.

It also means as a member its .your. organisation. If you don.t like something you get the opportunity to see it happen.

For more information about the new rules, check out the "Association Rules" section of this page.

Going Forwards

To avoid some of the problems of the past, and make sure there are always people around to keep the organisation running - we propose the following organisation structure:

  • Committee of Management
    • Purpose
      • To ensure the continued operation of the organisation in line with the organisation's rules
      • Facilitate the means (money) for the Events Sub-Committee to run WALAN events
      • Ensure representation of the community within the WALAN organisation
      • Document any processes and knowledge for future volunteers
    • Positions
      • Events Coordinator - Heads the Events Sub-Committee
      • Community Representative - Represent members of the community and their interests
      • Sponsorship & Fundraising - Establishing and maintaining relationships to support the organisation's goals
      • Secretary - Responsible for record keeping and compliance with association rules
      • Project Coordinator - Track the organisation's activities and progress towards goals
      • Treasurer - Keep financial records and prepare budgets for the Events Sub-Committee
  • Events Sub-Committee
    • Purpose
      • Ensure the delivery of regular LAN Events
    • Positions
      • Events Coordinator - Ensures the committee is staffed and
      • (ad-hoc) - At the discretion of the Events Coordinator

Additionally, we aim to structure the organisation to ensure that the operation of the organisation and the running of events are kept as separate as possible.

Association Rules

The organisations rules are the DNA of the organisation, and by getting this right we hope to ensure that our goals of handing over to the community and making sure the organisation will run well into the future.

Some additional features we propose to address various considerations include:

  • Two year committee terms on a fixed rotation (3 specific positions elected at each AGM).
    • Ensures continuity - there will always be someone available to hand over
  • Maximum two consecutive terms on the executive
    • Ensures there is always new people coming into the organisation
  • Establishment of permanent Events Sub-Committee
    • Ensures Event planning can happen independantly from the organisation's management

Download DRAFT Rules

The first draft of the rules has been released and is available for download here.

Current Team

The current team intends on helping enact these changes and helping get things settled for a period of 6-12 months as the community sees fit, whilst steering clear of the Event organisation. After this period the team will withdraw from their positions at the following Annual General Meeting.

Your Feedback

We can't stress enough that this is about handing back to the community, so your involvement and feedback is essential.

Please head over to forum discussion to join in.