"1.2. The ACWGC encourages, promotes and facilitates game play among its members, but does not impose any standard of frequency as a requirement of membership. The club recognizes that the personal schedule and obligations of each member will dictate both the number and frequency of individual games undertaken."
The club members almost unanimously voted in favor of this modification to the Club Rules over two years ago, realizing that, as Ernie and Blake have pointed out , that anything more restrictive in the way of membership requirements would not only handicap the Club's ability to grow, but runs the risk of introducing a form of elitism that runs counter to the spirit stated in 1.4.
"1.4. We are not a 'ladder' type club where standing in the Club is based on games played or games won. Other very important factors are considered. Members are awarded points for assuming leadership roles within the Club, for role-playing, for playing games and for providing other contributions to the Club. All members will be offered the level of training that they need or desire before they start playing. The Club also provides several forums for role-playing banter, tips, strategy and finding opponents."
Yet within that very liberal framework there is also, as Ernie and Blake have pointed out, the capability for any member or group of members to engage themselves within any sort of tournament environment they might have the capacity to create. Its important to remember that there is a very diversified cadre within this Club, composed of individuals from all sorts of gaming backgrounds, availabilities and preferences. But should the Club elevate by administrative re-organization one group above the other, it would be abandoning one of its core principles.
It is also important to remember that the ACWGC is not the end all for organized gaming of these games. Anyone can offer a different environment outside of the scope of the ACWGC at any time, and offer what would be a more challenging, involved and competitive environment to suit their own individual tastes, if that is what they prefer.
Nor is any ACWGC member restricted from fashioning a change proposal for submission to the Cabinet, irrespective of any criticism of a lack of transparency, real or imagined. I would be the first to state that there needs to be a more direct involvement between the Cabinet and the author of such a proposal, and I believe that we will see within the near future a successful vote to accomodate just that. But the point is that this Club does not dictate to its members what they should or shouldn't do. We've a set of rules, however onerous, burdensome and overextended it may be currently fashionable by some to mislabel, that have been put in place by the members! And those rules as they have been fashioned and amended have functioned well enough to allow the Club to survive for better than 15 years!
I would certainly encourage anyone to take whatever time they might feel necessary to work within the system, as the Cabinet so scrupulously tries to do, to bring before the Club's voting body whatever change, amendment or design they'd like to see considered. Such work, by its very nature, can seem insurmountable and at times completely ponderous. But that is part of the system that is currently in place; a part that discourages, quick, shallow, rash thinking, but rewards careful, deliberate consideration and planning. The Cabinet is, for the most part and in general, just as diversified a group of individuals in their gaming preferences as any in the Club, and any proposal must, in the end, be able to pursuade the incredible diversity that will always be found within the Club-wide voting body!
_________________ General Jos. C. Meyer, ACWGC Union Army Chief of Staff Commander, Army of the Shenandoah Commander, Army of the Tennessee (2011-2014 UA CoA/GinC)
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