Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

I was on vacation for about a week and was dismayed about the events that have happened, especially the resignation of valued members of the club.

However, I also feel that any of the clubs ills, real or perceived, could and SHOULD have been worked out.

I have not been involved in leadership positions in this club, except as a brigade commander, but have always thought this club was RUNNING ALONG SMOOTHLY.

So, what is not broken (events proved otherwise, perhaps) need NOT be changed.

I have never looked into the composition of the cabinet; I have not looked into who was or was not represented, but have always felt it was ADEQUATE.

[i]My suggestion, FWIW, is to let the CURRENT CABINET struggle through this rough patch and maybe come up with MODIFIED rules that might more express the make up of the membership.

Then, maybe there can be a COMMITTEE of other members, along with a CABINET member or two, to hash out some changes and present the cabinet and MEMBERSHIP with concrete proposals to HELP keep things going.

As a gaming club, we should be concerned with GAME PLAYING, but we DO NEED Structure!!!!!

I think the members that are resigning SHOULD really think about their resignation and ASSIST in getting things back on track!![/i]

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Ernie Sands
1ère Brigade of 2ème Division de Grosse Cavalerie, Réserve de Cavalerie
de la Grande Armée
President, Colonial Campaigns Club

Thank you for posting your version of events Mark. NormallyI think that would be a bad idea but since the horse was already out of the barn in this case I feel it was warranted.

I personally support no changes being made at this time in any manner. This dustup appears to have been primarily driven by a clash of egos and personalties and was badly handled at many levels. I do not see any integral problems with club itself that need to be addressed, simply an inability to put principles before personalties.

I think we should let some time pass and welcome everyone back with open arms including Phillippe.

Maybe be next month we can discuss lessons learned and possible changes if anyone still cares then.

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Field Marshal Sir Edward Blackburn, 1st Duke of Aberdeen K.G.
85th (Buck's Light Volunteers) Regiment of Foot
16th British Brigade
7th Division
III (Peninsular) Corps
2nd Battalion, Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards

Folks should venture over to the ACWGC Rules page, take a look and ask yourself if you want this to be what the rules look like for this Club:

http://www.wargame.ch/wc/acw/ACWGCRules.html

I sure don't! We need a simpler system.....

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Generalfeldmarschall Scott Kronprinz "Vorwärts" Ludwig von Preußen
Kommandeur des Königlich-Preußischen Armee-Korps
Chief of Staff (CoS) of the Allied Coalition
Allied Coalition Webmaster & Club Website Support

I agree with you.

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Général David Guegan

3ème Régiment de Grenadiers - Bataillon d'élite du 3ème Légère
2ème Brigade
Grenadiers de la Réserve
Réserve
La Grande Armée
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"From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step."
Napoléon Bonaparte

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
Groucho Marx

Thanks Roy....we didn't have these issues at the iNWC, because we didn't have a formal governance, instead things were administered upon functions that needed to be done. Peoples attitudes were different, folks just wanted to play games....

At this point I doubt anyone would be overly interested in the massive changes I was thinking might be good and I am sure the current Cabinet would not vote it into action, so I am just going to tuck it away for the next time this place blows up again with an issue this this....may it stay in my desk for a long while....

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Generalfeldmarschall Scott Kronprinz "Vorwärts" Ludwig von Preußen
Kommandeur des Königlich-Preußischen Armee-Korps
Chief of Staff (CoS) of the Allied Coalition
Allied Coalition Webmaster & Club Website Support

As a relatively new member of the NWC, I wish to acknowledge my sincere appreciation for how the club has been running for the past three years. I have enjoyed meeting many new friends/opponents who share my passion for Napoleonic gaming. The new game registration system and club tournaments have greatly enhanced my gaming experiences. While I don't participate in many of the forum discussions, I do appreciate the free exchange of views.

It has been my experience that members should always show considerable tolerance and support for those who volunteer their time to serve on the executives responsible for running an organization or club. I have witnessed the breakdown of too many volunteer groups over rule disputes and have generally found such disputes to be detrimental to the organization's main goals and usually associated with individual personalities/egos.

I have meet and gamed with Paco and sincerely regret his decision to leave the club. Indeed, I hope that the club leaders will actively seek ways to encourage Paco and Chuck to return. Nevertheless, I am in general agreement with Mark's explanation and comments. I leave any necessary changes in the capable heads of our club leaders. Their skills and energy allow me to continue to focus on gaming. Thank you Gentlemen.

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To be frank with you, M. Jones, I think you are a good President because of you technics abilities. I think most of the changes you made are interesting. But your main problem is your lack of diplomacy on imposing these change and a difficulty to take account of the history of this club (particularly the french army one) It's just the impression of an old officer of the NWC (and now former).

With all my respect

General Lamezec
IVème Corps
former french CIC

I'd hoped to stay out of this, but that may not be for the best.

Traditionally, the respective armies have had 2 Cabinet Positions: French C in C and Allied C in C (which position I held for an extended period of time, as previously mentioned). All the other positions have been "open", that is to say, anyone can hold them. Of course, the fact that this club has more Frenchmen than all the other armies combined tends to make the leadership look "very French", even though it's tended to be roughly balanced.

It is the responsiblity of those respective C in C's to communicate with the various commands under them (for the French, AdR and AdN, for the Allies, all the various pieces). I'll be the first to admit that I could fall down on that at times. So, in the allied case, while there are all a variety of national armies out there, they are all represented through the Allied C in C.

Truth be told, it's not always an easy job to fill. When Muddy decided to step down, I ended up getting it almost by default, and then my (theoretical) one year term turned into something more like five, because I couldn't give the job away.

That said, I do think that Scott's comments about "no cabinet" are worthy of discussion. While I may not be quite so radical as Scott, I do think that we can look long and hard at structure and streamline it.

After all, what duties do we really need the cabinet for? I don't mean that glibly, but to say that we should focus on the necessary duties for the greater good of the club.

The primary focus of this club is to play games and have fun. What the Cabinet does should further that goal. If it is simply tied down in busywork which doesn't really add to the fun level, what's the point? To that point, I'd advocate looking at the duties of every administrative office in the club, from President on down to Divisional Commanders within the Club,and asking "does this person's duties really make the club more fun for everyone?" Those things where you can answer "yes", you keep. Those that you can't answer yes? That's what the window is for.

Anyway, it's late, and I'm not entirely coherent, but that's my 2 pfennig.

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Feldmarschall Freiherr Gary McClellan
IR44
Portner Grenadier Battalion
Austrian Army

Scenario Designer:
JTS Midway
JTS Seven Years War

Gary's insight is interesting and something worth thinking over.......

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Generalfeldmarschall Scott Kronprinz "Vorwärts" Ludwig von Preußen
Kommandeur des Königlich-Preußischen Armee-Korps
Chief of Staff (CoS) of the Allied Coalition
Allied Coalition Webmaster & Club Website Support

Except that there has to be some structure. There has to be a method of progressing and of handling disputes, unruly or abusive members and other unforeseen situations. Perhaps the cabinet could consist of only the CIC's.

Maybe the "cabinet" would have no structure, i.e. no president, secretary, etc.

Maybe the cabinet could simply appoint other members as a committee to handle specific problems that might occur and only for the resolution of that specific problem, say an abusive member. They would make specific recommendations to the CIC's for resolution.

Except for the current problems that emerged, there does NOT appear to have been problems with the system we currently have.

My 2 cents.

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Ernie Sands
1ère Brigade of 2ème Division de Grosse Cavalerie, Réserve de Cavalerie
de la Grande Armée
President, Colonial Campaigns Club

Ernie.....read my suggestions post:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12919

By the way, these issues have been smoldering for quite a number of years and became disputes in the past couple of years....

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Generalfeldmarschall Scott Kronprinz "Vorwärts" Ludwig von Preußen
Kommandeur des Königlich-Preußischen Armee-Korps
Chief of Staff (CoS) of the Allied Coalition
Allied Coalition Webmaster & Club Website Support

Cabinet Structure separates task and no one really has more say than anyone else, and everyone in the cabinet has 1 vote. I have read all of the post in the cabinet and have found the few conflicts were settled with a vote.

Battle On...for Fun!

Ah but you are not privy to all the backroom emails that have gone around for quite a while, the exchange of less than gentleman words between multiple parties....

Historically the Cabinet just kept an eye on things, there were no major attempts to change things per say, except here and there. The Cabinet should operate on the model watching over things and not trying to change every little bit of the Club.

That is my fear is I will be told what I can and cannot do......I don't want to see more rules, I want to see less.

The Cabinet should focus on finding new games to add to the Club, encouraging member participation, new torunaments et al....

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Generalfeldmarschall Scott Kronprinz "Vorwärts" Ludwig von Preußen
Kommandeur des Königlich-Preußischen Armee-Korps
Chief of Staff (CoS) of the Allied Coalition
Allied Coalition Webmaster & Club Website Support

And I am glad I am not.

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Ernie Sands
1ère Brigade of 2ème Division de Grosse Cavalerie, Réserve de Cavalerie
de la Grande Armée
President, Colonial Campaigns Club

Nobody wants to and I hope it stops. It is the single major reason why I left the Cabinet, I was tired of being pushed around from all sides....

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Generalfeldmarschall Scott Kronprinz "Vorwärts" Ludwig von Preußen
Kommandeur des Königlich-Preußischen Armee-Korps
Chief of Staff (CoS) of the Allied Coalition
Allied Coalition Webmaster & Club Website Support