[222] in APO News
Convention
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (dcctdw@Athena.MIT.EDU)
Sun Jan 3 16:10:56 1993
From: dcctdw@Athena.MIT.EDU
To: apo-news@Athena.MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 03 Jan 93 16:02:00 EST
I actually wrote this up after coming home from Convention; i guess i
should repost it here.
If someone who knows the proper address to send this to, please do -- i
don't know the address.
--dave
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
To: National Board of Directors
From: David Cho, Brother, Alpha Chi chapter at M.I.T.
Re: Notes on Floor Services at a National Convention
-----
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have worked extensively with the Floor Services (FLS) at both the
St. Louis and Boston Conventions: neither of which have progressed
smoothly. I thought it might be useful to have a report written up, so
that future Floor Service coordinators might benefit.
The Floor is physically divided with aisles for accessibility reasons; it
is further divided into sectors for FLS purposes. A good number of sectors
is 10 (I believe St. Louis had ten; Boston had effectively 10). At St.
Louis, the main body of delegates were divided into 8 sectors; the ninth
sector was two-vote delegates, and the tenth was the board and other
miscellaneous people with votes (Regional alumni delegates, for instance).
At Boston, there were effectively 40 rows, which were divided into 4 row
sectors.
There are 2 types of FLS people: counters and floaters. Counters are
responsible for counting and reporting standing votes and distributing
committee documents; floaters are not (in essence, they are extra workers).
More on their duties in a moment.
The FLS Coordinator should keep track (names and numbers) of those FLS
personnel assigned to sectors. It is a -very- good idea that if there is a
large personnel rollover, to quickly gather all FLS personnel and check
that indeed all sectors are covered and that those personnel assigned know
both that they are assigned and where their sector is. This requires a
subtle way to signal to all FLS personnel to meet at the FLS HQ desk, which
is very difficult: I have not figured out a good way to do this. There are
two obvious ways to have personnel rendezvous at the FLS HQ desk: by
telling personnel individual-by-individual (slow, and has spotty results),
or asking the Chair to make an announcement (interrupts the Legislative
Session, a generally Bad Thing). Personally, I believe the
person-by-person tactic works fine, as long as you leave enough time for
collecting people: to simply collect people can take as long as 5 minutes.
Duties of floaters:
1. To know they are floaters, and therefore not assigned a sector.
2. Collect and distribute notes from the delegates. Note that all
notes going to the head table (the Chair, the Parliamentarian, etc) should
go through the Sergeant-At-Arms at the FLS HQ desk, since notes to the head
desk are screened for frivolity.
3. During standing votes, all note collection and distribution
comes to a halt. Floaters should move themselves to the sides of the Floor
in order to prevent interference with counters.
4. During all Time and Place bid presentations (even if there is
no AV aspect of the presentation), all note collection and distribution
should be halted.
Duties of counters:
1. Normally, their duties are the same as floaters, with the
following exceptions below.
2. They need to know their sector number and where their sector
is.
3. During standing votes, they need to *immediately* report to
their sector and be prepared to count the vote. Note that, depending on
the Chair's style, the Chair may call for a standing vote, but be doing so
only for a clarification over a voice vote, and not want a counted standing
vote. This is obvious if the Chair has the Ayes stand for 5 seconds: I
trust that no one will ever be given the Chairship who is stupid enough to
think that FLS can count a standing vote in 5 seconds.
4. If the standing vote is to be counted, they need to count the
vote, and then report back to the FLS HQ desk and report both the sector
and the vote. Note that it is better if FLS HQ has people report back on
both the Ayes and Nays: this way, FLS HQ can inform the Chair that indeed
all the Aye tallies are in and that the Chair may proceed with the Nays.
(Sectors may not be fully counted in the other case.)
5. When a reference committee moves to the stage to present their
report, the counters should report to the appropriate location (usually
near FLS HQ desk) to take a reasonable number of copies and distribute them
to their sector. Note that the Chair may also request the certain
documents be distributed: same style.
Things that MUST be done:
1. Floor maps. Making a chart (usually 3-4 feet on a side) of
where each chapter is. Use Greek letters: yes, it'll be slower for people
who need to learn the Greek alphabet, but once they've learned it, it's
much faster to have letters rather than words.
2. Always always always having every sector covered. At St.
Louis, there was a standing vote while a counter had gone to the bathroom.
All FLS personnel (it's only really important for counters, but this is
consistent, and makes for good habits) wishing to leave the floor, even for
the proverbial 30 second bathroom break, MUST sign out with the desk. If
the person is a counter, then s/he must have a backup informed *before* s/he
leaves.
3. If you think counters are not clued in, or there are uncovered
spots, then bite the bullet and recall all counters. It is definitely the
fact that the Chair would prefer being interrupted to issue a "All Floor
Services personnel please return to the Floor Services HQ desk" call,
rather than having a standing vote be screwed up. This cannot be stressed
enough. Oh, sure, they'll give you a dirty look, but if you look closely,
they're glad that you're dealing with a screwed situation, rather than
letting it wait.
Things to make your life easier:
1. Casually assigning a floater to the Board's sector is kinda
nice: that way, their notes will get picked up in a prompt manner.
2. Small floor maps. At Boston, I went to Printing and
Publications and made and printed both a Greek alphabet key (word on left
side, letter on right) and a floor map (10 point Symbol font, shrunk to
90%). The minature floor maps are insanely useful: we didn't have them at
St. Louis, and note distribution was markedly slower than at Boston.
(Using cut-and-paste, I got both onto the same sheet of paper: a very big
win.)
3. Mind your workers! There are many die-hard FLS people (like
myself) who don't eat, sleep, etc. If you have gobs of floaters and you
see a counter who should've taken a break three hours ago, assign a floater
to that sector and kick the counter out. At least make him sit down. :)
4. Tell your workers that if they're confused, please please
please ask someone at HQ. Tell them that you ask stupid questions all the
time: they should too. (For me, that's the truth.)
5. Every hour or two, it's a good idea if the FLS Coordinator
checks with all the counters (this can be done informally on the floor) and
verifies that the counter remembers which sector they have and where that
sector is.
6. If a standing vote gets screwed up, don't panic. Assess the
situation. Is it that people are fundamentally screwing up? Then inform
the Chair that FLS will need time to instruct FLS personnel (oftentimes,
the Chair will indulge in a stand-and-stretch break); if it's just that one
counter was spacing out and screwed something up, then just inform the
Chair that it was a simple goof and it's ok to try again. Note that it's
much more preferable to take a break to reinstruct FLS personnel then to
screw up a second vote.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
There is the whole flamewar of how to deal with abuse of FLS privileges.
I, personally, am in favor of FLS reserving the right to read all notes, to
destroy those notes which are frivolous, and after an appropriate number of
unheeded warnings, to revoke FLS privileges for errant chapters. At the
beginning, all chapters are assumed to be of good behavior; if the number
of messages becomes too large to handle, I believe it is reasonable for FLS
to monitor notes, and if appropriate, to crack down.
It is entirely valid to say that it is a violation of privacy for FLS
personnel to read notes. My response to this is twofold:
1. This is a response to a violation of privileges.
2. It is possible, implementable, and reasonable to specifically
direct all FLS personnel to keep all monitoring confidential.
A third practical, but not ethical, defense point is that notes are usually
of the form "Hi, Jason, I had a great time last night" (completely boring:
why would I waste perfectly good brain cells remembering that) or of the
form "Hey, how're you going to vote on the Scouting stuff?" (see previous
parenthetical comment).
Note that I do not think it is appropriate to monitor notes from the Board
or Sectional Chairmen: if they are passing frivolous notes, I, for one,
would be willing to humor them. Not that they make for good examples...
If you have any questions, etc, I'd be more than happy to answer them.
YiLFS,
Dave Cho
dcctdw@athena.mit.edu
Brother
Alpha Chi chapter (I, 96)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Snail mail: 4 Ames Street; Cambridge, MA 02139
