Minutes, Plebeian Assembly Meeting, 23 June, 2019 held at The Rostra.
Present: Tribune Lead Ras Parthicus, Tribunes Ruggeris Britannicus, Popov and Ariel Parthicus-Vindelici, Joby.
Tribune Lead opened the meeting at 11:10 am and led with an opening prayer.
"All Mighty Gods, who watch over the Emperor and his husband Reg and over all the people of Romanum hear our pleas for your continued blessings on us all and help this Assembly serve the people wisely." Ita Est
Tribune Lead Report
"Welcome to the Fourth Plebeian Assembly meeting for the 2019 Tribunate.
Good to see you all here - except for Tribune Asharr, who has to work 10 hours overtime later this morning in rl so he sends his apologies.
Welcome to Joby who has decided to take on the task of Scribe and has been endorsed by Tribunes present. Joby will help me in running the meeting.
a) Welcome Centre
i) Video Competition - The Emperor has approved the date of the competition as being 1 July to 31st July 2019. Finalisation of prizes to be made and public invitations will go out soon.
ii) Free Outfit - the free toga, designed for the Welcome Centre giveaway kit, has been trialled with the Pride colours at PRIDE 2019.
iii) Information notes in position displays - Being updated as we receive information from people associated with the different roles.
iv) Welcoming of new visitors to Romanum - ongoing.
v) Making the Welcome Centre more identifiable - Ruggeris has done some excellent work in making the WC stand out more.
b) items Outstanding from 2018 Tribunate
i) Submission re:Urban Design (removal of trees) awaiting return of Emperor to full time duties.
ii) Servi/Slaves Policy Group - I will call on Tribune Rugger to make a brief report at the conclusion of my report.
Tribune Popov passed on a most welcome note from Senator Janu which read
"To the Tribunate
I want to thank Tribunes Ras, Ruggeris and Popov and Prince Jin, for all their hard work in putting together the Romanum Pavilion at Second Pride
Without their generous gift of time and materials, we would not have transformed the shabby warehouse into a glimpse of Romamvm
Thank you Janu Shimada Vindelici, Events Co-ordinator"
Tribune Ruggeris gave a brief report on the Servi/Slave Policy Committee
"We are awaiting the decision of the Consuls to publish the two slave documents, which I hope will be in the not too distant future. I have slightly rearranged the slave information wall in the Welcome Centre in anticipation of this, but I cannot for the moment until the Rubicon is crossed."
Announcements
Lycomedes Buttered Buns Photo Competition - In conjunction with Faunication, the new Antinous Academy, Romanum and Gay Fun World. All applications must be submitted to Titusremus Resident by midnight, July 21, 2019
Neptunalia Festival will be held week commencing 19 July. As part of this important festival all fountains should be blessed. Apply to Flamen Januarius to arrange this.
PRIDE 2019
Tribune lead advised that "Romanum has a Pavilion at PRIDE 2019, displaying to attendees, aspects of life at our home and inviting them to pay us a visit. Together with Prince Jin, Tribunes Popov and Ruggeris and Senator Janu we managed to outfit the pavilion and I thank you for your hard work. And to the Emperor and Consul Rad for making the funds available for us to have this pavilion for the next 10 months. So far 110 people have visited the display, 20 of whom are Citizens. Our thanks to Senator Tybalt for his entertaining DJ Sessions at Pride.
One thing that does need to be followed up is that we have the Pavilion at the Pride Sim for 10 months - what we can do there to try and attract people to Romanum."
In response Tribune Ariel asked (and was supported by Tribune Popov) if it was necessary to decorate the Forum with so many Pride banners and rainbows, a suggestion being that it added to the lag. Further comments were that the Emperor had authorised it and it was only once a year.
ROLE PLAY IN ROMANUM
Tribune Lead invited Tribunes to contribute to a discussion about Role Play, prefacing his remarks by reminding that there is a separate Romanum role Play Committee.
Points raised included :-
- There certainly aren't enough opportunities for RP as I would like
- The RPC seem to concentrate on the ""larger"" types of role plays
What type of role plays would we like to have -
- short one-off ones with specific scenarios e.g. a robbery, damage to property
- long term ones- say over a number of days - invasions by outside forces, pirates,
- should we have a number of sims where it is mandatory to wear combat meters etc
- public oratory on a particular subject"
- Senate and Plebeian Assembly meetings are good examples of role play, as are the discussion groups
- Blessing of the fountains for Neptunalia is a good example of 'small' role plays.
- Role play between patrons and visitors at the Tavern would be good to get going again.
- It is a chicken and egg thing also, you know from Homines de Ars things that its possible to spend a long time organising something- without really knowing if anyone on the day is going to turn up.
- I think there is too much focus to OOC events like the pride thing now
- we need to have small rp situations that don't take much to organise - and rely on the participants to create the story and outcomes
- It was proposed that we suggest that one prime time slot in the calendar be always reserved for one-off events, arranged by anyone who desires, even if it is not taken up all the time. Otherwise dances which are partly non IC will swallow up the whole program. [to be further discussed at a Tribunes meeting]
Further discussion on the topic related to the Event Scheduling guidelines and whether they worked to enhance both IC and OOC events. Comments were made about the effectiveness of the Event Scheduling guidelines that the coordinators had to work with.
Being the only non Tribune person in attendance, Joby was invited to put his views forward on the subject.
Joby: "as usual, my thoughts are unformed but I offer them for any help they may provide in the discussion.
I have some interest in RP but don't really know how to dive in. And I am still trying to find my way in SL, so I only spend about 10% of my time here
as I figure out what I want from SL.
My impression of Romanum is a place to have sex and dance and I know that is not fair.
There are many other opportunities, but it can be hard to tap into those.
Someone who is here casually may not stick around long enough to appreciate those aspects of Romanum
I don't know the answer. I will say that I revisited the Welcome Centre recently
and the redesign is amazing and helpful in explaining the various aspects of Romanum life."
PLEBEIAN MEETINGS
A number of comments were made about attendance at Plebeian meetings not being great for the past four meetings, even though times have been altered to give all Citizens and Tribunes a chance to attend.The Tribunate needs to consider meeting days and times, venue (to lessen the effect of lag) and introducing specific topics to debate as well as streamlining reports.
Tribune Ruggeris made the following observations. "This is just a thought- Perhaps the formal reports and so on might be conveyed by a notecard to the Tribunes or a notice to Empire Group leaving just the monthly issues - which could be trialled as this month's big subject- this month we discuss- the calendar or whatever- then people would know we'd be getting straight to the meat of the business right away, Or- this month - how can we all help with Rp in little ways?"
GENERAL BUSINESS
There was no general business arising.
Tribune Lead advised that he would like to hold a private meeting of the Tribunes. As there were no dissenters, he advised that Tribunes would receive a note about the various subjects to be raised at a time and place where most tribunes could attend. [issues will include venue meeting times, style of the meeting, at least one "meaty" issue each Plebeian Assembly meeting and a discussion on the Event Scheduling Guidelines and how might IC events, as part of Romanum role play, be encouraged.]
Tribune Lead thanked Tribunes and Scribe for their attendance and advised that he would get back to them concerning the Tribune meeting, which would most likely occur about half way between the meeting and the next Plebeian Assembly.
Tribune Lead Ras Parthicus closed the meeting at 12.34 pm
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Please Note: The Scribe has prepared a Verbatim copy of the Meeting Proceedings. It is available from the Tribunate Notice dispenser.