Messages in ICG #boardofdirectors (Slack) <2019-10-23 2019-10-25>
Jacalyn
Boggs 7:46
AM
When I get the mental energy I’m going to talk to the rest of CosInternational and see if they just want to remove their
petition. Several have already said they do. I’m in for
the organization, and we will continue with it without the guild affiliation.
But hey, if you guys don’t want them, it will be easiest to remove the petition
so you don’t have to fight about it any more or then
waste time voting no in two weeks.
[1 reply Last reply 2 years ago 2019-10-24
7:48 AM]
Jacalyn Boggs 2 years ago
To those like Byron who supported us, thanks. We know it’s not the whole ICG
BOD.
Jeanine
Swick 4:44
PM
I need to ask this as Jacalyn is taking up so much bandwidth here. Which
chapter are you the BoD rep for? You are not listed
as one on any chapter's membership list.
[7 replies Last reply 2 years ago 2019-10-24
6:22 PM]
Jacalyn Boggs 2 years ago
Nova. I’m not sure how I’m not on a list since I paid dues.
Also sent to the channel
Jeanine Swick 2 years ago
You are on the membership list as a member but not BoD
rep.
Jacalyn Boggs 2 years ago
Then something changed. I will contact Marianne in the morning. I need to talk
to her anyway because I’m tired of the abuse and allegations.
Jeanine Swick 2 years ago
The Oct list says it is the president not you.
Jacalyn Boggs 2 years ago
Good. She can deal with you guys if she wants. Or she can be quiet. The
fact that she hasn’t spoken up by now probably means something.
Jeanine Swick 2 years ago
Or she was never told she was the rep.
Jacalyn Boggs 2 years ago
I mean it’s her decision as president. Honestly given the manufactured
drama, I don’t blame anyone for not speaking up at this point.
Marianne
Pease 8:28
PM
To the Board of Directors, I have officially submitted my letter of resignation
to @Vicky Assarattanakul as the
Corresponding Secretary. Here is a copy for the records of the Board as well.
[1 reply Last reply 2 years ago 2019-10-24
8:33 PM]
Mera Rose 2 years ago
Love you lady. It’s been a pleasure to serve with you. I
hope our friendship continues long after this relationship that created it.
Mera Rose 8:34 PM
I am not as brief as Marianne, nor as adept at brevity.
My
full resignation is on Yahoo and will populate here slowly due to character
limitation
Please
include this in the newsletter as well:
STATEMENT
FROM THE VICE PRESIDENT, Mera Babineaux
For
the last 3 1/2 years, I have been a member of the ICG, serving the last 2 1/2
as Vice President, a position that I volunteered to fill in 2017.
When
I first spoke to Phil Gust about the Vice President position, I explained that
I had a lot of interest in helping the guild grow. I wanted to help
bring in members and chapters and find ways to reach out to the vast networks
of Costumers and Cosplayers online and create more benefits to attract them to
join the organization. I was also very excited to try to find ways
to increase the amount of photographs and videos for the archives, because it
is my personal opinion that they are one of the most important things about
this organization through preserving a photographic history of the visual and
living art of costuming. Once I was elected, I set to work on that
goal.
The
first time I met Marianne was at a park in Northern Virginia. It was
between our respective homes and so I drove 3 hours up and she drove 3 hours
down so that we could meet in person and discuss ideas after we were elected. Her
little ones played while we discussed PR, existing committees, the guidelines,
and toss around ideas. We agreed it was important to bring in new
members and chapters, and do what we could to see the archives grow and get
back online, and, that the guidelines needed to be updated. 2 and
1/2 years later, those were still the same goals for me and Marianne.
The
first year was a lot of listening to people. Learning about what the
members thought the ICG was and talking with non-members to get their opinions
on the guild. I found that there were a lot of misconceptions of
what the ICG is from members and non-members alike. I realized that
we are an organization with an identity problem, and suggested that we work to
remedy that.
The
second year was a lot of watching nothing happen. To be fair, that
wasn’t much different than the first year, but the first year I was busier
because I was researching and talking with Marianne about ideas regularly. In
October of 2018, Marianne and I realized that no one was going to get motivated
to get more involved in the International guild (obviously chapters were
active, but committees had gone silent) unless we led the way and tried to get
members interested in a conversation. We already had the ideas, so
we decided to present those ideas at CostumeCon in
the hopes that it would begin a conversation with the members and the BoD. We called it a “5 Year Plan” and made a
PowerPoint presentation. In the process of making the presentation,
I looked at all of the profit and loss statements on the website and was very
confused by the large differences in expenditures. I hoped that
someone could explain them to me when we presented that part of the presentation
at the annual meeting at CostumeCon in Boston this
year.
But
we never actually got to give the presentation. Only a few slides
in, we were derailed by procedural objections, calls on the parliamentarian,
and other interruptions. The plan sat abandoned on a thumb drive
held by the recording secretary until it was uploaded to Slack in July. The
content of the plan has still, to this day, never been discussed.
Marianne
and I had also heard from a lot of members and non-members in those first two
years, including 2 guidelines committees, that there were updates needed to the
guidelines document. We took the suggestions of those committees
(which were documented in the previous years’ annual meeting minutes), and
added in their suggestions including non-discrimination language and moved some
sections around for better flow, and created safety suggestions for large
costumes. We also edited the grammar and tense shifts to make it a
more professional document. It was uploaded and distributed to the BoD Yahoo group prior to CostumeCon. While
we had hoped that it would be what the BoD and
members wanted, it was tabled at the annual meeting to discuss further.
I
spent the rest of CostumeCon being treated like an
outsider without a clue, including being educated for 8 hours by Betsy Marks
and Carole Parker over night into the wee hours of
the morning on all the personalities I had offended and all of the long history
of controversy I had just brought up again.
I
had hoped that, once I got home, the lists would be active with conversations
about the ideas in the 5 year plan and the guidelines, but again, nothing
happened. If people were talking, it wasn’t on the lists or to me
and Marianne. After almost 6 months of no discussion, in September,
I made a motion to adopt the guidelines with the non-discrimination language,
and all hell broke loose.
Now,
as a side note, I am the mother of 5 genetically disabled children, and, in addition
to all the costuming and production design that my husband and I do
professionally, I’m also very active in Virginia as an educational and
disabilities advocate. I’ve worked with parents, children,
legislators, schools, and organizations to try and help special needs children
in my state for almost 15 years.
I
was excited about what the ICG represented: a community of costumers
and Cosplayers that promote fun and education through costuming. My
kids learned functional skills and made so many friends through costuming at
conventions and doing little crafting workshops with other kids when they were
in the hospital, that I thought it would be awesome to bring those worlds
together. The Mini Mighty Munchkin Cosplayers started 11 years ago
when my children began getting the kids they met in hospitals to costume with
them so they had something to do while they were in the hospital. I
thought ICG would be a great place for these next generation costumers to
create and learn and get involved.
Virginia
also has a large community of costumers outside of the Northern Virginia area
which is served by NOVA and GCFCG on the Maryland side. I travel
around the state regularly and started working to attract some of these
costumers to the ICG and began to help them form chapters. Earlier
this month, 3 of those chapters in Roanoke, Richmond, and Tidewater submitted
applications to be approved as ICG chapters, representing 33 new members,
including some of the Mini Mighty Munchkin Cosplayers.
Now,
prior to that, after the motion to adopt the guidelines, all hell broke loose
on the BoD list. I didn’t expect it, but
in hindsight I suppose I probably should have. Byron made a very
good point in the beginning of the whole spiral; all of this has happened
before, and happens every 5 to 10 years. A cursory review of those
conversations available online over the last 40 years, and the oral history of
long time members, shows that the same people object to any new idea or
possible change unless they are specifically involved in drafting it or
proposing it.
And
it happened again, and this time I was the target of their objections as was
the material in the guidelines update. The process was mired in
procedural stonewalling, just as the attempt to present the 5 year plan had
been. It is very well documented in Yahoo Groups and Slack who made
the objections and sought to derail any conversation from occurring, and so
rehashing the nasty vitriol of the events that have unfolded since September is
unnecessary, and I would invite you all to go read it for yourselves.
Suffice
it to say that moving the guidelines back to committee wasn’t enough to stop
the campaign that these individuals brought to stop any and all conversation on
the ideas and issues that are before the board at this time. Marianne
and I asked for the financials, as the budget is being drafted and proposed,
and uncovered a tax question. This brought even more angst and
anger. Thankfully, our treasurer still looked into the issues and
was able to give and get information that appears to have resolved them, but
the process was once again mired in vitriol.
Then
Yahoo re-announced it was closing its groups and the same anger towards the
move to Slack reached mind-numbing heights. In the hopes of
diffusing some of these issues I made apologies to the individuals that were
upset for any part I had played in their ire, but it did nothing to end the
onslaught of tirades and hurt feelings. And it continues now, even
as I write this email, because 3 chapters and 33 members that I helped to bring
together to join the ICG have now been objected to by the representatives from
GCFCG and Northern Lights and stand accused of being seat fillers in some grand
sinister plot that Marianne and I have supposedly created to push a vote on a
presentation that we hoped to present and discuss, but were never allowed to.
Let
me be clear, there is no vote occurring or current motion to vote planned on
the 5 year plan, and there never will be under my tenure as your Vice
President... because I am stepping down from the position effective
November 15, 2019.
Marianne
and I have been accused of attempting to be dictators and overthrow the BoD by mandating our ideas. Obviously, this is
hyperbole and misdirection as nothing can be done to change any of our documents
or start new projects or ideas without a vote of the ICG members or board.
We
have been verbally assaulted, harassed, and have even received blackmail email
from a member who thinks that our ideas should be shamed in the public forum
for the ICG until we are unceremoniously drummed out of the organization. Our
ethics and morals have been questioned and we have endured keyboard assaults
tantamount to character assassination and defamation, including libel and,
presumably as conversations occur offline, slander. We have watched
good people endure gas lighting in an attempt to manipulate their understanding
of our intentions, and have endured an onslaught of flaming posts that could
not have withstood 10000SPF sunscreen.
We
are both emotionally and mentally exhausted, and all of the energy we brought
to these positions and hope to do good things for the organization has been
drained.
Mera Rose 8:52 PM
To the good people who hoped to affiliate their chapters as the Blue Ridge
Costuming Society, Old Dominion Costumers Guild, and CosInternational,
I am so sorry to have let you down in this endeavor. I know you are
amazing Costumers and some of the most awesome people I’ve ever met and had the
privilege to call friends.
To
the costumers and Cosplayers outside of the ICG, young and old, and especially
the Mini Mighty Munchkins who are the heart and soul of the future of costuming
in my very humble opinion, I am sorry that you saw these conversations. Your
work is important and I know it will continue. Even as my family and
I leave the ICG, know that we will continue to do all that we can to help in
any and all of your future endeavors. And to those chapters and
prospective members that were forming, I will not be here, but I’m sure that if
you want to continue to form there will be someone in the ICG that would be willing
to help.
It
is clear to me that with the current barriers that some voting and non-voting
members of the BoD are seemingly insurmountable. As
it stands currently, this organization internationally barely functions. While
chapters may be strong, the resistance presented in the ICG to these ideas was
so strong that it appears that the idea of change itself becomes an anathema. The
ICG should be an inclusive entity, not the exclusionary and elitist one that it
is seen to be and, in fact, has proven itself, at least to me, to be in these
last 2 months. The non-discrimination, harassment, and other updates
needed to keep up with the inclusive movement and “Cosplay is not consent”
movement are essential. And, quite obviously, a Code of Conduct is
required.
Perhaps
one of you, the members of the ICG or BoD reps, can
take up this cause. My fight is over... I will refocus my
efforts on creating an inclusive organization that can focus on the fun of
costuming and cosplay and the educational, charitable, and historic
contributions that it should represent.
Please
consider my resignation effective at 11:59pm, November 15, 2019. As
Marianne and I are resigning at the same time, essentially, I will not continue
any longer than is required to ensure that candidates are found and elections
are scheduled to replace us. My family and children will also be
leaving the ICG and the Silicon Web chapter as of that date. We wish
you luck, hope, and calm discussions for the future of the organization.
Cordially,
Mera Babineaux
Mera Rose 9:03 PM
@Cailin E. Cutrell - please let the BoD know if Old Dominion wishes to continue their petition
or not.
Mera Rose 9:16 PM
As a personal note to Phil: I’m sorry I didn’t live up to the
expectation and let you down. Thank you for giving me a chance to
try.
Mera Rose 9:40 PM
The video can’t be upload to Slack. Please visit https://www.facebook.com/prophouse42/ to
view the video.
Mera Rose 10:17 PM
The official resignations of the president and vice president can be viewed in
the #boardofdirectors channel, and the public statement of the
founding members of the Mini Mighty Munchkin Cosplayers, who are also ICG
members of Silicon Web can be found at https://www.facebook.com/prophouse42/ (its
late, and it’s been 2 long days in a row, please forgive the punchiness and
general weird humor). We, Prop House 42, the founders of the Mini
Mighty Munchkin Cosplayers and Shimmer and Shade Family Cosplay, otherwise know as the Babineaux family of
7, hereby tender our official resignation as members of the ICG effective
11/15/2019. We apologize for any disruption that our presence has
caused and now return you to your normal ICG programming....(((insert static
white noise)))
Mera Rose 10:45 PM
From BRCS:
“Please
consider this the official withdrawal of our petition for ICG affiliation. We
are an inclusive group, and will not limit ourselves to the narrow scope
currently covered under the ICG bylaws and standing rules as currently written. There
must be non-discrimination and harassment prevention that protects our members
before our organization will consider membership.
Also,
children are our future and must be allowed to participate to the extent
allowed by law. Our group is a family, and our children are treated
as such.
Cordially,
Blue Ridge Costuming Society
Aka Big Lickers of VA
“Virginia is for costuming lovers”
Katelyn
Law, President
Lydia
Sheets, Vice President
Peggey Rowland, Secretary
Mera Babineaux, Treasurer
On
Oct 23, 2019, at 4:16 PM, Blue Ridge Costuming Society
<blue.ridge.costuming.society@gmail.com> wrote:
It
has come to our attention that one of the members who had joined our chapter
Facebook group has decided to remove herself from membership consideration for
the ICG chapter after talking with an ICG member in another chapter. Please
remove Deb Reed from our petition.
Jorum
and Lana Stanley have asked to be added to the petition too.
And
we need clarification on whether the objection ends this petition and stops us
from becoming a chapter with y’all before we go further with this process.
Cordially,
Blue Ridge Costuming Society
Aka Big Lickers of VA
“Virginia is for costuming lovers”
Katelyn
Law, President
Lydia Sheets, Vice President
Peggey Rowland, Secretary
Mera Babineaux, Treasurer”
[3 replies Last reply 2 years ago 2019-10-25
5:26 AM]
Judy Mitchell 2 years ago
All my concerns have been met here and i believe
Northern Lights will be in favor of this and welcome them in (i am waiting for official direction, but i see no reason it wont be
accepted). I still wish we could have an updated version to vote on
because technically, for all the listed changes in membership, they arent attached to this application so the vote would still
be on it as written and presented.
Mera Rose 2 years ago
They have withdrawn the petition Judy. They no longer wish to join.
Judy Mitchell 2 years ago
Yes so i see.