Operating Structure : Courts

1. Do you have a form of internal organization? Describe it.
Our name says it all. We started off forming into what some people call political parties, or groups of like-minded beliefs. At first for a number of reasons (time allocation, as a joke and in reference to Irish mythology) we called them after seasonal courts. Summer Court had summer hours. Winter Court had winter hours. Between summer and winter, we ran half and half so that there wouldn't be sudden transitions.

Now that we have more than just the original Two Courts, we're much more loose about the seasons. We have council heads in each court, and we get along by that representation.

2. Does it resemble an Earth-world model? Does it take after a different context altogether?
A number of different courts, holding their own personal lands in an overall country. A friend also brought up to us that we're like a number of different houses in a Harry Potter book.

3. Do you have factions, political parties, etc? How are they handled?
That's how we first started off. We still have the major parties in the courts, but anyone can find space for theirs if they want to try and start their own. Inside the major parties, we have individual opinions. As a rule the faction which is most strongly represented in the Court is what guides it along at the time.

In each Court, the faction decides how things are run. Heads in the Summer Court are chosen by voting. Heads in the Winter Court are by whoever's the strongest to rise above the pack.

Some Courts aren't as much political parties as just knots of people with their own ideas of how to live, like Traveling Court. They still have representation, but they're internally run differently.

4. How are major decisions or arguments resolved?
Voting. Each person has a vote. Council heads have two votes.

5. How does your system handle memory and/or communication?
There's memory which is considered common property within each Court. Then there's major common memory, which is stored in the people who do frontwork.

We have three people who do frontwork who each have different weight between the Courts. There's one person who's trusted more by the Winter Court, and there's one who is neutral, and there is one who is trusted more by the Summer Court. Memory gets passed between the three freely. Anyone else can just ask if they don't know it for themselves.

6. Has your system of operations undergone major changes, and if so, why?
We've been stable ever since working out the court model. At first we were having serious problems because a lot of us just didn't agree on a common operating system. We kept having fights. Since we've agreed to let each Court do its own thing with its own people, we've been fine.

7. Have there been any specific examples of situations your system's organization has dealt with because of its nature particularly well? Poorly?
Since we keep a range of different ways of handling internal structure, we can adapt fairly well to a given situation as soon as we figure out which type of organization would do best in it.

8. Is the direction of your organization changing as time goes on, and why?
We've become a lot less aggressive between each other. It's become more of a competition between teams than many sides of a land-war. There used to be points lost or gained if people even passed memory between each other, but the issues of living has basically erased that standard.

9. Are there particular strengths?
All these political parties keep people busy so that they don't feel bored unless they really want to. We also have a variety of operating systems that are kept intact.

10. Weaknesses?
All those political parties can also make us exhausted. Since there's interCourt rivalry, sometimes people won't give up a situation that someone else in another Court could do better in because they don't want to lose face.

11. Is there any direction people are seeking to improve in?
Differently, each Court is working on its own mode of operations. As a whole, we're trying to tone down the amount of in-fighting still. People still like to pull a fast one on each other and earn respect in their individual Court for that.

12. Is your system centered around positions that any able person could fill, or around specific people instead?
The Court heads are representatives in council. Anyone could fill them.