To followup on Len's visit, we called an executive committee meeting.
My wife Sky Bearwalker, Justine Gray Horse, Dennis Dixon, Sharilee Green Tree and I were there. We were the original five executive committee members.
Also present was Sally Bearwalker. Sally is Sky's cousin, and a little more distantly related to me. Before our second election, we increased the number of executive committee members from five to six. That's how Sally came on.
We start each meeting with prayers, asking the Creator for assistance. Then we move into TDG business, starting in the Tankosin language. But eventually we move into English. Our second language seems easier.
Since that second election, we've elected the same people for the last three years. There are two reasons for this. First, I think we are doing a good job of running this TDG even though it seems to be going quite slow. Or perhaps no one really wants to replace us. Second, not enough of our membership is voting. So when the six of us vote, we mostly vote for each other. It's kind of hard for someone else to get enough votes to come into the executive committee.
Dennis and his young family have moved to Joosemin, where he has a good job as a mechanic's apprentice. So he hasn't been coming to meetings lately. His presence is missed, but his position is vacant. I'll be casting my usual vote for Dennis towards someone else. I think other executive committee members will do the time. It'll be good to get someone new.
The Riverbend TDG has well defined officers and committees. We don't. I somehow do the job of chair, membership, and treasurer. It's not a big deal to manage 114 members and our small funds. I'm in a good position in life to have those TDG responsibilities.
I started, "Well did we get any new members with last week's meeting?"
Dennis said, "I kind of forgot to set up our membership table. Sorry."
"No big deal. People know where to find me....Did Brian Turning Robe approach any of you about joining the TDG-even though he's over 30?"
Shrugs.
"Well, I'm not surprised. Brian just likes to complain about government."
Justine said, "I'm turning 29 this year. We'regonna have to deal with this 30-thing soon."
I said, "We are getting older. We all could have the constitution throw us out of office! Maybe the USA should have a constitution like that."
Everyone laughed.
Justine said, "Are we ready to open up our membership to older people?"
Sky said, "First we should remember why we set up that maximum age of 30. Remember that we felt that if older people were members of the TDG, we younger people would have to let them take over?"
"That's our culture," I said, "Young people have to give way to the opinion of an older person. That's how we show respect. We wanted this TDG to be young so we could do things our way."
Compared to the Riverbend TDG, we haven't moved far. Yes, we hold our elections but maybe only 20 people vote. And we hold four or five executive committee meetings a year to decide a few things. We hold a couple of public meetings to get new members. And we also hold our meetings with the elders four times a year. But only one or two of the elders come.
I recalled discussing my frustrations with Len last year about our lack of progress. He offered, "Yeah, but you do have about 100 members and you have been following your own TDG laws. That is very important." Len could see our circle was turning when we couldn't.
Justine offered: "I don't like the idea of opening up the membership to all Tankosin. If we get 10 people over 40 years old to sign up, we'll just have to give them the executive functions. That's the Tankosin way."
She was so right. This was one Tankosin tradition I didn't like. Maybe I would understand when I am older, but I'm not getting it now. "I think we should still keep the original course. We want young people to be a part of this new system of government."
Sky suggested, "How about raising the age to 35? That way, we won't be bringing in too many older members at once."
And that quickly became our consensus. We would make a constitutional change to raise the age.
"Since we're opening up our constitution for the first time, maybe there might be other changes." I offered.
"That sounds like a good idea," said Sally, "Let's all study the constitution and see if anything else comes up. We can leave age limit decision for the next executive committee meeting."
I said, "Len also mentioned that Riverbend's getting itself incorporated soon. Should we do the same?"
Justine said, "There's no harm in looking at it. Len said people in Riverbend would be happy to help set it up. We might learn something useful."
So we decided to let Justine be our representative to go on this path.
