I'm really sorry to have missed the opportunity to do the official end-of-term speech. I think I must get used to instill some "traditions" in Neualtenburg. Also, the last time, it was the RA's President ("Burgermeisterinn"
that officially announced the new members at the RA and welcomed them
So, stepping down as the former RA's President, I welcome the new members of the RA
Our last term was an abnormally long one. After we had hammered out the building blocks of Neualtenburg - both the legal ones (the Constitution, some of the procedures) and the "primmy" ones (the Fachwerks, the hundreds of textures...) - our main job last term was twofold:
- to make the move from Anzere to Neualtenburg's private sim
- to attract new citizens to sustain the monthly fees for the private sim
The first issue led us to a partial rebuild of Neualtenburg (it was a good pretext) and also to understand some limitations of how the Estate tools worked correctly. It also led to more public information on the Neualtenburg site. I call this mostly "putting down the infrastructure". We had a good "working prototype" in Anzere - but in our own private sim, we needed to get all the tiny details really operational. All our efforts concentrated on that.
The second one - attracting new citizens - was a necessity we couldn't afford to avoid. This also lead to much PR, done in the forums, but mostly in-world; it demanded catching people's attention (again) to what we were doing. It also meant having a group of people in Neualtenburg willing to greet eventual interested residents - and we have only to thank Sudane and Eugene for that job, later reinforced by several of the new citizens as well.
As a side issue, this also forced us to explore the complex way of "deeding parcels", through both an in-world mechanism (setting land to groups, writing deeds on notecards) as well as on the accounting procedures. The Office of the Treasurer was created, and Sudane has done that work brilliantly.
These were our major goals for the first term in Neualtenburg's private sim, and despite the big change - from a tier-based economy to a deed-based one - we managed to do quite well, as the Treasurer's recent reports have shown. We're now a good way towards reaching finantial break-even. Although the current finantial data does not show a budget for spending anything beyond the payment of the private sim, we have at least an inkling on how successfull the Neualtenburg Projekt can be, and what we need to do in order to achieve a positive monthly balance, and even start to repay the bonds (loans) that sustained us during our initial phase. This, of course, lies still in the future.
Although the City does not have yet much more to offer except nice buildings, the truth is, we
have attracted many visitors. It's not a "ghost city" all the time; as a matter of fact, although I suspect we still don't have people around 24 hours a day, the truth is, we
do attract spontaneous visitors, and there seems to be always someone around in the City. The Secret Tiny City was an excellent marketing stunt; before that, I believe that Aliasi Stonebender's Primtionary sessions have also encouraged a lot more people to come to visit us (as well as my regular events during the week and a few irregular ones). Some items, like the Chicken Hat offered for sale, have still contributed for visitors to come and pick it up (as well as furnishing some extra cash to the Treasury). Even the Casino seems to be used sporadically.
Altenburg - the old part of the town - was recently rebuilt by the Guild for our upcoming major event, the Expo 2005. This also attracted the attention of some visiting tourists, who are often interested in seeing how the City develops. The notion that Neualtenburg is still changing dynamically, and is not just a "landmark of the past" (which sadly happens often in Second Life), has perhaps underlined the idea that this is a great place to be.
As the new RA shows - a reinforcement of voting on the MPP - most of the new citizens have felt that it has been the work of several new citizens (affiliated with the MPP) that has brought "new life" in the city. For this work, I congratulate the new members of the RA. Also, I feel that several members of the MPP have done an outstanding work of explaining the Neualtenburg Projekt to the new citizens. This is a tiring and demanding job, which has been done very successfully over the past weeks, to the point that they deservedly won more votes
Although the task of moving to a private sim and managing the finantials successfully was a difficult one - one which we overcame - the new RA has many more challenges to deal with, and this time the focus will be, once more, political in nature. Clarification of the power equation in Neualtenburg will certainly need a change in the Constitution. The relationship between the City and the use of its buildings will need, once and for all, to be decided. The MPP's platform has given deep thought on how the City public structures should be used and a guideline on how to measure the success of the use of several of those structures. Transferring the success of the City to the private groups that will operate the public structures is, thus, a major area for the new RA to legislate. This will empower many citizens to be actively responsible for managing parts of the City, within the boundaries defined by the bills passed by the RA. Implementing this strategy successfully will be at the core of the new RA's regular meetings.
The RA will certainly also address the budget and the relationship of the Treasury with the remaining branches. Money issues are always a difficult area to deal with. Neualtenburg in Anzere was, to a degree, more "peaceful" since we didn't feel the pressure of having to pay our bills every month, and we could concentrate on doing creative things instead. The private sim, however, reminds each and every citizen that if we don't have enough money to pay to Linden Lab, Neualtenburg will definitely be closed, without appeal. This Sword of Damocles will now forever pend over our heads. Thus, an efficient way to deal with the money equation is definitely a job for the RA. We have a very transparent accountancy system in place, but several issues have to be dealt with, and I foresee the challenges that will carry us on in the forthcoming months.
I believe that this new term will be one of consolidation. We have already seen how much the citizens care about the City - 100% voting turnout must mean something (compared to something like 30% on the last elections). This also means that the attention will be focused on the RA's job. This time, people expect from the RA that it provides solutions and answers to what has always been a little vague and poorly discussed. This time, the RA will build its work on the foundations that it has recieved as a legacy - a sim, a city, a group of citizens, several guidelines - and make the best of it to bring Neualtenburg to the point we all wish to see the City: finantially sound, politically stable, with a friendly environment that allows us to be creative with the freedom we like to have, a meeting place of similar-minded individuals - and, of course, the ultimate wish: showing that
a sim governed by its citizens actually works.
We should not forget the landmark we have set into this virtual world. Already Neualtenburg is one of the longest-lived projects in Second Life - we have been in existence for almost a year. It's easy to let a project simply "exist" in SL, but be void of people and content - many projects are far older than Neualtenburg and are still around, and sometimes people still visit them, or tinker with the buildings a bit. Neualtenburg, however, is
different. For better or for worse, it has been in
perpetual evolution. It has germinated as an idea, grown to a project, and continued to evolve adapting to change - of conditions (from a tier-based economy to a deed-based one) and people (less than a third of the citizens have been here from the start). To succeed, and to fullfill the purpose of the Neualtenburg Projekt, we have a duty to show that we can adapt to circunstances and work out solutions and compromises. We always claimed that the strongest feature of a government-managed community was the ability to adapt, the willingness to change direction when a majority of citizens demanded that change, to deal with the unexpected, to live beyond the original group's interest in mantaining the project. Neualtenburg, not surprisingly, is a project made of
people.
I trust that the new RA will not only keep that ultimate objective in sight, but that it will successfully lead the City of Neualtenburg towards its next phase, adapting once again to the circunstances, and designing guidelines to cope with change.
I wish all members of the RA - old and new alike - a good luck and an excellent new term!
- Gwyneth Llewelyn, former RA President
