Service for the people

Or

Vacancies for officers within the Virtual Kingdom.

 (This section is reproduced from the members/citizens handbook of June 1996) as you will see from the information now on communities, communities now take a less formal approach, and are far more fluid in design. However as a guide and for historic reasons we thought you might like to see this document.)

New Atlantis has the major objective of improving the quality of life of all its members and a honour based system, where officers from the President down provide services to the membership.

Officers within the system have honours or titles, but are also rewarded for their time, and effort. While members providing services for each other is paid for in Favours our bartering currency, officers involved in the expansion and running of the Bargain and Barter club receive their rewards in cash. This was chosen as they may be undertaking this in addition or instead of an ordinary job, and will require cash in order to both cover their expenses and live, with an improved lifestyle.

Although people can be a member of the Bargain and Barter Club without being a member of New Atlantis, everyone involved in promoting and organising the club have to be New Atlantis members. The are 14 Grades or Ranks within New Atlantis, but only a few of these will routinely be occupied by Bargain and Barter Club Officers. These Are;

A local  Chief (or Lord if also a New Atlantis Knight), who is the local organiser, serving an area in the UK of 1 or 2 Postcode sectors, and a catchment population of between 6,000 and 20,000 people. For example postcodes starting ST4 5.

Baron or Baroness, who control an area around the size of a town, usually one Postcode district. For example postcodes starting ST4.

Sheriff (or Viscount, if they also run all New Atlantis operations within the area) who controls a larger area the size of a Postcode Area, for example ST.

Using postcodes has a number of  distinct advantages, firstly we can see how much of an area is properly covered and identify who to feed leads to from enquiries, and secondly the postcode areas tend to follow accessible routes so that communications and transport within a local community is achieved. Maps are available varying from a national atlas that shows areas and sectors down to detailed maps that show individual houses.

The disadvantage of using postcodes is that the areas vary enormously in size, population, number of districts and sectors. Another disadvantage common with any geographical system is that many of the contacts and leads that a local organiser gets will be outside of their own designated area.

The role of the local organiser is to recruit new members for New Atlantis and any of the associated Clubs including of course the Bargain and Barter Club; to encourage bartering, putting people in touch with each other, and organising events in their area to facilitate bartering; co-operating with surrounding organisers, and collecting information to build barter directories.

The role of the Baron, is to recruit and motivate area organisers; act as a local person to sort out any disagreements between members, to encourage other New Atlantis operations within their area, to organise with the local organisers area events, and promotions. To collect information from local organisers in relation to directories. They of course are expected to co-operate with other barons that surround them. Finding local bargains and special offers for members.

The role of the sheriff, is to recruit and motivate Barons, encourage joint projects, and co-operation, to carry out investigations at the request of the President of New Atlantis or a person appointed by him responsible for handling complaints from members. Co ordinating and producing the local Barter services directory and passing on the information in a computer readable and approved form for the production of eithera  national CD or on line directories. Co-ordinating Bargains and special offers that originate from within their area.

Each person covers their own expenses out of the commission or overrides that come from their area. This system of calculating payments is very similar to some sales based positions for example area and regional managers for insurance companies.

It is not a pyramid system, as the overrides are in effect on sales as opposed to on recruitment, and each person is rewarded for their own work and a small amount for the work done by people that they support. With a pyramid system cash is usually created by selling the joining as opposed to the service, and profit is projected on others in turn joining up more people. Any commission on product sales within a pyramid system is usually shared generously with people several stages above.

We do not promote the concept of members joining and in turn recruiting members in order to make a profit, although there are small introductory commissions available to members who introduce new members.

Each family or person when joining pays a joining fee, out of this fee £20 is used towards the cost of recruiting them. It goes to the person who signs them up, however if the lead has come from another member then that member is credited with 10 favours and £10 paid to the person signing them up. In most cases it will be the local organiser, but where larger joint events are organised it could go to the local Baron or Sheriff, who may then pay those involved a share either in cash or favours. Barons and sheriffs can also join up members and have the £10 or £20 as appropriate, but will only normally do this where there is no representation in an area.

Where an officer recruits a new member out of there own area, they will receive the joining commission, but the override will be paid to the person in the area who has to continue to provide the service for the new member. However officers who are particularly good at recruitment may find this is attractive as an event or programme that say recruited 200 people would create an additional £4,000, and 1000 members recruited would create £20,000.

The ongoing overrides work on the following basis;

Local Organisers.

Favours purchased within the area of an organiser, including those obtained directly from the centre, included with member subscription and others purchased by standing order as well as any sold by the organiser, are accumulated each month.

The cost that these in total would have been available to the organiser in bulk, allowing for a bulk discount is calculated, and the actual price paid by the members is calculated. The difference is the override.

For example an area organiser has 300 families within their area, each paying a monthly subscription including 5 favours = 1500 favours. In addition some have additional standing order purchases, some have purchased by mail from the central unit, and some have purchased extra through the organiser, totalling say a further 2000 favours over the month. £3,500 has been paid for these, assuming people have not bought at block discounts, however the local organiser is able to calculate this as a sale with a 15% bulk discount generating £525 for the month. Plus of course some join up fees say 20 members at £20, and 5 at £10, producing a further £450, giving £975 for the month.

Payment is made directly to your bank account, without any deductions so you will have to keep your own records of expenses and pay any tax due to the tax man or other at the end of the year.

Barons.

The override system also works for the Barons, in exactly the same way, you add up the total number and value of favours sold over the month, taking the value as the rate paid by the local organisers and deduct the value at the bulk rate that can be obtained by adding a larger number together. In addition the Baron will be recruiting both new organisers and members in areas where there is as of yet no organisers, and other people at major events he puts on. There are a lot of other methods that can be used by barons to increase their income, but if we take the simplest case as an example. Let us assume that the Baron has 10 active local organisers, and each sells 3,500 favours that has been charged to them at £2975. Sales therefore account for 35,000 favours, which is charged to him at a 24% discount. Therefore you see that in effect he has the difference between the 15% discount that the organisers got and his bulk rate of 24%, and this represents 9% of £35,000 which is £3,150. Again he has to cover his own expenses, and the effect of the bulk rate means that he has sufficient capital to provide local handouts and other expenses and to further promote the concepts in his area.

The Sheriff.

The pattern is the same for the sheriff. So if for example he has 10 effective barons, he would be controlling an area with 350,000 favours sold a month, he would therefore be purchasing them at a 33% discount, which again is 9% producing £31,500 a month. This is slightly misleading as ultimately he has some expenditure in creating and publishing an annual directory for his area, or several for smaller areas. We are also expecting the Sheriff to fund his own promotional competitions, and other motivational events to get the sales up and to maintain them.

The above figures have all been chosen to be easy to calculate and are not predicted sales, as the areas vary in size considerably. The CF area for example has over 20 Districts, and TR, EX and many others over 25, while we have assumed 10 areas. The secret is in recruiting, motivating and keeping good people.

So how are we going to select these people.

Firstly we have to locate people who have sufficient confidence in their own ability to choose this system as opposed to a salary based structure. The largest risk to New Atlantis is that we recruit sleeping partners, who are happy to sponge off of others but add no value, and through this the work of the few is wasted on others, and people then drift away.

We need commitment, total commitment, if things are going great or if for some reason things are a little slow, for this reason the registrar for New Atlantis is only recruiting the Sheriffs, and they will recruit others, who they have confidence in. Enquiries that are generated centrally will of course be fed to the relevant Sheriff. There is no capital deposit required by people recruited as local organisers. Barons recruited as organisers and after a period of at least 6 months promoted to become a Baron also pay no deposit. People entering directly as a Baron, make a deposit of £150. Likewise barons promoted to become sheriffs, after a period of at least 6 months as a baron pay no deposit, but people who enter as a sheriff directly pay a deposit of £500. None of the deposits are refundable and are donated to the New Atlantis Presidents Fund.

The deposits are designed to eliminate those who are not serious, and totally committed to the project. We don't want people who may do something if the sun shines and there is nothing else better to do. A sheriff needs to feel confident that he can at least recruit 25 people to get his cash back from joining commission and a baron confident that he can sign up just 8 people. Although not a franchise as such, you may like to compare it with the franchise fees charged which often represent tens of thousands of pounds and likewise are designed to limit entry to those who are serious. Anyone not sufficiently committed should start as an area organiser and work up.

Targets are set for each person, sheriffs being agreed with the registrar, barons being agreed with the sheriff and local organisers being agreed with the baron. If any person constantly performs at less than one third of their target, then they may be asked to resign and give someone else a chance to get the area running fully. As the person who they agreed their target with also shares with them the responsibility to reach and break targets, they will get a great deal of support. Targets should in the first case not be set optimistically high as it is better to set a realistic target that can be easily met and passed and then to set slowly more challenging targets. The target should take into account the culture of the area, the population covered and the stage of development  of the Bargain And Barter Club at the time.

The New Atlantis and Bargain and Barter recruitment will provide the income for the first 6 months, after this, a number of other clubs will be able to be offered, all having joining commisions, and some having other income potential as well. As New Aytlantis members can join all clubs at a discount, this will provide additional sales potential, for New Atlantis membership.

Also after a few months a range of other services will become availiable, allowing people to spend the favours they have accumulated or earned. There will also be very special offers, which can only be purchased by people who have the favours in there account at the statement date, so people wil not be able to quickley buy favours at a discount to qualify. However it will encourage people to build and hold favours in there account. There will also be national bargains negotiated as well as the local ones.

Promotions can also be run so as to increase membership rapidly when starting up an area, and for example a sheriff  or barron might decide to run a recruitment where all new members got 20 favours for free, or where the joining fee was waived if they signed up on the spot. This can be financed out of the joining commision. Local bargain and barter sales, will also both recruit new members and create an additional demand for favors.

Centrally the club has a complex computer system and other arrangements necessary to carry out all the processing, produce statements commission etc. Officers and members have no costs in dealing with the club, a freefone line and freepost address is provided.

You should also read all about New Atlantis, and the Bargain and Barter club, and then do your own calculations based on the information provided. If then you are convinced that you could take on the role as a sheriff, You need to write to us giving a list of Postcode areas, for example, CF, RG, GL etc, listed in your order of preference. Don't just choose the largest areas, but consider where you can easily reach, how you will get on with the people from that area, and if you are prepared to handle to amount of work that running a large area entails. remember you would be largely your own boss, there will be very little interference or help available to you, our concentration is on running the system, opening up other new areas, and arranging more items for you to take advantage of in a few months. With 120 Sheriffs covering the UK when they are all appointed, and registrars in other countries to coordinate, we can provide very little hands on help.

If this appears too much to take on then consider each of the other two roles, and if you decide one of those interests you then again write in giving details on the areas of interest again presented in priority order. These applications will be passed on to the sheriffs covering these areas, who will see if you can be fitted into his plans.

Applications for sheriffs will all be seen, if they have identified an area that is available, if no available areas are identified you will be told, so that you can consider other areas. The interview will take place in your own area, and will either be with a sheriff from a nearby area, or with the president of New Atlantis. At this interview we will discuss our ideas, your ideas, and the sort of targets that you would envisage setting. If you can convince the person doing the interviewing that you would be the best person to run the area, you will be offered the opportunity, but the offer will only be open for a few days, and anyone offered an opportunity who turns it down will not be considered for any other post for a period of five years. Age, sex, county of birth or other such factors will not be part of our selection procedure. We have nothing against the older applicant providing they can see at least 5 years activity ahead. We have no set retirement age. Sometimes several applicants will be seen, while at other times is you are the only applicant interested in that area, you alone will be seen. It is advantageous to apply as early as you can, both to be seen early and to get the area of greatest interest to you.