News from home

Going to take a bit of a break from what's going on up north (mainly because the assaults have calmed down quite a lot today) to talk a bit about what is going on around here at the compound.

In all the excitement I think I forgot to mention that the giant herd of sheep and their farmers made it here safely. I really don't recall mentioning it, so let me apologize if I am repeating old information. One thing I can be sure that I didn't mention before is that every one of those guys left literally tons of raw wool in storage. That's a resource I am very happy about...

The recent quiet around here has led to many meetings of the council. We decided to take advantage of the lack of zombie attacks and have a round of comprehensive discussions about a wide variety of topics. Some of it was pretty boring, whether or not to go ahead and work on adding platforms and walkways to the wall of the new annexes and things like that. Some was of vital importance, such as whether or not to send out more groups of people to search for yet more food to see us through the winter. We have discussed everything from defense to shoe leather, and every subject had one thing in common.

We talked and argued too much, and only came to agreement on anything about half the time. Funny how early one we were so driven by fear and worry that we seemed almost a united front in some things. I suppose having a few comforts and effective defenses does allow the average person to get a little more opinionated about some things.

I want to say that we have come to some kind of agreement on the important stuff, but the reality of it is that all of it is important. I hate having to work on all of this without Courtney and Steve, even Will, though he isn't on the council. The frustration of reaching a major consensus without any useful method to prioritize topics or break deadlocks is something that we finally had to address.

So Rich Whitney agreed to serve as our "leader" for a short time, until out the council members that are currently out of town are back. He specified that he would only be acting in council meetings to make sure that the most important problems are dealt with first and with appropriate consideration, and to act as a last measure for our lack of consensus on am issue. He won't do anything else in a leadership capacity, partially due to the fact that he's already our judge for criminal issues.

We're going to have ourselves an election when the others get back. A real one this time, where everyone gets to vote. We need a leader that has the confidence of the majority, that is chosen by them rather than by a small group of people. That's where we went wrong when I was chosen. That is why Rich refuses any more authority than he absolutely needs to ease the gridlock in our decision making process.

I hope it comes soon. The worst thing is inaction. We have pressing concerns, and I would rather do the wrong thing rather than wait too long and be able to do nothing at all.

If and when we are certain that the attacks on Jack's place have weakened enough that they no longer need our help to defend, our people will come home. Then we can choose, and finally have a leader to bring us together, to give us direction.