The Originating Presidency

In NewVistas, every body is set in place by another. The founder of each new community is certified by its area presidency before seating the community’s first presidency. Area presidencies are seated by the Institute presidency responsible for their world third, with the approval of the full Institute council. A Council of Fifty forms once ten communities have been founded within one field. Once the system is running, there is always a body ready to take each step.

At the very beginning, however, none of these bodies exist. There is no Institute council, no area presidency, no Council of Fifty, and no other community. Someone has to carry out their roles until they are in place. This page describes the body that does so – the originating presidency.

Which presidency it is

The founder of the first community qualifies first, and then seats the first presidency of four. The founder takes the seat for their own Segment, and each of the other three seats is filled from a different Segment. For each seat, a pool of four candidates is identified and narrowed to two, and a witnessed random draw is held between them. These four presidents form the Trustee presidency of the first community.

This presidency is the originating presidency. It is the first presidency of four ever formed, and the only one that begins without any other body beside it.

The roles it holds

From the day it is seated, the originating presidency holds in trust the roles of every body that does not yet exist:

• For the first community. It leads the founding process, as any founding Trustee presidency does, until the other eight seats of the community’s founding council of twelve are drawn.
• In place of a Council of Fifty. It brings together the first communities as they are founded in its field, and coordinates their shared hinterland using a published formula, until ten of them form a Council of Fifty.
• In place of an area presidency. It certifies the founders of new communities in its area, and keeps the record of the communities founded there.
• In place of the Institute council. It watches the founding of communities everywhere, certifies founders in any area where no other body yet does so, and seats the Institute council of twelve.

Throughout this period, the Institute’s licensing of buildings, the operating system, and certified vendors continues through the Institute’s legal foundation, under its founding board. What the originating presidency holds is the coordinating role that the Institute council of twelve will carry once it is seated.

In this, the originating presidency does for the whole system what every founding council does inside its own community. A founding council holds in trust the duties of each presidency of its community that is not yet seated, and hands them over on the day that presidency is seated (see The Scale Ladder). The originating presidency holds in the same way the roles of the bodies above the community, until each of them exists.

Holding roles for a limited time

Holding these roles does not make the originating presidency a government. In each role, it performs only the limited tasks that the role allows – certifying, recording, convening, watching, teaching, and seating the Institute council.

The roles are also held only for a limited time. Carried for long, the area and world roles would give the first community a standing that no later community could have. For this reason, the originating presidency gives up every role outside its own community no later than the day the first community is completed, at its closing at eight districts.

The originating presidency does not govern any community other than its own. The founders of the second, third, and every later community seat their own presidencies. The originating presidency certifies their qualification and the results of their draws, but creates no presidency outside its own community, does not choose who is drawn, and does not decide whether a new community should be founded. In this way, the principle that no body governs the body it established applies from the very first day.

As with every presidency of four, the originating presidency makes decisions by three of its four members. This ensures that every decision it makes, in every role, includes the voices of all four Segments. Like every presidency of a founding council, it creates a presidency only with the approval of the full founding council. The one exception comes at the very start, when the presidency fills the other eight seats of the founding council itself, since there is not yet a full council to approve them.

Seating the Institute council

The most important task of the originating presidency is seating the Institute council of twelve. The council is made up of three presidencies of four, responsible for the trustee, regulatory, and operating functions, each with one president from every Segment. The Trustee presidency carries title, corporate standing, and financial discipline; the Regulatory presidency carries licensing, design specifications, and vendor certification; and the Operating presidency carries the relationships with the Institute’s contractors. These seats are full-time and unpaid, and carry the most demanding requirements in the system. The council fills every board seat and legal office from among its own twelve, so that no paid executive class ever forms.

The council is seated using the same method used everywhere else – published qualifications, the narrowing of candidates, and a witnessed random draw, with the first terms staggered by random draw. For each of the twelve seats, the four members of the originating presidency each put forward one candidate, as they do for the eight other seats of a founding council. The council then replaces the Institute’s founding board. Because this creates new presidencies, the originating presidency acts only with the approval of the full founding council of the first community. The founder takes part as a member of the originating presidency, but never alone. The council is to be seated within ten years of the Institute’s founding, and before the first community is completed.

Once seated, the Institute council publishes the map of the twelve world areas and the three world thirds, assigns each member a world area to watch, and carries the roles at the world level from then on.

The founder

The founder does not hold any continuing special status. The seats of the originating presidency renew in the same way as those of every presidency of four. The first terms are staggered from one to four years by random draw. After that, each seat opens on its holder’s birthday and is filled through a random draw.

This means that within four years, each of the four original seats has come up for renewal at least once. The roles the originating presidency holds belong to the presidency, not to the people who first served in it.

Why a single presidency

The NewVistas system only grows from what already exists. An area presidency is never seated for communities that do not yet exist, and a Council of Fifty forms from communities that are already there, rather than being declared in advance. A world council with no communities to serve would have nothing to coordinate. Seating these bodies before they are needed would create offices without work, and encourage authority without purpose.

The only other ways to begin would be to have a single founder carry every role, or to seat empty bodies and wait for a reason for them to exist. The first is ruled out because no president governs alone, while the second is ruled out because nothing is set in place in anticipation. By placing every early role in one presidency of four, for a limited time, each founding decision is made by a body that already includes all four Segments, decides by three of four, and renews itself in the same way as every other presidency.

What it becomes

As each of the bodies it is standing in for is seated, the originating presidency hands over that role, and by the time the first community is completed it holds no role outside it. From then on, it is simply the Trustee presidency of the first community – one presidency among many – and its founding council only renews itself and carries its duties as the community’s nonprofit board. The process through which each role is handed over is described in Ceding Authority.