The Area Presidency

Between the Council of Fifty and the world, there is one more body that serves communities: the area presidency. It is the only standing body between the community and the Institute, and it is designed to have one of the most limited roles in the NewVistas system. This page describes what the area presidency does, how it is set in place, and who may serve in it.

The role exists from the very first community. Until the first community is completed, the originating presidency carries it. After that, the Institute council carries it in each area until that area’s own presidency is seated.

What an area is

An area is a group of about five neighbouring fields. A field is the ground of one Council of Fifty, with room for fifty communities, so an area holds around 250 communities, or roughly 22 to 25 million people (see The Scale Ladder). Because an area line never runs through a field, deciding where an area ends is a matter of deciding which fields belong to it, rather than drawing new lines on a map.

A presidency of four

Each area is served by a single presidency of four, with one president from each Segment – partnered men, partnered women, single men, and single women. The four presidents serve the whole area together. No area president has a separate territory, and none of them acts alone.

As with every presidency of four, decisions are made by three of the four presidents. Once a decision is made, all four presidents carry it as the presidency’s decision, including any president who argued against it. In NewVistas, a president is one who presides, and is therefore meant to serve, rather than rule.

The role of the area presidency

The area presidency has three tasks:

• Certifying founders. Within its area, it confirms that each person who wants to found a community meets the published qualification, and certifies the results of the random draws through which the founder seats the community’s first presidency. It only judges qualification. It does not choose who is drawn, and it does not decide whether a new community is needed. The founder seats the presidency; the area presidency creates nothing.
• Recording the area. It keeps the record of the fields that make up the area and of the communities founded in each, and decides where the area should divide as it grows.
• Teaching the startup sequence. It helps founders and new founding councils understand the steps through which a community is set up, from the first presidency of four to the closing at eight districts.

Beyond these three tasks, the area presidency has no other role.

What the area presidency does not do

The area presidency does not govern any community or any Council of Fifty. It cannot direct, override, or amend a community’s Constitution. It does not hold title to anything, operate any asset, hold any funds, or set any prices. Nor does it decide how fast new communities start – the Institute paces new starts by what its certified vendors can supply.

It also cannot create any presidency. Within a community, only the presidencies of a founding council create presidencies, and only with the approval of the full council; after a community’s closing, its bureaus seat the presidencies that remain. Above the community, an area presidency is seated only by the Institute presidency for its world third, with the approval of the full Institute council. The area presidency itself creates none, and only renews itself.

It does not have a council of twelve or presidencies of three. These forms are necessary within a community, where many presidents share a large number of duties. The area presidency, on the other hand, has few enough duties for four presidents to carry.

No body stands above the area presidency. The Institute presidency that sets it in place stands to one side. Once the area presidency is seated, neither that presidency nor the Institute council can direct it, remove it, seat it again, or dissolve it.

When an area presidency is seated

An area presidency is never seated in advance, or simply because a certain number of communities has been reached. Instead, it follows a set order:

1. Communities are founded, one at a time, each by its own founder.
2. Once ten communities have been founded within one of the area’s fields, they form a Council of Fifty.
3. Only then, and only if the area needs help certifying founders and keeping its record, does the Institute presidency responsible for that world third seat the area’s first presidency of four, with the approval of the full Institute council.

The first area presidency is chosen the same way every president is chosen – through published qualifications, the narrowing of candidates, and a public random draw. No individual seats it alone. The member of the Institute council who is world area president for that part of the world also watches each area, before and after its presidency is seated.

Renewal

Once seated, an area presidency renews itself in the same way as every presidency of four. Each term is four years. When the presidency is first seated, the four seats are assigned by random draw to four yearly classes. After that, one seat opens each year, on the departing president’s birthday. This ensures that three experienced presidents are always serving, and that the presidency is never replaced all at once.

The presidency fills its own open seat. Each serving president nominates candidates from the qualified field of applicants. The four presidents narrow the nominees to four names, and then to two. The departing president then holds a random draw between the two, and the person drawn is put to a confirming vote. In this way, the final choice is removed from human control.

Confirmation and removal

An area presidency serves the adult participants of every community in its area’s fields, and they are the ones who confirm its presidents and, if necessary, remove them. Each person drawn, including every member of the first area presidency, must be confirmed by a majority of those participants, by secret ballot through the community app, within one week. The same participants may remove an area president by a negative vote of sixty-six percent. No council disciplines an area president, and no other body can unseat one.

If a seat falls vacant before its term ends, the three remaining presidents carry on without an acting president, and the seat is filled by the same process. Presiding and keeping the record rotate among the four, so that no president becomes a permanent chair.

Who may serve

The requirements for an area seat are among the most demanding in the system, on par with those for a seat on the Institute council. Area presidents are drawn from the Enterprise Owners of the communities in the area, and must know the system well enough to teach it. They are tested in two ways – by their record of what they have built, carried, and passed on, and through an independent examination on the duties of the office.

These requirements measure what a person has done, not their age or how long they have served. As with every public office, an area president must be between thirty and seventy-two years old, and no one is installed after the age of sixty-eight. This ensures that every president can serve a full term.

Serving full-time without pay

Area presidents serve full-time from the day they are seated. They are not paid or reimbursed, and there is no community fund to cover their costs. Each president carries all the costs of serving – living expenses, travel, lodging, equipment, and the lease of office time.

For this reason, an applicant needs to show, before the candidates are narrowed, that they have enough means to support their household and carry these costs for the full four-year term. This can come from income from a business they have passed on to a proven successor by license, from a business mature enough to support the household without their daily involvement, or from insured income replacement covering the same household and term. In addition, the applicant may not be bound by any succession agreement that requires them to spend a great deal of time consulting during their term.

The typical pattern is a serial career, in which a participant builds a business, passes it on to a proven successor, serves a term supported by what the business pays, and then builds another.

How an area divides

When an area grows well beyond five fields’ worth of communities, it is divided along the lines between its fields. The area presidency decides where the division falls, and continues to serve the part that remains. The Institute presidency for that world third then seats a new area presidency for the part that has separated, with the approval of the full Institute council, following the same process used for the first.

At full development

In a world of about twelve billion people, there would be around 520 areas, each with its presidency of four – about 2,080 area presidents in all. However, the world may never need all of them. Area presidencies are only seated where founders multiply and help is needed, rather than to complete a map drawn in advance.