It has also become customary for one of the Consuls to deliver a "[[State of the Society]]" address at the [[Annual Membership Meeting]]. Often the Board will direct that copies be distributed to either the Board or the Membership. Not all such have been suitable for general publication.
==Unofficial Duties==
Consuls have a second set of obligations, ones that are but for this page unwritten, and as a result largely misunderstood.
We, if only by virtue of our long tenure with the Society, including time spent with the [[Founder]], must serve as the Society's organizational memory, especially in those many areas where the history is unwritten. In the performance of this duty, we not only answer questions, but pro-actively advice officers and councils of that history. This isn't to say that we have the authority to block change, only that we may require that it be done knowingly, and with full awareness of relevant Society history.
We also serve as that nasty little voice of conscience in the heads of officers, chairmen, and others. We try to keep track of which tasks have been assigned or assumed, and gently (and privately) remind others of what yet needs to be done. At present, the primary means of this is a "Monthly Reminders" email. Other tools will be taken up as they present themselves.
There is also a negative duty — to conduct ourselves in ways that prevent this from becoming the "Metcalf Society", just as it was earlier the "Hartwell Society". Focusing too much of the attention on any individual is hazardous for such a group; look only to the chaos that followed our Founder's decline and demise. We do not have the depth of management that permits us to allow anyone to become vital, including most especially ourselves.
Our duty in this regard is thus to strengthen the [[Board]] so that it can actually manage the affairs of the Society, to develop volunteer chairmen who can carry out the work, to develop vice-chairmen who can step up at need, and to deemphasize the need for our services until we can be replaced by a clerk or two.
We've been at this last since 2007, and the prognosis is not good.
We do have a "Plan B" in reserve that provides for us taking over the operations of the Society and making it quite deliberately the "Metcalf Society" until such time as the Board is ready to resume its duties ... or we utterly fail to sustain operations. We will propose this plan only as a last resort, as we think it the worst possible answer short of dissolving the Society.
==Support==