Should the official town merchant be payed 5pounds/day as a

I was thinking since Rebo travels a lot he spends a lot of time on the road, he's losing a bit of cash when he could be working, and he is helping Chard out.

Now also Chard is not immensely rich, but we are doing quite well, so I picked the number 5 per day of travel. This is obviously not enough to make up for losing a days work, but since Town Merchant is a voluntary job for people who like to travel and often have personal trades as well I felt it was a nice number.

Lets have a vote since there hasn't been one in ages

voted yes (I like my idea heh heh)

Voted yes!

Maybe this'll make up for all that Jail time

I vote no

Its not enough !

Either you say 5 £ AND some food to go , or you will have to raise his wage a bit.

Rebo have done much good for Chard and he has to eat every day and who knows ... the mans might actually have plans for his RK life. We all know this takes move to advance so lets not starve the poor man.

A better offer would be in order but if Rebo votes yes to this suggestion of yours Mike then disregard my vote !

Well seeing as there is an obvious self interest for me in this case I do not know if it would be ethical for me to actually cast a vote. So I abstain from the vote, however I will certainly voice my opinion.

I think that there should be some sort of compensation for the merchant, and I said this to Mike the other day. I also think that it can wait until next term, because I personally am fine with my current situation. If there is no compensation then it may be hard to recruit a successor, also I think it is fair to compensate.

While 5 pounds certainly is much more than the current deal with the merchant, I also feel the need to echo Bellos' words that it is hardly buys a meal for a days sustenance. So if it were 5 pounds and a piece of bread or 2 corn, that would be much more fair.

There is also another way that I know some merchants get paid for their work. Some merchants have a deal with their town that they get paid a percentage of what they bring in. One merchant, for instance, gets 50 percent of what he makes for the town. This becomes a little tricky because there is no way to know what price the goods will be sold at when they return to the merchant's home. But if you establish a price- say we sell HHW for 15,50 and a merchant returns with 10 HHW for 15,40, he made a profit of 1 pound- 0,50 of it would go to the merchant. That obviously is only one example, but I think that gets the point across.

I personally do not know how I feel about that method, but it certainly has its pros and cons. The biggest pro is that you assure no loss to the town, the biggest con is that you again may not be paying enough for food.

Somerset offers a lot of deals (bribes ) to SAS, and I think merchants should be bribed in a similar way. Merchanting is not an easy profession, you run the risk of being attacked every time you travel, you have to have really high charisma to make good deals, and...well you don't get paid. This means that the ideal merchant is someone who has full stats on strength and charisma- I fall FAR short of that. Now being the official town merchant means that you should be conducting your trades in grants, which means strength is not as big a priority as charisma. I have heard through the grapevine that SAS offers meat for 16,00. I think similar discounts on stat food- especially charisma and a slightly lesser degree meat- should be offered to the merchant (and weapons when it is programmed for normal travel). This seems to make sence as Chard should have an interest in protecting its merchants and making it so they can get the best deals possible on the markets.

So, in conclusion, I think it is important for the merchant to be compensated enough to be able to eat for the day. There should be some combination of monetary compensation, basic food, and SAS-similar deals.

Sorry for the long winded response, I can go on longer if you wish to talk more (can you tell I have thought about this before?).

-Rebo

I realized that that the end of my last post made it look like I was advocating for a combo of monetary, basic food, AND sas-like bribes, but that is not what I meant. I do not think that all three are necessary for an appropriate compensation of the town's merchant.

It is true that all town council spots are volunteer positions, so none of us can demand a wage for our work, but it is also true that the town merchant is the only one who will necessarily be losing money under the current situation. Not only not getting paid, but also loosing money on the day's food.

It would be great if we could offer a small wage (say five pounds), a piece of bread (or two corn), and discounted veggies. But if we cannot afford it, then it should not be done. It would completely defeat the purpose if Chard lost money on the merchant. So we need to assure that does not happen. So if the ideal compensation does not work out (the one at the beginning of this paragraph), then there should be some combo of those three. I personally would be really happy (and I think it makes sense for rp) if the merchant was given food for the trip and access to sas-like bribes. That way we are investing in the advancement of our merchant and contributing to her/his sustenance.

Of course I would be happiest with the ideal . But seriously, I am also advocating for this to not take effect until after this term.

Told you I could talk more about it!

-Rebo

I would say the town merchant should be payed for his work, but as Bellos already staited: 5 pounds is not enouth. It is in favour of the town, if the merchant has a lot of charisma, so discounted veggies sounds good to me.

I didn't vote for I also consider the compensation of 5p too low. I would propose that the payment should be 2 veggies at 6.50p which corresponds to the county's min wage for a days work. If the TH can afford that.

So what was determined? Anything?

Rebo

Nothing of course yet... which was why I wanted to start you with 5/day of course.... *sigh*