======================= Grand Council Chronicle ======================= Issue #19 -- June 7, 1995 Contents of this issue: Sec'y: Still need deputy; Volunteerism; Submissions Cariadoc: Various Topics Caroline: Reminder: Commentary is NOT Voting Update on Voting for Proposals Finnvarr: Territoriality and Outsourcing Dani of the Seven Wells [fwd]: Outsourcing Kyle: Email; Territories; Other Clubs Frithiof: Intro, on Kingdom Incorporation Justin: Membership Working Group Serwyl: Territoriality and Voting Modius (via Caroline): Territoriality Proposal Fiacha: Voting and Territoriality Arthur: Repost of various subjects This is the Grand Council Chronicle, the proceedings of the Grand Council of the Known World, a body chartered to examine the structure of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc., and make recommendations of changes. The contents represent the opinions of the contributing authors, and do not necessarily represent the official policies of the SCA, Inc. ---------------------------------------- >From the Secretary's Desk A couple of reminders: First, I'm still looking for a deputy, to take over when I go on vacation. This is becoming important -- my first vacation of the summer will be the first week of July, which is pretty soon. It seems silly to shut down the Council for a week simply because I'm away, so it would be a Very Good Thing if I can get someone to fill in... Second, I'd like to note that the rates of volunteerism for committees is looking pretty weak. I've gotten three people for the Membership Working Group; I get the impression that Bertram has gotten fewer than that. Folks, a seat on the GC is neither a perk nor a privilege -- it's a job. Part of that job is participating actively, and it looks like one of the main means of participation is probably going to be through these focussed discussion groups. Please consider getting involved in some (if not now, then soon). Third, please remember that I would strongly prefer that non-GC-members *not* send their proposed submissions directly to me; I'd rather you went through other members of the Council. Putting the Chronicle together takes a non-trivial portion of my time already; chewing on piles of submissions that I have to decide on takes more. And, frankly, it gives me more power over the process than I'd like to have. Please, use the rest of the Council... Finally, this is a longish Chronicle. It's under 50K (barely), so I'm hoping it doesn't make anyone's mailers choke. If you get an incomplete Chronicle, tell me; I'm trying to figure out when I need to split it into multiple mailings... -- Justin ---------------------------------------- Sender: ddfr@midway.uchicago.edu Subject: GC Chronicles 13-16 I have been distracted by mundane activities, mostly associated with preparing a move to California, and have only just caught up on the Chronicles, so some of these responses are a bit late: Territoriality: several chronicles: I believe the correct solution for the Society as a whole, here as in many other areas, is local option. Kingdoms that want local groups to have exclusive territories should be free to write their kingdom law accordingly, as should kingdoms that want only exclusive core territories or no territoriality at all. At the moment I would vote for my kingdom to have a system in which groups did not have monopoly control over territory, but I might change my mind after seeing how it worked. In any case, I don't think this is an issue we, or the Board, should decide for the individual kingdoms. -- GC#13: Hossein argues that we should start by advising the Board to reverse all policies adopted during and since 1993 that discriminate between paid members and non-members in their access to and participation in the activities of the SCA. While I am all in favor of the Board doing that--indeed, I would like them to move membership requirements back a good deal farther than 1993--I do not think that we as a group should start our activities with an argument over that deeply divisive issue. And I certainly do not think we should advise the Board to force kingdoms that have enacted pay to fight to reverse their legislation (it is unclear to me whether that is part of Hossein's proposal or not). The decision of people in the Middle and Atlantia to impose pay to fight is a problem for their citizens to deal with, not us or the Board. -- GC#14: Alysoun offers a five point description of "how our educational process works." I think it is missing an essential element--the fact that the people who are being educated are also the ones doing the educating and running the organization. If you read her list without having any experience of the SCA, it sounds a though it could be a college's adult ed program--one group of people teaching another. -- Gareth raises the question of how we can establish an atmosphere of trust between the Board and the Council. One problem I see with the sort of suggestions he offers is that the Council, in the relevant sense, does not exist. We are not (at least yet) a corporate body with a common set of attitudes, so no individual or small group can represent us to the Board. The only ways I can see of persuading the Board that we are reasonable people are 1: Letting them read the Chronicle (as we do) and being reasonable in it (as I think we so far have been). 2. Sending them proposals that are carefully thought out and reasonably stated. Similar problems exist in the other direction as well; although the Board is more nearly a single organization than we are, it is also pretty diverse. The fact that one Board member is reasonable (or unreasonable) provides very limited information about the Board as a whole. I agree with Gareth that all or almost all Board members "are devoted people who care deeply about the Society and who sacrifice much to attempt to give back to the SCA." But that does not answer the question that is vital to us--how willing they are to consider seriously changes that we recommend. -- Eichling offers a decentralization proposal and raises the issue of suprakingdom organization. I would like to focus on the question of the need for suprakingdom authorities, taking the Marshallate as my example, since the argument in favor of imposing compulsory rules is probably stronger for fighting than for most of what we do. I see three argument for imposing fighting rules at the Society-wide level instead of doing it at the kingdom level. They are: 1. The Society as a whole can produce better rules than the individual kingdims. The larger kingdoms at present are about as big as the Society was fifteen years ago, and getting bigger. I have not noticed much improvement in how well things are run, or how sensible our rules are, over that time span. The kingdoms are probably big enough to work out sensible rules, especially with the advantage of being able to learn from their own past experience and the experience of other kingdoms. Imposing uniform rules on the whole Society has at least three important disadvantages. The first is that conditions vary--armor rules that are sensible in the climate of Ealdermere may lead to problems in the climate of Trimaris. The second is that the farther the rule making is from the people the rules affect, the harder it is for the latter to influence the former. A fighter with a new idea that requires a rules change for its implementation--say a better way of doing combat archery--has a reasonable chance of knowing his kingdom Earl Marshal and is quite likely to know someone who knows his kingdom Earl Marshall. His links to a Society Marshall several thousand miles away are a lot more tenuous. The third is that uniform rules make it harder for one kingdom to try out a new idea and others to learn from its experience. So while our fighting rules may well benefit by discussions among kingdoms, and perhaps by consultation and recommendations at a suprakingdom level, I think we are likely to get better rules if the actual decisions are made at the level of the individual kingdom. 2. Bad rules by one kingdom imperil all other kingdoms, since we are legally one organization. My preferred structure for the Society makes the kingdoms legally independent and the SCA Inc. an umbrella organization with the kingdoms as members--a federation of kingdoms. Under that structure one kingdom is no longer legally responsible for the acts of another, any more than the state of Illinois is responsible for acts taken by the state of California--both members of the USA. 3. We need uniform rules so that we can play together. As I have argued before, we currently have a good deal more uniformity than our Society-wide rules impose. To take one example, Atenveldt used to permit blows below the knee. I may be mistaken, but I believe they changed that not because the Society Marshall told them they had to but because Atenveldt decided to change the rule. The same is true for the introduction of fencing and combat archery to the Middle Kingdom. So I think the combined effect of the desire of people in different kingdoms to play with each other plus the forces of cultural diffusion with the Society are probably enough to maintain a tolerable level of uniformity. Here again, supra kingdom structures that are in a position to recommend uniform rules but not to impose them may be useful. --- Legal Decentralization and Institutional Independence How closely is the issue of imposing rules on the kingdoms linked to the issue of legal decentralization? Under the sort of structure I have proposed, the SCA inc. retains the power to refuse to accept a kingdom as a member. So, in principle, we could have legal decentralization and still have the Corporation writing detailed rules and rejecting any kingdom that refuses to follow them. I do not think that is likely to happen. The ability to reject an entire kingdom is too blunt an instrument for detailed control. The threat to dump everyone in the East, fighter and non-fighter alike, because of a disagreement about what spear shafts should be made out of will not be credible. And dumping a kingdom may not be all that serious a sanction, if kingdoms are legally independent and can continue on their own with no serious difficulty. One can imagine possible ways around this problem, and we can discuss them if people are interested. But my own guess is that, if we do convert the SCA inc. from a unitary organization into a federation, one result will be a substantial reduction in its ability to decide things for the kingdoms. --- GC #15: Kyle writes: "My views are conservative and tend toward centralization, the thought of not having something at the top to keep things from going completely awry is scary." But when something at the top makes things go awry, as many of us believe happened in January of last year, the result is far more trouble than anything that can happen in a single kingdom. Authorities that never do the wrong thing are not an option, at either the kingdom or corporate level, and sovereigns are a lot closer to the people they are causing trouble for than Board members. For one thing, the job of being sovereign forces the jobholder to be active in the kingdom; the job of being on the Board appears, at least at present, to have the opposite effect. "What happens when a kingdom gets an unruly crown ?" Everyone important moves slowly for six months. That is what happens now. It is important not to exaggerate the real power and authority that anyone in the SCA has. Most of our assets, human and physical, belong to the individual participants, over whom the kingdom structure has no legal authority. I believe the following is a true tale: A king of Ansteorra, being annoyed at the parent kingdom of Atenveldt, announced that he was having the Atenveldt sun removed from Ansteorra's arms. The kingdom herald was still researching the proposal when the next King of Atenveldt reversed the decision. "How do groups from different regions interact if we don't have some common areas ? Insurance and fighting rules are one example." The only significant thing our insurance does now is help us get sites; that does not require all kingdoms to have the same insurance policy from the same company. Fighting rules I discussed above. --- GC#16 Gareth writes: "First, we should not send any recommendation to the board until we are all ready to stand by it. ... Thus I would encourage us to use a consensus model--with all of its shortcomings." I agree with the spirit of this. Unanimity is probably too much to hope for, but we should try to get something reasonably close, for two reasons. First, as Gareth argues, we will have a better chance of persuading the Board if we all agree. Second, and perhaps more important, the effort of trying to find proposals almost all of us agree with may produce proposals that most of the Society can be comfortable with. If the Board was persuaded to enact a proposal supported by 55% of this (very non-random, hence statistically unrepresentative) body and opposed by 45%, the result might well be a rerun of last year, with large parts of the membership hotly objecting. David/Cariadoc David Friedman ddfr@midway.uchicago.edu ---------------------------------------- Sender: "CAROL L SMITH" Subject: Reminder: Commentary is NOT Voting Greetings from Caroline! I am glad to see such discussion on the topics we are currently voting on. This is a Good Thing. However, I will not infer a vote on those topics from your commentary in the Chronicle. Please send your votes to me, so that I might properly record them. Thanks! Caroline ---------------------------------------- Sender: Steve Muhlberger Subject: GCC 18 -- Territoriality and Outsourcing Finnvarr sends greetings to the Grand Council. Chronicil #18 was very interesting. I was particularly interested in Gareth's contribution. First, my votes. NO on the territoriality proposal. YES on the outsourcing proposal. Gareth wonders if we will look too pushy "insisting" on the Board checking out outsourcing when they may have other priorities. Well, what if we don't "insist" but politely *suggest* that getting this basic information (which Bertram informs me is essentially free, or free except for some office time of one of the staff) might help everyone think about the money issues more clearly? It's not like the SCA, Inc. has barrells of money sitting around, is it? If we are not capable of wording a polite suggestion, or the Board is not capable of responding reasonably to a polite suggestion, then we should quit now. I was more favorably impressed by G's analysis of the territoriality proposal. I agree this is either micromanagement, or an attempt to restructure the whole SCA without spelling out the philosophy behind the restructuring. I am frankly puzzled about why people think this is so important. Cariadoc's original proposal had a clear motivation: get rid of most of the corporate superstructure by reducing the services provided by it to an absolute minimum, while giving individual members a lot of choice in what part of the Society they participated in. I disagree with the proposal, but the motivation was clear. However, later proposals (not just the one before us now) seem to be motivated by a deep unhappiness with how local groups work and are defined. Proposals to fix this problem have been very complicated, and seem to add rather than subtract from the administrative burden. My question is, is this really the most pressing problem facing the Society? Was unhappiness with local groups behind the crisis that called this council into being? Not that I can see! To my mind, the crisis was caused by 1) financial problems that led to 2) a crisis of governance, when the proposed cure for the financial problems seemed to be a usurpation of authority to very many people. I think it would be more profitable about what unifies us, before we try to redivide the SCA at the local level. One of the things that unifies us is the purely mundane problem of how to deal with legal liability and taxation problems. Another thing that unifies us is our need to encourage communication between our far-flung members. A third thing that must unify us is a common set of rules about how the game we play works, and some governance mechanism to enforce them. And a final thing that must unify us, if unity is going to be effective, is a method to finance all of the above. Now if you notice, we have most of this stuff already. I think what we lack is a feeling among the membership (including Old Dukes Who Used to Be on the Board) is that our affairs aren't well managed on the financial level, and that the Board and various levels of officers are not responsible to the membership in any meaningful way. I am reluctant to get into a heavy philosophical trip about what the SCA is or should be. To take Gareth's attempt to write a definition of the Society: Does the average member really feel the need for ANY group in the SCA to instruct them to be nicer to children and old people? (Sorry if this sounds sharp, Gareth, but I am sure the general membership would react much more strongly than this!) And I also think, when I read it, that there must be some terrible divide between fighters and non-fighters in Gareth's area that I don't see in my own. Otherwise why so much verbiage about fighting in armor being only one of our activities? I don't mean to pick on Gareth unduly -- as I said before, I agree with him on a great deal. The point is that ANY formulation will get exactly the same kind of criticisms from SOMEBODY. Personally, I think we have to think about more concrete problems of structure and less on philosophy of the SCA. There are 10,000 philosophies of the SCA. As I said earlier, let the membership debate (endlessly, tediously, amusingly, enlighteningly) the purpose of the SCA. Let's fix things so that the administrative structure delivers necessary services at a reasonable price and makes decisions in a manner more responsive to the people it is supposed to serve. Bertram's proposal seems to directly address the first of these concerns, which is why I support it. The idea of a cheap, no-publication membership, with or without designated choice of local group (for counting purposes only) does have some merit. On the Lilies meeting: Too bad it is on a weekend. Since I am driving all the way from Northern Ontario (and BACK! that's the bad part), I will be on the road both weekends. Justin, I am interested in discussing the definition of membership. Finnvarr ---------------------------------------- [Approved by Justin.] I am strongly in favor of investigating our outsourcing options, but I'd suggest making the motion more concrete before putting it to a vote. If the Board is simply asked to investigate outsourcing, it will probably respond by pointing out that it voted to do so in January. At that time, AJ delegated the task to Brian Morman -- Treasurer of Outlands and a member of AJ's finance committee -- and Brian has been looking into outsourcing. He and Bertram recently became aware of each other's efforts, and presumably they will be cooperating. While there is no need to ask the Board to investigate outsourcing, there is still a need to ask the Board for its cooperation in the specifics: - The Board should be asked to request an Association Management Services bid form. Although this is only a request for information, only the Board may request this form. Without this form, we do not have an accurate idea of what information we need in order to assess this level of outsourcing. - The Board should be asked to direct Renee to help the Council compile a list of the tasks carried out by the central office, and a rough idea of the volume of activity and the resources they require. Brian indicated that it's exceedingly hard to analyze outsourcing realistically without a clear picture of what the activities are that we are talking about potentially outsourcing. If the Council wishes to ask the Board to assist in an investigation of outsourcing, I suggest that it include these two specifics in its request. Note that virtually any other option the Council considers is going to require much the same information, so the sooner a start is made on obtaining it, the better. -- Dani of the Seven Wells dani@telerama.lm.com ---------------------------------------- Greetings from Kyle, First, I finally had time to get my Email set up like I wanted it, so you can now send your coments/tirades, whatever, direct to: KINCORA1@aol.com Territories: I don't see this as broken, not perfect, but not broken. I of course can't speak for elsewhere but it seems to be reasonably flexable here. When, where and if a group is to be formed usually starts with the kingdom seneschal. If sound arguements are made for forming a new group in close proximity to an existing group it's done. If it's a case of someone that cannot or will not get along with the locals, oh well. I don't see the need to restructure to accomodate a small number of people. We have people that play across group lines and groups share sites on a regular basis. Territorial lines don't, or atleast shouldn't preclude the use of sites, it's the people that make most events, not the site. If someone feels strongly about which roster they are listed on, assuming they are even members, let them make the effort to get a p.o. box or list a friend address, not the whole society. Another thing to consider is kingdom calenders are pretty full now, more groups means headaches for everyone wanting to hold an event. Where do you draw the line on the number of groups in an area ? 2, 5, 10, so many per capita? I think fuzzy lines would create more trouble than it would ever be worth. Responce to Serwyl #13 My impression is that a crown can, with a fair amount of ease, stop the appointment of a new officer, but cannot remove an existing officer without VERY good reason. Crowns come and go much faster than officers, so all a corporate officer has to do is procrastinate and it becomes a non-issue. Technically a crown can suspend someone for the duration of their reign, but even that would cause more trouble than most are willing to endure. As to finances and crowns, ours don't have much say, usually when they have a pet project, fund raisers are held and the moneys earmarked. There are times when fund are alocated for kingdom functions at the request of a crown, but for the most part ours have put the financal wellbeing of the kingdom ahead of personal agendas. That's here though, I understand that other kingdoms pay a sizable amount of the crowns travels and I can see where trying to limit what gets spent and by whom could be a problem. I don't know. Is this a line of discussion we want to pursue?? Work load of the board I would like your thoughts on placing a priority on reducing the work load of the board as one of our short term goals. We can't really get started until Alysoun gets the org chart (any word?) but think it is a worthy direction. Fix some of the short term problems while we hash out the long term. Thought on possible restructure While I have cautioned against comparing ourselves to other organizations I have done a little ( I do mean little) research into another group I belong to and think it worth mentioning. I am a member, of the SCCA, Sports Car Club of America, a "Not for Profit" org. I am not a tax attorney so I can't say what the difference is, but it is different. The national body is incorporated, as are the divisions (something like our kingdoms) as well as the local regions (shires and baronies). The main difference is in the money, where all of the SCA's money belongs to SCA inc, each of the incorporated bodies keeps and accounts for their own. ie: if my region were to dissolve, the local members, not national, would decide what to do with any monies, including returning it to the members, where with the SCA any monies would go to the kingdom, or if the kingdom dissolved to the corporation. Tax returns and reports are at the local level very simple, as long as my region doesn't gross more than $25,000 a year we don't even have to file a form, not so for the SCA. SCCA national provides insurance on a cost per basis, licensing, standardized rules for competetion, and a monthly publication as well as a number of other competition specific services, some of which are income producing. The national org is pretty strong and we have to follow their rules to keep our sanction (and the insurance they provide) but almost every rules change is asked to be commented on by the members effected, most are requested by individuals involved in a given type of racing. It's not perfect but it seems to work better than we do. Could someone with a financial back ground look into and explain the tax status differences???? This seems on the surface that it would greatly reduce the report load. We (SCCA) don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops to justify our exemption every year. If a change in status would do away with art/sci and financial reports that would be two less or atleast simplified areas the board would have to deal with. The SCCA reports consist of a couple of fill in the blank forms and a check for each monthly event and a similar end of year, no big deal. If anyone wants to chat or follow up on something you can reach me at the email above or phone me at one of the two numbers below. weekends 334-478-9385 mon-thur 504-455-8778 (will be glad to hear from you) in service... Kyle ---------------------------------------- Sender: Sven Noren Subject: Frithiof: Intro, on Kingdom Incorporation Greeetings to the Grand Council from Frithiof Skaegge. First, by way of introduction: Frithiof Sigvardsson Skaegge is a vaguely 10th-century viking >from Upsala, or Aros as it is still called. He has been brought up knowing that a proper viking should travel the world, meet new people, and rob- sorry, TRADE with them and gather silver in great amounts. So far he has done some travelling, but seem to only lose silver doing so. He hopes to get the hang of it someday. Sven Noren is a 36 year old technician at Uppsala University Institute of Chemistry. I joined my local SCA group in 1989, primarily because of interest in the fighting. Soon however my interest turned to heraldry, and I now do my best not to damage the shields I encounter at wars and tourneys. I have been baronial herald for two years, and cantonial herald before that, as well as commenter on Brigantias staff. I have an Award of Arms, and a Panache and a Gyllene Bandet (the Kingdom and Baronial orders for service respectively). I have been and am still a member of several non-profit organizations, and have participated in the founding of one or two. Consequently, I have strong opinions on how to run such, and jumped at the opportunity of reforming the SCA,inc. Since then I have come to understand more of how and why the SCA,inc. became what it is, and how big the job of reforming it will be. (I have been on the SCA-Reform list for about a year. Mostly I just follow the discussions, but sometimes I am prompted to put in a remark or two.) Second, On Kingdom Incorporation: In "Chronicle" #15, Duke Finnvarr pointed out that at least four Kingdoms cross international borders, and that this would make incorporation by kingdoms impractical. This is especially true in Drachenwald, wich covers eight or nine countries. Incorporation is prompted by mundane circumstances, wich vary between countries. I understand that there is some variation between states in the US also. Consequently, incorporation must be done by mundane country, not by SCA's somewhat arbitrarily set borders. This does not mean that these kingdoms have to split or otherwise change their borders. Creating two (or more if needed) districts within the kingdom should be sufficient. This is already done, to a large extent. All groups in Sweden are registered non-profit organizations, as well as most of the european and canadian groups, New Zealand, and Australia, if I have correctly understood earlier postings here. All that is really needed is for the SCA,inc. to recognize these organizations as it's counterparts outside US. Membership in any one of these organizations should be equal to membership in any of the other, or maybe in a SCA-International. I don't really think that an international umbrella organization is necessary, mutual agreements between the national organizations would work just as well. Of course this means having to work out agreements of cooperation between the different organizations, but i think this would actually be LESS work than trying to come up with one organization that covers every possibility in every country. Obviously, this suggestion influences both the territoriality question as well as the membership question. More on this later. Frithiof the friendly herald (Sven.Noren@kemi.UU.SE) ---------------------------------------- Greetings unto the members of the Council from Justin du Coeur! I'm starting to work out the notion of this Membership Working Group. I'm going to give it another week, so the postal-based members have a chance to see and respond to my initial call, then I'll start trying to really organize it. Note that I would still like to get a few more people -- so far, there are only four people in the WG, and I think we should have at least six. In the meantime, here's a proposed charter for this working group. I'd like any and all input on it; I'm trying to codify the notion of how such a thing could run, and writing up a little charter helps to clarify my thoughts. The Purpose of the Membership Working Group is to discuss the concept of "Membership" in the SCA -- what it means, how it is currently used and implemented, and what it should mean in the future. Topics to cover include such things as membership requirements for activities and the rights and privileges of members, but should not be considered to be limited to that set. The Composition of the Group should be a number of members of the GC, and possibly such others as seem to be a good idea; it should be of a size large enough to cover a reasonable spectrum of opinions, but small enough to remain reasonably focussed on the subject. The Duration of the Group should be finite. Initially, that duration will be set at three months from the time it begins working. This may be extended if the Group feels it needs more time, but it should not become indefinite -- this is intended to produce results in a reasonable amount of time. The Outcome of the Group should be one or more draft reports, ready for discussion in the broader Council. The Group should attempt to achieve consensus; if it does so, it should produce one report of its findings. If it does not achieve consensus, it should produce drafts of proposals and dissents as seem appropriate. (Even if consensus is not reached, the number of papers coming out should be kept as minimal as possible.) Regardless, these reports should attempt to cover the issues as thoroughly as possible, so that the full Council does not need to spend excessive time hashing out the same issues that the Working Group did. Opinions? This is admittedly rough -- I don't see much reason to spend an awful lot of time polishing the charter of a subcommittee. I'm mainly interested in opinions about this general orientation and plan for a Working Group, with an eye towards providing a model for later Groups. (Since I suspect that we're going to need a fair number in the long run.) -- Justin ---------------------------------------- Sender: "CAROL L SMITH" Subject: Update on Voting for Proposals Greetings from Caroline! As of today (Monday, 5 June 1995, 1:17 pm Central US Time), I have received 7 votes on the outsourcing proposal and 6 votes on the territoriality proposal. Clearly, most of you have not yet voted. Remember, voting ends on Friday, 16 June. I look forward to receiving your vote!! Caroline clsmit@ccmail.monsanto.com ---------------------------------------- >From Serwyl ap Morgan, warmest greetings. Re Proposals in GC#17: Territoriality proposal: NO Investigation of Outsourcing: YES TERRITORIALITY I must agree with Gareth's assessment of the proposal. The proposal represents a major restructuring of a system which still seems to function quite well. Under current BOD guidelines, the Kingdom Seneschals have authority over the boundaries of groups. This would seem to me to place the authority in this issue where it belongs, with the Kingdoms. In Trimaris at least, group membership is is only loosely territorial. I live in one group, but the majority of my activity is based in a group an hour's drive away. My SCA membership counts towards the area in which I live, although I may well hold an office in the other. And I am by no means unique in this. Group boundaries have always seemed more useful in funelling newcomers and for acting as contact points for the local media and groups interested in organizing demos. I do agree with Fiacha's assertion that group activity, rather than size, should count. Ideally, I envision less of an emphasis on numbers in general. As long as a group can show a level of activity that satisfies the Kingdom Officers, I see no reason why it should not remain a viable and legally constituted group. As a case in point, Hillary of Serendip suggested many times that Trimaris disband one group that hovered officially between one and three members. She finally gave up after realizing that this group managed to put on large Kingdom events with startling regularity. VOTING I don't think we need to get worked up about voting. My suggestion a few weeks ago that it might be time to take a vote on the territoriality issue was based on the fact that we had discussed the problem for several weeks, and an initial vote might be useful to gauge the prevailing feelings on the issue. Certainly, if we feel we have an issue that is well defined and sufficiently discussed, I see no reason to refrain from voting (and from sending the results to the Board). Serwyl ---------------------------------------- Sender: "CAROL L SMITH" Subject: Comments from Modius on Territoriality Proposal Greetings from Caroline! Below is the text of a fax I received from Modius Monsdraconis when he voted on the Territoriality proposal. It is taken verbatim. (Beginning of comments from Modius) [Paragraph on core area exclusivity deleted] Yes [Paragraph on open membership but not all members in core area deleted] Yes [Paragraph on core areas preventing others from forming branches in same area deleted] Yes, but what is to stop land grabbing? [Paragraph on activity levels deleted] No, too vague! How membership is count is not definitively addressed. Subscriptions cost more money and not all can afford it. In regards to counts from events which, when, .. it becomes to arbitrary. Membership needs to be based on zips. If a person lives in one area but is a member of another, it is the seneschal's responsibility to maintain accurate accounting. Because the seneschal may inflate the numbers a check must be in place. (ie corporate sends the list of members it has in its registry and the seneschal must confirm them or explain a difference.) If the last section can not be amended or clarified, then my vote on this entire proposal must be no. If this is the case then I propose an amended territorial proposal identical in each way except for the membership count question. Instead the following would be used in place of the old language... Membership Will Be Based On Zip Codes. If A Person Lives In One Area But Is A Member Of Another, It Is The Seneschal's Responsibility To Maintain An Accurate Accounting. Because Membership Count Inflation May Occur, A Check Must Be In Place. (I.E. Corporate Sends The List Of Members It Has In Its Registry And The Seneschal Must Confirm Them Or Explain A Difference.) (End of comments from Modius) ---------------------------------------- Sender: Nigel Haslock Subject: Re: Grand Council Chronicle #18 Greetings from Fiacha, Voting I would rather see us take lots of little steps now, voting on ------ things to make sure we have our ideas straight than see us wait until the council's charter is about to expire and vot then on some conglomeration of concepts that lots of us are misinterpreting. I would like to hold up the territoriality proposal as an example. We talked about it for a couple of months and I flanged together a proposal that, to me, trod on no toes (except the few who do not seen to believe that any problems exist anywhere). In the next Chronicle, Gareth writes at length about issues that were not previously raised and so are not reflected in the proposal. If we avoid pinpointing these kinds of issues by skipping these simple proposals, I see no posibility of our arriving at concensus in the next 12 to 18 months. Territoriality Magnus raises a good point tha newletter subscriptions are -------------- not always a good measure of the membership count for a branch. Not only do I agree, I believe that I said the same thing in the proposal. We do need more and beter ways of measuring the size and activity level of a branch. I will cheerfully compile any and all suggestions for later review and dissemination. Gareth sees the proposal as forcing members to be members of branches instead of members of the Society. And discusses some of the ramifications of such a change. This is not what I intended as I wrote the proposal and I invite Gareth to help me reword it to avoid making such an implication. He also discusses guidelines for the creation of new branches. Again this was intentionally left out of the proposal, because I felt that such guidelines should be set by the Kingdoms and not by the Board. However, a Board approved set of suggestions would be a good thing and I will be happy to assist Gareth in the writing of such a set of guidelines. Finally Gareth proposes a new setof guidelines for the society as a whole. Given the discussion this subject has engendered on the sca-reform mailing list, I would like to see the fruits of that discussion appear here before we work on the details of Gareth's 'for instance'. In particular, I would like to see the final form of landmarks. I will agree that membership issues may significantly impact the guidelines for measuring the size and health of a branch. However, the proposal is intentionally vague in that area to allow our further deliberations to add the needed definitions. Those who feel strongly about the territoriality issue are invited to join a subcommittee to talk to issue through to concensus. Regards Fiacha ---------------------------------------- [I'm putting this in somewhat against my better judgement. In the future, I would like to *strongly* discourage reposts. Members of the Council already have all of the past Chronicles -- if there was no response the first time, you probably need to at least reword, and possibly rethink the message. -- Justin] Sender: arthur dent Subject: post to GCF I hate to be the first to re-post, but I got ZERO feedback on any of this and much of this is nearly in proposal ready format. It was posted early on , so I guess at least half the GC wasnt even seated yet. Pick one, any, many, all, and let me know what you think... Sincere Thanks Arthur The Dented ( who like nature, abhors working in a vaccuum) -------------------------------------------- * The Grand Council(general) ** Mission statement *** Topic/discussion organization/threading As to a mission statement, I thought that was settled in the charter of the grand council... Quote: " SCOPE Broadly, the GC scope is to examine all facets of the SCA, Inc., from the Bylaws to waivers to the level of centralization. Narrowing this focus will enable the GC to provide the best possible recommendations to the Board. The GC will initially focus on the areas below. Focus Areas * Mutual relationships between branches and the Corporation * Mutual relationships between participants and the Corporation * Goals of the Corporation (strategy) * Methods of the Corporation (tactics)" ENDQUOTE The context this quote appears to have come from is the official wording of the charter of the Grand Council from the baord of Directors, and their specific directions. ( if it isnt could I have a copy of the actual charter?) On the assumption that this IS the charter, I'll keep my postings topic specific by adding a header to each topic showing what section of our charter it addresses , and as many sub topic headings as necceary for detail... I hope this will make commenting on specific ideas easier, the only other thing I can think of to help thread this is to add some ref numbers prefixed by initials and refering to GC focus area above, a date, appropriate subtopic numbers, and some random thingie... Nah. too complicated but something along those lines (help?) hmm. this is starting to act like a system... its not as friendly or informal as 'letter writing' but it seems to force things into proposal ready format and should even make replying, commenting and referencing easier.... any refinements you can think of? here goes: -------------------- * Mutual relationships between branches and the Corporation I think we are actually all in agreement that it is the corporation which should serve and be controlled by the society... the devil here is in the details. ------------------- * Mutual relationships between participants and the Corporation The services provided by the corporation as they are, and as they should probably stay, are event and publication specific. EXCEPT in so far as needed for selecting board members, and keeping things on track there really isnt and doesnt NEED to be any relationship between average participants and the corporation... ---------------------- * Goals of the Corporation (strategy) The useful services the Corp has provided have primarily been insurance coverage and mailing lists. both them rather poorly. there really isnt that much else we need out of them, and if they just get those two right everyone will smile upon them and leave them alone. ----------------------- * Methods of the Corporation (tactics) ** REVENUE The service the corporation provides is mailing lists and insurance coverage for events, I believe we should tie our revenues to our services instead of subsidizing the corp with "membership" taxes --------------------------------------------- * Methods of the Corporation (tactics) ** The Mailing List (FUTURE) The mailing list is a, if not THE primary corporate asset... In my opinion, it could easily be used to provide more DESIRED services for those on it, and more revenue for the SCA Inc. WITHOUT tieing it to membership... EXAMPLE 1 A Medieval Yellow Pages... While only a Kamikaze pilot would suggest SELLING the membership list, *BUT* OFFERING as an additional service to those on the mailing list (for additional cost of course), a publication which has a FREE but minimal listing to, say, anybody who's rented booth space at a certain number of SCA events, but which of course SELLS more eye catching ad space to merchants, would be a service valued by MANY merchants, and MANY members. The fact that it would provide revenue at BOTH ends (from contributing merchants, and recieving members) is NOT incedental... EXAMPLE 2 INTEREST SPECIFIC interregional publications: a newsletters for for SPECIFIC interests (such as Fighting, Dancing, brewing, Illumination, autocrating, seneschalate, Marshalling, exchequer, feastocrating, archery, and others NOT TO MENTION things like VIKING QUARTERLY, and other time/place/personna specific,ones for Celtic,Saxon,Norman, Scots,Islamic, or French personna of the 9th/12/15th or whatever period... THIS IS DESIREABLE BECAUSE: 1)It furthers the educational goal of the SCA by getting information from those who have it SPECIFICALY to those who want it. 2) By providing inter-regional Forums it fosters the sort of inter-regional peer groups (yes, in both senses of the word) and common cultures/communications that bring us together more effectively than any structure/legislation ever could 3) It would provideneeded revenues for the corporation in exchange for services to those on a mailing list in a manner more likely to provoke a profound "thank you" than another revolt. THIS IS EASY BECAUSE: 1) The research is already being done, but being of specific, rather than general interest it winds up either unpublished, or published in a general interest LOCAL publication of whose subscibers only a handful give it a passing glance... 2)The corp need merely find an editor, offer the options as check-boxes on membership/subscription forms, and Like mosts busineses, pay for submissions used+ out of house production costs. Assuming that they keep it simple (B/W copies on folded paper, like most local newsletters) the corp should be able to keep a reasonable skim and still offer subscriptions at low prices ( annual cost of $10 TOPS for quarterlies as a saddleback est.(probably more like $5, and $15-20 for monthlies) 3) There SHOULD BE no technical problems with this from the database/label production end. I'm a proffesional Foxpro Developer and there is no GOOD reason this should be AT ALL difficult which would bring me to my next topic... -------------------------------- * Methods of the Corporation (tactics) ** The Current Mailing list (Technical Issues) I dont know WHY there is so much trouble and expense with mailing lists, and I'd really love to hear the story. as a FoxJock who goes all the way back to Foxbase, and who's used to large scale data conversion, I'm without a clue as to what this talk of "a quartermillion dollars" being spent on a database that OUGHT to be no more than 100,000 records at this point (pretty tiny for Fox 2.x) and less than 15k lines of code (most of it machine generated) could possibly mean... who do I ask? the initial Specs (RFP and accepted proposal), and Foxdoc's would be nice... If its as bad as SOME of what I hear, I'd be happy to donate time (in a couple of months, right now I've got two outside development projects, PLUS my department to deal with)to correct the problem... ---------------------------------------- * Methods of the Corporation (tactics) ** Outsourcing I have experience with outsourcing. all of it bad. The dynamic of this seems to be that AFTER they have the contract, an Management Service firms interests are to maximize profit by giving minimum service AND that thier resources (rationaly) are allocated to their older and larger clients first (the proven bread and butter by which they have sustained themselves and who have thier strongest commitment) ,and to the newer and smaller clients (by REVENUE we're still small fish) last... For this reason, and because the REAL work we need done, (as opposed to the monumental waste of effort which has been keeping it from being done well) is a pair of fairly simple tasks, I'd recomend against outsourcing. We really can handle it ourselves if we just get the burden of this top down hierarchy reporting structure/paperwork first mentality off our backs... ---------------------------------- * Mutual relationships between participants and the Corporation There really isnt one. As it stands now the corporation provides publicity and insurance for EVENTS. EVENTS are calandered, coordinated and planned and executed entirely by the Local chapters. membership is largely irrelevent except to the extent that participation in LOCALLY SPONSORED AND PRODUCED EVENTS is held hostage to membership in a corporation which contributes virtually nothing towards making them happen. ------------------------------------------------ * Goals of the Corporation (strategy) * Methods of the Corporation (tactics) ----------------------------------------