======================= Grand Council Chronicle ======================= Issue #2 -- February 7, 1995 Contents of this issue: Secretary: Info on the GC Archives Introductions from Cariadoc, Bertrik, Tibor, and Justin Cariadoc: The Structure of the SCA Tibor & Caroline: News about GC Member Selection Tibor: Opinions about How to Run the GC, and Philosophy About the Corporation 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 ------------------------- Bit by bit, the Grand Council Archives are coming up. These will contain the back issues of the Chronicle, and any other relevant information. (For example, letters pertaining to applications to the GC will be stored there.) The basics are as follows: -- FTP: The FTP site isn't quite up yet, but is close (it might be up before you get this issue). Assuming all goes well, the address will be "ftp.gc.sca.org", and will be hosted by Ilaine de Cameron (ilaine@panix.com). -- Gopher: The gopher archive is being automatically generated by the software that sends out the Chronicle. You can get to it at: gopher://lists.princeton.edu/11/scagc-l This archive is searchable by keyword, which will probably start being very useful a few months down the road. -- WWW: The World Wide Web archive is being maintained by me in my home page (along with the Letter of Dance, the Rolls Ethereal, and the original Corpora & ByLaws of the SCA). Look in: http://www.inmet.com/~justin/gc/ On an unrelated note, a request: when sending me a submission for the Chronicle, I'd appreciate it if you could preface the Subject: line with "GC:". That'll simply help me keep my personal mail distinct from the submissions to the discussion. (In the long run, I'll probably create a mail alias for Chronicle submissions, but I want to finish the policy discussion first.) Also, the situation with regard to public subscriptions continues to evolve. Dani has deferred to Philippa for the full digests; he will instead concentrate on producing the summaries. And Azelin of Wishford has volunteered to produce a simple weekly dump of the Chronicle for those who would like it; this won't be elegant (2-up plain printout), but it will be weekly. For more information, contact him at: Peter Rose Azelin of Wishford P.O. Box 3072 Trollhaven, Bridge, EK. Kingston, RI 02881 USA WISH@URIACC.URI.EDU Once the policy discussion has settled out, I will be writing up the details on how to subscribe by mail and sending that to the Kingdom newsletters; other people who have GC material that needs to go to the Kingdom newsletters should probably talk with me, so we can produce a single unified (hopefully coherent) message. -- Justin du Coeur Secretary ---------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 3 Feb 95 23:14:52 CST From: ddfr@midway.uchicago.edu Subject: Some issues and one opinion Biographies: Cariadoc was the founding king of the Middle Kingdom and has served twice as king of the Middle and twice as king of the East. He has been active in five kingdoms over the past twenty-five years. Interests include medieval cooking, storytelling, matters Islamic, persona, et multae caetera. Current activities include self-publishing _A Miscellany_ (with his lady wife) and two volumes of cooking source material, running an in persona encampment at Pennsic, teaching classes, and arguing about how the game is best played and (more recently) how Society ought to be run. David Friedman is an academic economist, currently doing research at a Law School on the application of economics to law. He is the author of two books and lots of articles. What We Will be Talking About: I would like to suggest what I think a useful classification of the issues we will be considering, and invite others to propose additions, deletions, or changes. I would then like to offer my current views on one of the issues--the one on which my ideas are clearest. I think we are considering three groups of issues: structure, organization, and control. Structure is the overall question of how the Society should be organized--the relation among local groups and kingdoms, kingdoms and the corporation. Organization is the more detailed question of how the corporate level should be organized--contracting out vs producing things in-house, splitting or combining subscriptions and membership, having or not having separate executive director and society seneschal positions, and the like. Control is the question of how, if at all, the membership should control the corporation--election of Board members (and if so, how), impeachment with teeth, requiring referenda for bylaws changes, and similar issues. Of these three, the first is the one on which I at present have the clearest opinions. Here they are. What Our Structure Should be: The formal structure of the SCA, as it now exists, differs sharply from its real structure; that inconsistency is a source of serious problems. Let me give two examples: selection of officers and handling of money. Both apply to the groups I have lived in--they may or may not be true elsewhere. Formally, the seneschal of a small shire is a subordinate of a kingdom seneschal who is a subordinate of the society seneschal--an officer of an international corporation. But that is not the way things really work. In my experience, local officers are typically selected by the local group, usually through concensus of the active membership, sometimes with an explicit election. They are then approved by their "superior officer," in most cases more or less automatically. Not only is it not how things do work, it is not how they should work. In a reasonably large kingdom, the seneschal, however competent, simply does not know enough about each local group to judge who ought to be seneschal. He probably does not know enough, except in extreme cases, to judge whether the person who is seneschal is doing a good job. All the kingdom seneschal sees, under ordinary circumstances, are reports--and perhaps occasional letters of complaint from group members who may or may not represent widely held views. By the time a bad seneschal has had time to do enough damage to the group for the effect to be obvious from the outside (if it ever is), his term is probably over. The members of the local group, on the other hand, see what their seneschal is doing every week or two and are in a far better position than the kingdom seneschal to judge who can do the job and how the job is being done. A second example of the inconsistency between formal and actual structure is the handling of local group money. The Corporation officially regards event admission fees and the like as Corporate income and event costs as Corporate expenses. In order to satisfy IRS requirements, this implies an elaborate reporting mechanism running from the local exchequer up. But local money is not corporate money in any other important sense. If the corporation announced that it was balancing its budget by seizing the treasuries of all groups with more than $50, the local members would be astonished and outraged. If a local group informed the Corporation that it had lost money on its event and was sending the bill to the Corporate treasurer, he would be astonished and (I suspect) outraged. Functionally, the groups are financially independent almost all of the time. This makes a good deal of sense, since it is the work of the local members that produces the money, and the local membership is in a much better position than the society treasurer to judge what is being done with the money . The attempt to pretend that local groups are sub-subdivisions of an international corporation imposes substantial costs. To begin with, it leads to a great deal of unncecessary paperwork--reports that must be written but are frequently not read. One squire of mine who has from time to time served as our local seneschal adopted a policy of including in the middle of his report the sentence "if you read this, tell me and I will send you fifty dollars." After about three reports, the next person up the line finally noticed--and complained about his discourtesy. It apparently did not occur to him that the fact he had been demanding reports and not reading them implied that it was he who owed an apology to the local seneschal, and not the other way around. Our formal structure encourages the idea that kingdom officers are the bosses of local officers, rather than people who are supposed to be helping local officers to do their jobs and coordinate with their fellows. At the same time, it encourages the idea that what really matters is the paperwork and not the job--that, as our kingdom newsletter from time to time announces, "the first job of a local seneschal is to report to his immediate superior." Similar issues arise with regard to money. Because the corporation considers itself responsible for every penny--indeed legally is responsible--it makes considerable efforts to control and monitor local expenditure. The result is not only lots of required reporting, but increasingly elaborate rules on how the money must be handled. At the same time, the corporate level does a very poor job of actually collecting and processing the relevant data--as shown by the rejection by the IRS of the corporation's 1992 form 990 and the difficulty the corporation has had in generating accurate financial information. The reason is not that the the people in charge are incompetent but that the job they have been given to do is too big and complicated--unnecessarily so, as I will argue below--for the resources they have to do it with. My proposal is a simple one--we should revise the Society's formal structure to fit its real structure. The real structure is a set of clubs run by their members, with higher level structures providing a certain amount of useful coordination and assistance. That real structure corresponds to the way in which many other hobbies are organized, and in which ours could and should be. My wife's parents' hobby is gem and mineral collecting; my mother-in-law is currently the president of the Midwestern Federation of Mineral Societies. In the process of trying to learn how a different hobby was organized, I talked with her and her husband at some length about the structure of the mineral collecting hobby. My conclusion was that it provided a working example of the sort of structure appropriate to ours. The national organization of gem and mineral collectors, their nearest equivalent to the SCA Inc., is the American Federation of Mineral Societies (AFMS). It has seven members--the seven regional federations. The members of the regional federations are local gem and mineral clubs, plus some unaffiliated individuals (typically from areas without a local club). The individual clubs are unincorporated, or in some cases incorporated, associations. The only control that the national federation exercises over the regionals, or the regional federations over the individual clubs, is the decision to accept them as members. A club that wishes to be a member of one of the regional federations must submit its bylaws for approval, but my mother-in-law had never heard of an application being turned down. A club must also agree to a statement of principles covering things such as collectors leaving sites at least as clean as they find them and reporting important finds to the appropriate scientific authorities. Subject to approval of bylaws, the internal structure of the club is its own business. There are no mandatory reports up a bureaucratic hierarchy, no requirement that the regional approve the officers of the local club or the national approve the officers of the regional. Individual clubs have no territorial monopoly; I am free to form a club in the same city in which one already exists. Regional Federations do have a defined territory. They cannot solicit clubs outside their territory, but can accept clubs from outside their territory that ask to join. A club can, and a few do, belong to more than one regional federation. How well does it work? The national organization, which has about twice as many members as we do, has two part-time employees. It charges the regionals fifty cents per individual member per year. The Midwestern Federation charges its member clubs a dollar per individual member per year, fifty cents of which it passes on to the national. It charges an additional $1.60 per individual member if the club wishes to be insured. The insurance coverage, as far as I can make out, is substantially better than ours. A club that is a member gets two or three copies of the national and regional newsletters, which I find somewhat inferior to ours. The copies go to the president, vice president, and newsletter editor if there is one. Other members can subscribe separately if they want. So their membership corresponds to something between our associate membership ($20) and subscribing membership ($35)--and costs $2.60, including insurance. The main reason for this difference should by now be clear; most of the administration that we spend money on does not exist. The only money the national organization must account for to the IRS (or anyone else) is the fifty cents per member it receives--not, as with us, every penny spent on every feast in the known world. Nor does the national organization have to keep track of every individual member--just the addresses of the club representatives who receive the national newsletter, which they presumably get from the regional. The last time my mother-in-law came through, I asked her how much time she spent on running the Midwest Federation (roughly speaking, their equivalent of the Middle Kingdom plus Calontir, with a somewhat larger population). She said that when there was no particular crisis, it took an hour or two a week. Compare that to the job of seneschal in the SCA. At the time I spoke to her, there was, or had recently been, a crisis--a conflict among active members of a large club. I asked her whether she, as president of the federation, had any authority over the dispute. Her answer was no. She was involved as an important outside figure whom people spoke to and asked to support their views, but she had no actual authority over what happened. I will not at this point go into the details of how such a structure could best be fitted to our hobby--that can be left for future discussions--although I will note that it feels a good deal more feudal than the structure we have. My basic point is to show that a formal structure corresponding to the real division of knowledge and authority in the Society--bottom up rather than top down--is a practical option, and seems, insofar as one can compare two different hobbies, to cost a great deal less than our present structure. David/Cariadoc David Friedman ddfr@midway.uchicago.edu ---------------------------------------- From: schuldy@zariski.harvard.edu (Mark Schuldenfrei) Subject: Re: GC Resume stuff Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 14:10:00 -0500 (EST) Good gentles, Caroline, Corwyn and I are continuing our process of selecting the last 20 members of the Grand Council as quickly as a careful job will allow. In the mean time, as part of the public process, Justin will be posting our correspondence on the Grand Council Web Page, and FTP site, along with commentary that we receive from others. I would urge you to read, and respond, to the commentary you find there. Our email addresses are: CLSMIT@ccmail.monsanto.com (Caroline) Mcosta@Leland.Stanford.edu (Corwyn) schuldy@math.harvard.edu (Tibor) ---------------------------------------- From: Bart Orbons Subject: Introduction Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 04:14:14 +0100 (MET) Good Greetings, Readers of the Grand Council Chronicle, I think it is appropriate to introduce myself. The mayority of the readers of this forum will not know me, since i live on the other side of the atlatic ocean, and crossing that barrier will allways be difficult. I am Lord Bertrik van Triecht. I live in the end of the 12th century in the south of the Netherlands. I like doing calligraphy, Dancing, music, dancing. I have functioned as shire Chonicler for 2 years, now I have functioned as Drachenwlads historian for 5 years. and I am currently Chronicler of Drachenwalds Minstrels Guild as well. I am active within the SCA for about 7 years. I am Bart Orbons, I live in the Netherlands, have my masters degree in physics, and am currently looking for a good job. I have founded the Shire of Polderslot, I did set up the legal society that functions as a mantle for the dutch law. My email address is: orbons@fys.ruu.nl, and you can paper mail me at: Bart Orbons, Warande 193 3705 ZP Zeist The netherlands +31 3404 50124 With many friendly greetings, in service to drachenwald and the Grand Councel, Bertrik van Triecht (OdL) ---------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 07 Feb 95 10:19:44 cst From: CLSMIT@ccmail.monsanto.com Subject: Grand Council Applicants (LONG) Greetings unto the Gentles on the Rialto and the Reform list from Lady Caroline Forbes of Oxfordshire, Grand Council Coordinator! Some of you may be wondering about the status of your application to the Grand Council, and others may wish to comment on the applicants. This missive contains the names of the gentles who have applied to the Grand Council, NOT including the Kingdom and Board appointments, and describes the process used to review the applications. There are currently 20 GC members: the 13 Kingdom appointments, the Lochac appointment, and 6 Board appointments. The list of these gentles will be posted separately. The process to determine the remaining GC members is as follows: There is group of 3 GC members (Lord Tibor of Rock Valley, Baron Corwyn da Costa, and myself), who are reviewing the applicants and who will recommend to the Board whom else to add to the Grand Council. We are looking for people who will work hard to determine how the Society should handle its relationship with the modern world. Paid membership in the Society is *not* required. We hope to have this work done by Estrella. Tibor, Corwyn, and I do not know everyone on this list. Therefore, we would like your help. If you have any comments on any of the gentles below, please send them to me and I will forward them to Tibor and Corwyn. Or, you can send them to me, Tibor (schuldy@math.harvard.edu) and Corwyn (mcosta@leland.stanford.edu) directly. Your comments will be kept in a public file. Thank you for your assistance in this exciting but difficult process! I remain, ever in service, Caroline clsmit@ccmail.monsanto.com APPLICANTS TO THE GRAND COUNCIL AS OF 3 FEBRUARY 1995 In Alphabetical Kingdom Order SCATitle SCAFirstName SCASurName First Name Last Name Kingdom Baron Richard Fergus Richard Edwards An Tir Master Sir Paul of Somerton Paul Farmer An Tir Dame Zenobia Naphtali Leslie Schweitzer An Tir Fiacha Mac Neill Nigel Haslock An Tir Honorable Lord Alen Bendbow Trent Becker An Tir Lady Erna Kajadotter Karin Thirlwell An Tir Simon von der EisenhandlungMark Hendershott An Tir Sir Brand McLiam GregRobin Smith An Tir Honorable Lord Enoch Crandal Peter Polk Ansteorra Lord Llywelyn Gruffydd Todd Marsh Ansteorra Master Michael Fenwick Michael Andrews Ansteorra Lord Modius Monsdraconis Erik Langhans Ansteorra Baroness Cathlin Sommerfield Susan Rachel Ansteorra Baron Kazimir PetrovichPomeshanov Howard Rachel Ansteorra Lady Francesca Sansovino Ann Abate Ansteorra Lady Aelfric of Alburn Barbara Weiszbrod Ansteorra Lady Llereth Wyddffa Luana Martindale Ansteorra Baron Aodhan Ite David Brummel Ansteorra Master Robin of Gilwell Jay Rudin Ansteorra Lady Rhianwen Morgain Tonie Witherspoon Atenveldt Brendan ap Morgan Joe Gawron Atenveldt Lord Tirloch of Tallaght Tom Bilodeau Atlantia Karen Larsdatter Karen Green Atlantia Duke Gyrth Oldcastle Gerald O'Leary Atlantia Sir Edric Aaron Hartwood ???? ???? Caid Herzog Dietrich von Vogelsang Todd French Caid al-Khariji abd alYusif Charles Berridge Caid Eirikr Sigurdarson Mark Wroth Caid Lord Edward the Discalceate Phil Anderson Caid/Southern Gaard Matsuyama Yoshitoshi Dorian Davis Caid/Southern Gaard Baron Charles Stewart O'Connor J Hughes Calontir Duke Thomas Shadan James Downey Calontir Lord Terras Joseph Heck Calontir Master Maegrim Inwaer Jeffrey Howe Calontir Lord Wulfric aet Wealingaford Ronald Broach Calontir Honorable Lord Alban St Albans Edward Eisenstein Calontir Wolfgang AdolphusJager Dominic Hunter Drachenwald Catrin Gwyntstlum Janna Spanne Drachenwald Frithiof Skagge Sven Noren Drachenwald Baron Wulfhere von Kannteuffel Martin Hickey Drachenwald Master William de Corbie Ake Eldberg Drachenwald Miklos Andrew Draskoy East Lord Fionn MacAilein Jeff Carnegie East Alaric Ludonie Vincent Ruta East Master Bertram of Bearington P. Schroeder East Baron Steffan ap Cennydd Steven Mesnick East Lord Aelfric of Sarisberie Marc Rubinstein East Lord Kwelland-Nhal Kollskeggsson David James East Arthur the Dented Scott Keys East Baroness Caitlin o hAodha Kathleen Griffin East Mistress Alienor Llanfaes Colette Goodyear East Artorius D'Albert Albert Thompson East Emma Llwewllyn Roylene Thompson East Lady Elishiva Bas Yehuda EJ Dotts East Mistress Alizaunde de Bregeuf Honor Horne-Jaruk East Lady Solveig Throndartottir Barbara Nostrand East Master Fridrikr Tomasson Tom Ireland-DelfsEast Lord Alexander Listkeeper Carl Alexander East Lord Alexander Ravenscroft Brian Moore Meridies Baron Robert of the Isles Robert Ament Meridies Lord Thomas Hallr Tom Earley Middle Mistress Myrra de Blackwoode Jeri Matteson-HughMiddle Duke Finnvarr de Taahe Steve Muhlberger Middle Lord Dietrich von Hamburg David Cook Middle Lady Alysoun de Ros Carole Roos Middle Master Beorthwine of Grafham Wood David Corliss Middle Lord Bjorn hinn Heppni Thomas Yasin Middle Sir Ozmundus Thorkelsson Craig Osborne Middle Honorable Lord AElwine Edwinsson Charles Wright Middle Duchess Katherine of Sternfeld Katherine Marette Middle Master Thorbjorn the Greysides Wesley Noel Middle Sir Mencken Brechen Michael Cohen Middle Stefano d'Amato Bill Hotaling Middle Lady Dorothea van der Zee Kathryn Gomm Middle Lord Nigel FitzMaurice Bruce Gordon Middle Hinach ben Joseph Hlton Kaufman Middle Magnus Maquire James McManus Middle Lady Meadhbh ni Dhubhain Marie Klein Middle Baroness Barbary de Folo Julie Watkins Middle Robert Christian Madison Thomas Grinslade Outlands Qadiah Elisheva Corinne Dowd Outlands Lady Medhbh O'Duibhdabhoireann Teresa Sherwin Outlands Seamus O'Mourne Tim Fyock Outlands Honorable Lady Melissa of Winged Hills Melissa Yakura Outlands Master Jed Silverstar Jed O'Connor Trimaris Richard of Trimaris Rick Strother Trimaris Lord John von Limburg John Debets Trimaris Duke Frederick of Holland Frederick Hollander West Sir Brion Thornbird Brian Price West Duke Paul of Bellatrix Paul Porter West Master Hal Ravn Wilson Heydt West Brian O'Seabac Guy Cox West Lord Wolfgang Rotkopf Dale Harris West Mistress Victoria of Elmhurst Hollow Vicky Will West Mistress Eilis O'Bourne Lee Forgue West Viscountess Ceridwen MacAoudhegain Catherine Keegan West Condesa Juana Isabella de Montoya y Ramirez Donna Green West Lord Gregory of Loch Swan Gregory Turkich West/Lochac (END OF APPLICANT LIST) ---------------------------------------- From: schuldy@zariski.harvard.edu (Mark Schuldenfrei) Subject: For GC Chronicle 2 Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 14:54:44 -0500 (EST) Greetings from Tibor. Five parts: 1. Reactions to Chronicle 1. A. Caroline's request for introductions. B. When is a proposal ready? C. Various communications proposals. 2. Call for comments about nominees to the GC. 3. Topic: About Kingdom Appointees? 4. Original practical planning. 5. Philosophical question. 6. Background information. --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- 1. Reactions to Chronicle 1. A. Carolines request for introductions. Lord Tibor of Rock Valley is your typical personaless Society member, with a vaguely 1400's English flair. I have been working on a late 14th century Savoyard persona. I have spent most of my time in Carolingia, and 3.5 years in Trimaris. I have been active in the Society for about 11 years now. I am Baronial Herald, and frequent autocrat. Mark Schuldenfrei is 33, and a Software Engineer, specializing in QA in database and symbolic processing. I have spent much of the last year immersing myself in nonprofit governance issues and law, and I am one of the members of CSOS, and a petitioner in the Mandamus case against the SCA Incorporated. I love what we do, but think we could do it far better than we have. I am blunt, but open minded. Terminology: I have a tendency to use the term SCA when I mean the Corporation, Society when I mean the people in it. Thanks to my readings in insurance for nonprofits, and IRS nonprofit codes, I refer to folks that have a "paid membership" in the Corporation as donors. I think this language should become our lingua franca, honestly. B. When is a proposal ready? My opinion: A proposal is ready when the persons preparing it declare it is ready, and person's opposing it have had sufficient time to write a document opposing it. I am perfectly happy leaving that judgement call to Caroline, and using something akin to Robert's Rules of Order to force a vote if controversy rears it's head. C. Various communications proposals. "Board Members will be able to post to the GC Chronicle just as GC members do. We might want to have top-level Corporate Officers do so also." I agree that Board members should be able to provide feedback. I am not so sure that Corporate Officers should have privileges above those of the membership, however. They have work enough to do. I am, however, toying with the idea that IAC members might deserve feedback to our discussions. See my later notes, but I am not certain that our Kingdom Appointees should be acting as Kingdom Advocates, but I do think the persons who were appointed to the IAC are very qualified to do so. "The discussion may be slightly edited; I am looking for opinions here." The policy that Justin proposed, (An "are you sure" check, some organization, and no editorial last words, or sniping) are much in line with what I want to see. I subscribe to many email journals that use this format. I also like seeing "[Also noted by: Lord Foo, Lady Bar, and Duke Baz.]" The other publication proposals are fine with me. --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- 2. Call for comments about nominees to the GC. Caroline, Corwyn and I are still assembling nominations for the GC from the applications we received. We could use more feedback, all the time. The list of nominees should appear on the FTP and WWW sites, and should be included in the paper versions of this digest. 3. Topic: About Kingdom Appointees? I had made a presumption about Kingdom Appointees, and I'm not sure that I was right. I had presumed that the reason we had Kingdoms make appointments to Board committee was to bring us to a quorum quickly, and so that we could get expertise from people whose SCA or Mundane resumes wouldn't point up their true skills. Also, it guaranteed a level of diversity. I didn't really expect them to be Kingdom Advocates, nor did I expect them to be subject to the will of the Crown. This is a mundane committee, with a mundane task to perform. Nevertheless, I've gotten the impression that the various appointees felt they were parliamentary representatives. I think it would serve the purposes of the committee best to consider all of us to be at large Society members, and not as Kingdom members. This is obviously not under anyone's control except those appointees, though. The other issue, that I do want to address, is the status of those appointees. It is my contention that they do not serve at the pleasure of their Monarchs, but are GC members as the rest of us are. And, if they leave the committee, they should be replaced by whatever the conventional GC member replacement scheme would be. Whatever the GC member replacement scheme would be. Should the nominating committee continue to accept resumes, and continue to exist? Should nominations "expire" after a time, like nominations to the Board? I look forward to comments. --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- 4. Original practical planning. I think the GC needs to have at least one short term plan that would provide quick and simple improvement. In that regard, I think we should propose a new set of policies that make governance of the SCA at the high levels be easier. Frankly, I wouldn't want to be a director of the Society, unless the job could be made easier. I think that many of the day to day issues of running the SCA are subsumed by the Board, and this makes them over-worked, and less responsive. 1. I'd like to see the Board appoint a number of Executive Committee members, and delegate responsibility to them. Not committees, but people. The Board should involve itself in oversite, only. Oversite positions could include Insurance purchasing, Insurance Mangement, Corporate Office Oversight, Stock Clerk Oversight. Those officers should be reviewed frequently. 2. I'd like us to review the grievance procedure, to remove the Board from the chain of appeal. It should limit itself to a review of procedural issues: Was the process followed? If the process was followed, the Board should let the decision stand. The process as it stands is cumbersome and slow. Most problems involving Royalty cannot be resolved during a 4 or 6 month reign. 3. All medieval recreation issues, such as elevations to Principality or Kingdom, title discussions and such should be immediately referred to the IAC. The IAC should review the situation, and make a minority and majority recommendation to the Board. 4. The Board should appoint one officer to act for it on an emergency basis, and it should review any decision that officer makes within two weeks. 5. Board committees should be chaired by a non Director (as ours is) and the Director should principally monitor the committee merely to check it's course and progress. 6. I'd like to see us revisit our ombudsman process. Perhaps I am incorrect about what eats a Director's time. If I am, we should focus on those areas instead. I'd like to see us reach a quick consensus on which areas represent simple problems with policy level solutions (No changes to Corpora or By-Laws) and have proposals ready for the April meeting. --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- 5. Philosophical question. What is the purpose of the Corporation? (Not the Society, but the Corporation.) I have often played this gedanken experiment with people: Compare two situations. In one, the Corporation vanishes (say, it's shut down by California). In another, it's participants quietly revolt and leave for other hobbies or corporations. In the first case, the Society that we feel a part of survives, and undergoes a small change. In the second, we are left with a corporation that serves no useful purpose. It is my belief that the Corporation is a tool that the Society uses to benefit itself, and the community at large. I believe that as currently structured, it is a terrible tool, that does not serve it's current use well. If you look at it's Articles of Incorporation, you can see that it does very little of what it has promised to do. It does no research, it has no real library. The Corporation doesn't run events, even the anniversary events like 30 Year Celebration. While it does publish some articles, most of the publishing that takes place takes place on the local level. I suspect that we should, as part of our re-organization and improvement efforts, really focus on what the Corporation actually does for the public and the Society. I think that we will find it to be a support organization. It supports medieval re-creation, acquisition If my premise is correct, then we should refocus the corporation into one that assists the local re-creationist. To that end it should supply services, such as insurance and use of a tax-free ID. But more to the point, it should also provide more "How To" information than we do. As merely a case in point, examine the new Branch Financial Policy. It isn't a help: it's a list of demands to be placed on the local chapters. I think it's an epiphany for most of us to realize that *we* carry the load. But once realized, we should begin to restructure the Corporation such that it makes carrying the load easier, and not harder. --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- 6. Background information. The attorney who represented the victors in the Mandamus petition, once wrote a two page letter where he characterized the structure of the SCA Incorporated in the legal framework, and made some recommendations for restructuring. Would people be interested in seeing this typed in as part of the Grand Council work? I *think* I can find the letter in my files. Lord Tibor of Rock Valley / Mark Schuldenfrei 109 Milton Street, Arlington MA 02174-8734 USA +1 617 648 5326 / schuldy@math.harvard.edu ---------------------------------------- Greetings to the members of the Grand Council from Justin du Coeur! I should briefly introduce myself, as I expect to be talking a fair bit. I have been active in the Society for 11 or so years now. In that time, I've done a bit of everything; I'm particularly fond of trying out all of the various arts and practices the SCA does. I'm best known as a dancer, having taught in several Kingdoms, and I'm the editor of the Letter of Dance, on those occasions when I can find enough time to put out an issue. I'm pretty much a founding member of the Rialto, and have been heavily involved in discussions about the Society and how it works for about seven years now. I've been one of the people pushing for the creation of something like the GC almost from the beginning of the current mess (that is, since last January), which is probably how I wound up as Secretary. (Along the way I picked up a Laurel and a few other things; I don't worry about them much, having found that hanging around novices is generally the most enjoyable way to spend an event.) Mundanely I'm a keyboard-jock, and something of a computer generalist; this is mostly irrelevant to the task at hand, except that I'm Webmaster for my company, which is why I'm maintaining the WWW archive for the GC. Politically, I tend to be something of a decentralist and an anti- bureaucrat; while I have considerable respect for rules that are actually necessary, I have very little for ones that aren't. My guiding principle of running things, which I will doubtless invoke from time to time, is: Justin's Rules of Bureaucracy -- Never make a law, when a policy will suffice. -- Never make a policy, when custom suffices. -- Never attempt to change custom, if it's not broken in the first place. That ought to give a reasonable idea of where I'm coming from, I think. Welcome and howdy; please keep the introductions going... -- Justin du Coeur ----------------------------------------