From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 12:48:27 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 34444 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 12:01:17 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Full Report on SCA's Tax Status To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings to the Board of Directors, from Mark Schuldenfrei (Tibor). What follows is a important document, with grave potential for the organization. I urge you to read it carefully, along with the accompanying opinion letter from tax attorney Lisa Steele (Esclarmonde du Colleur). We were assisted by Harold Feld (Yaakov Ha Mizrachi) an administrative law attorney. This letter is not written by an attorney. SUMMARY: Lisa, Harold and I investigated the validity of the federal tax-exempt status of the SCA Incorporated. What we have found is that the SCA is almost certainly NOT a valid tax-exempt organization under the Internal Revenue Code statutes which govern such organizations. Not as the 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization that we have claimed, and not as any other form of tax exempt organization. The specific violations are that the SCA has a significant social purpose, which is not related to the exempt purposes listed in our bylaws, and that we have a history of private inurement via theft. Please note that if the IRS chooses to address these issues, the the burden of proof that we have always complied with the law is upon us. While the risk of the IRS discovering this on their own is minimal, the Directors have a legal, moral and fiduciary responsibility to report this status, and possibly correct it. It is my opinion that no such correction is possible, without damaging the organization beyond recognition, and attempts to convert the existing organization to another form of exempt organization would be ground-breaking, and probably fruitless. If this interpretation is correct, the only appropriate path is to inform the IRS, and pay back taxes, and dissolve the Corporation. The stakes rise, however, if you fail to notify the IRS. There is grave risk to any Director or Fiduciary officer who knows (or can be expected to know) that the organization is in violation of IRS Codes, and fails to report it. This risk includes civil, or even criminal fraud charges, fines and penalties, which may not be covered by our Directors and Officers insurance (in my opinion). This letter and the accompanying legal opinion letter are notice enough. You cannot fail to act, in some way. At best, you should seek a binding opinion (letter ruling) from the IRS that the SCA is still a valid exempt organization. RECOMMENDATION: The Board of Directors seek highly competent tax counsel at once, brief them fully, and act either to dissolve the Corporation, or have the IRS rule that it is not in violation of exempt organization laws. The authors of this report are prepared to be of full assistance. Action must be taken before the next annual tax deadline falls due: which would be May 15th 1996, covering the 1995 tax year. A BACKGROUND ON THE RELEVANT LAW: The SCA Incorporated is best described by the following long-winded legal description: A nonprofit organization, incorporated in California, ruled tax exempt from federal income taxes and some state taxes, organized under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code as an educational institution, and as a public charity. This means that we are organized so as to have no owners, and pay no resulting profits to anyone (the nonprofit part). We are incorporated in the state of California in the US (the corporation part). We are exempt >from some taxes under state and federal regulations. We applied for tax exemption under the Federal tax code section 501(c)(3), and within that portion of the code are a public charity form of exempt organization. Federal and state governments place very strict regulations and restrictions upon organizations that wish to become exempt organizations, and in exchange for those restrictions, provide valuable benefits. The theory is that the public will be better served thereby. Those benefits include reduced legal liability for directors, freedom from certain taxation, reduced or free access to government services, reduced or waived fees, tax deductions for those citizens who donate to the organization, and heavily subsidized postage. In order to get that status, a corporation must be nonprofit. This means that any money it earns cannot be distributed to owners, and must remain with the organization. It must also comply with all Federal and State regulations, and go through a rigorous application process. If it applied to be a public charity, it also had to file form 872-C, which allows taxes to be assessed for an extended period. It also must promise that every penny and asset entrusted to the organization will always belong to it, or other tax-exempt organizations. It must also act in a way that prevents it from becoming a means of enrichment of private persons. If exempt status is granted, the IRS does not certify that an organization is or always will be tax-exempt. It merely recognizes that a group appears to be in good order for exemption. It may choose to question that, at any time. If so, the burden of proof will be upon the organization to prove it's compliance throughout any period under question. This lack of certification becomes important, should an organization fail to keep it's tax exempt status, for it allows the IRS to collect taxes retroactively. That is, from the moment the IRS determines the organization was no longer in conformance with the law. To keep its exemption, the organization must file appropriate documents and forms, obey all laws, and remain dedicated to only the exempt purposes that are listed in the articles of incorporation of the corporation, and on the paperwork that it filed when it requested recognition of exemption. Any corporation that wishes to become recognized as a 501(c)(3) exempt organization must do so under one of the major categories of organizations. The SCA Incorporated has chosen to qualify as an Educational corporation. Within that, there are three subtypes of qualified organization: private foundation, private operating foundation, and public charities. Unless special circumstances are met, each exempt organization is a private foundation, and it must meet strict financial prohibitions. Those organizations that wish public charity status must specifically apply and receive a certification from the IRS. This is a problem I will discuss later. THE PLAYERS IN THE LEGAL WORLD: The IRS is the agency of the government with the responsibility to collect taxes, and make rulings on tax exempt status. If it choses to, it can investigate us (thereby costing the organization money). If it choses to take the organization to court, it will take it to one of the many regional Tax Courts. It may also choose to deny (retroactively) exempt status. The regional Tax Courts produce rulings, and memos. These rulings and memos are not binding on other regional courts, but they generally are consistent >from one to another. Appeals of tax court decisions are heard in various Federal courts, up to the Supreme Court, and those rulings have wider binding powers on subsidiary courts. If the IRS issues a ruling on what it will consider worthy (or not) of litigation, organizations can use that as a shield. The citations I refer to here, casually, are listed with precision in Lisa's letter. So is the hierarchy of authorities, and their applicability. When you are in doubt, it is worth investigating whether a reference is a real binding precedent, or just a likelihood. THE LEGAL STANDARDS: There are five standard tests that are applied to nonprofits with a tax-exempt status in the educational category. They are, in no particular order: [Political Test] 1. Does it engage in any political lobbying [Financial Test] 2. Does it meet income reporting and distribution standards [Operational Test] 3. Is it exclusively dedicated to its exempt purpose [Organizational Test] 4. Were and are it's organizational documents in correct order [Private Inurement Test] 5. Did anyone have, or has anyone had access to its funds for private inurement. Any one of those tests, if failed, revokes the tax-exempt status of the organization. Consider them the legal equivalent of a third rail. About the only one of those standards the Society for Creative Anachronism meet for certain, is the political activity test. The others are doubtful, or clearly failed. Specifically: [Political Test] 1. I know of no overt political activity within the SCA. [Financial Test] 2. The SCA may not meet the income distribution requirements for a private foundation, and may not have gotten certification as a public charity. It's reporting of donations is also suspect. [Operational Test] 3. It has at least one substantial purpose, not related to it's exempt purposes: it is a social organization. (See St. Louis Science Fiction Limited v. Commissioner, included as an addendum to the opinion letter). I doubt that anyone could argue we don't have a substantial social purpose. Our ability to meet the educational standard is also debatable, as we do not use conventional means of education. [Organizational Test] 4. It's organizational documents are not reliably updated, and it has consistently failed to file taxes promptly. We frequently apply for two filing extensions each year. At least twice the corporation has failed to file at all. The filings may be substantially incorrect. (See below.) Not to mention that the organization has been successfully litigated against for violating it's bylaws, and that it fails to comply with IRS regulations for public disclosure of tax documents. [Private Inurement Test] 5. Several times money been stolen from the SCA, and applied to private uses. This IN AND OF ITSELF is something the IRS can treat as a violation. In addition, we frequently operate in a fashion which allows merchants to benefit privately. This MAY be private inurement (again, see St. Louis Science Fiction Limited v. Commissioner). There is some doubt that Kingdom travel funds are not private inurement. DETAILS OF THE FIVE TESTS AND POSSIBLE VIOLATIONS OF THEM: Background. Some of the analysis below is less than authoritative. In some cases, there are Tax Court memos or opinions which are not necessarily binding on other courts. However, I believe that these previous rulings can reliably guide us on the likelihoods of our situation. Congress is looking to increase funding for oversight of tax exempt organizations in an attempt to increase revenue. Exempt organizations are being judged quite harshly, especially in light of the publicity from the United Way chairman being jailed in 1995. Financial Test. The direction one can take on this discussion is quite complex, as so much depends upon facts we don't have. But, after tracing all the potential situations down, I have come to the conclusion that we are in violation, no matter what final determination we make as to our filing status. There are many categories of exempt organization. We have chosen to file as an educational one. Within that, there are 2 different types of exempt organization: Private Foundation, and Public Charity. Problem one: Filing status. All educational exempt organizations are private foundations, unless the IRS separately certifies them as public charities. We have filed tax returns, and generally acted as if we are a public charity. But the IRS and the SCA do not have any of the requisite paperwork as a public charity. Problem two: Qualifications for filing as a private foundation. Private foundations are required to file tax forms we have not filed in the last several years, such as the 990-PF. This could be a problem. It owes taxes on investment income, such as the SCA was receiving while it held Kingdom Historical Trust Incorporated's income (aka the West Kingdom Land Fund). There are strict rules against self-dealing, such as when Dave Thewlis helped to provide the SCA with computer equipment while he was a Director. Furthermore, private foundations are required to distribute at least 5% of their income as grants to other agencies, which we have never done. Problem three: Qualifications for filing as a public charity. We have, consistently, been filing as if the IRS had determined us to be a public charity. I have been unable to find any evidence that we have public charity status. This would have required a separate ruling by the IRS. If we never did receive that ruling, we are still a private foundation. The copy of a letter from the IRS, dated as received September 2, 1989, does not show public charity status. Requests of IRS documents since that date, and examination of Board Minutes, do not show any such filing. Problem four: Irregularities in reports. Candidly, It is difficult to trust the numbers in the tax reports, as they are inconsistent with facts that SCA participants know, but which the IRS would not. For example, in 1993, the total income reported for the SCA was 40,000 dollars. This was a year in which the Board Minutes reported that income was exceeding expenses. Yet, the event we call Pennsic, alone, produced 15,000 dollars of income, and my local group in Boston earned around 2,000 dollars that year. The group we call the East Kingdom earned around 3,000 dollars from profits unrelated to Pennsic. This implies that, overall, all other thousand groups earned a total of under 20,000 dollars? Did the corporate level lose so much money, despite never reporting a loss, that it absorbed those profits? Problem five: So many officers are responsible for accepting gifts of more than an insubstantial nature, that I am confident we are failing to follow IRS procedures for handling tax deductible gifts. I have no proof, however. Operational Test: A tax exempt organization must follow it's bylaws and articles of incorporation perfectly, fulfilling those promises which are called it's exempt purposes. It doesn't have to do all of them. In order to prevent people from fraudulently misusing tax exempt status for inappropriate purposes, exempt organizations cannot serve serve any purpose outside of its the list of exempt purposes in its founding documents. The US Supreme Court ruled on this in Better Business Bureau v. United States (see citations in the accompanying opinion letter), where it said that the number and importance of an organizations purposes were not relevant, so long as an organization serves any substantial purpose which is not exempt. In that case, the organization forfeits its exempt status. There are several standard purposes which are considered specifically non- exempt: commercial, recreational, and social. Sure, organizations that are gatherings of people in a common exempt cause will have social implications, and the law allows for that. But more than an insubstantial amount of social activity is a reason for disallowing exempt status. Please see two relevant cases, for reasoning which closely parallels our own position: Minnesota Kingsmen Chess Association v. Commissioner, and St. Louis Science Fiction Society v. Commissioner. (The abstracts for both of those cases are part of the opinion letter, in an addendum). These cases are not binding on the IRS, or the tax court. But they do reflect typical thinking and are indicative of the treatment we can expect. I don't think that anyone could accurately argue that the primary purpose at our gatherings is solely educational in nature. There is always a substantial social component. In order to qualify properly, nearly all our time and energy would have to be spent on educational activities. This is clearly not the case. Consider how rarely, for example, the actual history of the period is discussed in our documents, or mentioned at our events in any formal way. Compare this to the fun activities, and the social "face time" we spend. One could also argue, quite successfully, that the SCA is not an educational organization, in the narrow sense that the IRS would judge it upon. This is less clear, and there is a shortage of guiding material to enlighten us with. However, we certainly do not have the trappings of a standard educational organization that is not a school: noted professionals lecturing, academic standards, certification of educators. It is my opinion that if we were to be formally and accurately considered educational for the bulk of our re-creational activities, it would be breaking new ground for educational organizations as evaluated by the IRS. While this is always possible, the current mood of Congress is away from generosity in exemptions, in an attempt to raise revenue. I would hate to rely upon such generosity. And, as exempt organizations go, we are not exemplary in our conduct: I do not expect us to be dealt with generously. (The IRS and the Tax Court have a history of evaluating exempt organizations narrowly, and not generously at all.) Organizational Test: Our status for the organizational test (paperwork and associated legalism) is fuzzy at best. We are required to update our copies of our bylaws with the IRS whenever we change them. We have not been reporting changes to the IRS. We have not reliably filed tax returns with the IRS. As of my best ability to determine, we have not yet signed our 1993 tax returns, and I believe the same is true for 1992. Our 1994 tax returns are not yet filed. (However, I believe they are due the 15th of November, if we use all of our extension time. The original due date was May 15th.) We routinely require most of our fiscal year to file the previous years tax forms: this is not a violation, but may apply when asking the IRS to make subjective evaluations. When I say not filed, I mean that the documents have been returned as incomplete. While not the primary purpose of this report, I would note that we have a history of filing incomplete CT2 reports with the state of California I have already discussed the probable inaccuracy of the IRS filings. It may also be relevant to the IRS that the corporation failed to abide by it's bylaws when fiscal materials were requested, that litigation was required, and the result was a finding against the organization, and a payment of court costs and legal fees to the litigants under California's private attorney general doctrine. Yes, this is old news to the Board, some of whom are quite weary of hearing of it. But it may be significant to the IRS. We routinely fail to make public documents available as the IRS requires. (I have an open request for some documents since July of 1994). We charge fees above and beyond what is reasonable. Some of those documents don't seem to be in the SCA's possession. The list of public documents includes the 990s and documents related to tax filings, the bylaws, the articles of incorporation, the application for recognition of exemption, the resulting approval or refusal, and any documents relating to requests for public charity status. Documented failure to provide that information subjects the SCA to daily fines which accrue until the documents are provided. One could also discuss several other questions, none of which have an easy answer. For example, the SCA has sold many materials via the Stock Clerks office. Are those part of our exempt purpose, or are they unrelated business income? One could argue either way. Certainly some of the things that used to be available were purchased from outside vendors, and were commercial endeavors. And the avowed purpose of creating the SCA Marketplace was to increase revenue, not to fulfill exempt purposes. I gather we have run into this problem before, but the advertising in TI is almost certainly unrelated business income. We don't seem to report it that way, however. This was mentioned as a problem in previous audits, according to information from historical Board Minutes. Private Inurement Test: The IRS has in the past, interpreted the private inurement test very strictly indeed. Not one penny of exempt organization income is permitted to accrue to the benefit of those who control the funds in the corporation. We have at least one report of such inurement at the Corporate level, and many of such incidents at lower levels. This is a pattern of inurement, that could be uncovered by the IRS. I can recall an incident 10 years ago, where a private and for-profit event was advertised in a regional newsletter as if it were an SCA sponsored event. (Admittedly, this was oversight by the responsible officers, and fraud on the part of the private individuals). Lisa is reluctant to discuss this issue in detail, as she has done research for a Tax Court Judge on this issue, for a case which is not yet finalized, She does not wish to violate her duty to keep court matters confidential. Nevertheless, the public laws and cases she has cited make it likely that, should the IRS choose to remove our exempt status on this basis, they could probably do so. The case of St. Louis Science Fiction Society also creates a concern with SCA events and merchants. One of the reasons that Archon was denied exempt status was not merely it's social purpose, but it's renting out of space to commercial interests. The income from merchant fees could very well be unrelated business income to the SCA, and the sponsorship of commercial interests could weaken our case even further. Another issue for private inurement are our gifts to Crowns for travel. The travel they do has a significant social component, that is unrelated to business or official requirements. Are the funds cycled at all through SCA accounts? Do the donors take tax deductions on the donations? Either way, there may be trouble. BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR HISTORY WITH THE IRS: The SCA has had at least two audits that I am aware of. However, passing an audit does not mean that the organization is exempt. The IRS is not bound by what it considers previous mistakes. The other obvious reasoning is the IRS might have been given inaccurate or misleading information. That is also why our annual filings are not conclusive. They simply have not been given sufficiently close scrutiny. And, finding inaccuracies may require significant knowledge of our actions and habits. The legal challenge in 1981, in Arizona is also not conclusive. Private citizens do not have the legal standing to question tax status, and the court which was filed in may not have been the appropriate one for the SCA's jurisdiction. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN: It seems clear to me that we are not a valid tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Tax Code. If there weren't the two obvious violations of private inurement and purpose, there would be a large number of cloudy cases, and reporting irregularities. The total picture of those would make us unlikely to qualify, but it would be debatable. But there is no need to check the grey areas: we are in violation. AREN'T THERE OTHER TYPES OF EXEMPT ORGANIZATIONS?: Yes, there are a total of 28 types of exempt organizations, the overwhelming majority of which we are not, and cannot become. There is a legal impediment to becoming another type of exempt organization: the laws that control 501(c)(3) organizations require that their assets (meaning money and property), must always be controlled by a 501(c)(3) corporation. We would have to prove that while we are not (and have never been) a 501(c)(3) organization, we are, and have always been, the other kind of organization. This may subject us to some taxation, as reporting rules vary between different types of exempt organizations. I do not know if other types of groups would have been exempt from State filing fees or taxes. I do know that other types of exempt organizations do not qualify for postal subsidies. There are two kinds of groups that we might possibly squeak into, when you examine them categorically. If you examine them in detail, you will find that we do not. One is Fraternal organizations, sections 501(c)(8) and 501(c)(10). Type (c)(8) organizations are fraternal beneficiary societies, which we have never been. We provide no benefits. Domestic fraternal organizations are required to pay out their annual profits to various purposes, which we have not done. Both must be operated under the so-called lodge system. Our system is not the lodge system. Social organizations are formed under 501(c)(7). But we would still have to meet the private inurement test, and in addition, show that the membership is limited, and that the benefits of membership are confined to those members. And, gross receipts must show that less than 15% of it's gross income comes from non-members. In addition, we have provided tax-exempt donations for years to donors: this on the face of it means we have not operated as a social club. SO, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN: If the above is true, it means that the SCA Incorporated has never been a tax exempt organization, and is now liable for back taxes, penalties and interest. It also loses the other benefits listed at the beginning of this report, such as other tax exemptions, reduced postal rates, and such. Moreover, it's assets (money and property) must be turned over intact to another 501(c)(3) corporation, as they were collected as if they belonged to an exempt organization. IMPORTANT: Any attempt to spend down cash, sell assets for below value, or otherwise remove property from the organization is potentially fraud. And is something the IRS would quite likely prosecute, as the fines for even civil fraud are substantial. Criminal fraud charges are even worse. It is my opinion (and I am not an attorney) that systematic behavior which attempted to remove property from multiple groups, or in cooperation with others, might even be construed as racketeering, and prosecuted under RICO. This includes transfers to groups outside the US. Neither Lisa nor I have investigated the liability for taxes to the state of California, or other states which we have not paid sales tax to. Nor have we investigated if the US Postal Service has the right to demand back payment for postage. We do know that SCA donors who have taken a deduction for donations are safe, provided they did not cause the tax status loss. Even then, they are protected to a reasonable level. I suspect the IRS would freeze all accounts held under the SCA's tax identification number at once, and begin auction proceedings on it's assets. After back taxes were paid, the balance would be used to liquidate the corporation under ordinary bankruptcy rules. If the state of California was due money, it would have to be paid. If the US Postal Service was due money, it would be paid, followed by secured creditors, contracted creditors, and unsecured creditors. In the unlikely event that any assets or cash were left over, they would have to be turned over to other 501(c)(3) exempt organizations. Members and participants of the organization who were owed money by the corporation would, in my non-legal opinion, be the last to be paid. And they would probably be out of luck. There is the small potential that the IRS would chose to treat the information provided on our previous audits as fraudulent. I have no idea how likely this is, nor do I have any idea if fraud was perpetrated. If the information gathered and presented was data that was "enriched" to show our selves in an inaccurate manner, that is fraud. If we just put our best foot forward, that is normal. This is an IRS opinion, upon which we cannot be sure. I do not know what the Postal service can, or may do, about our failure to pay correct postage. They have wide-ranging powers, some of which are quite bizarre. They may have legal rights to payment as well. (Did you know they can collect postage from corporations that fail to use them as a mail carrier, and who use an alternate carrier instead? And that they have done so?) Neither attorney who consulted on this report is licensed to practice in California, and so they are not prepared to render an opinion. I am not an attorney, so my surmises are weak. But I suspect that the state of California would rescind its determination of exempt status, since it bases it's determination on the federal standard, and that it would act to extract it's back taxes as from the SCA as well. I doubt that other states that are entitled to back payment of sales or food resellers taxes would get on the band-wagon, but that is also possible. SO, WHAT DO WE DO: We have the option of attempting to bring the corporation into better compliance with regulations. While we cannot undo the mistakes of the past, we can provide solid evidence that we have improved things. A few years down the road, we can report our status as accurate. I am unsure of the legal implications upon directors that find noncompliance, and fail to report it. This makes me uneasy, and I presume it makes you even more uneasy. Actions we would have to take include tighter fiscal reporting for private inurement, improved filing for paperwork and legal compliance, and removal of our social purpose and significant improvement of the educational goals of the organization, along with its educational standards and practices. The results would not be the Society that exists today. We would lose our events, our titlature system, our newsletters, and so forth. It seems a bitter price to pay to keep a corporation alive. And, there is still risk to the Directors involved. I cannot recommend this option. If we were to retain a centralized system, we might want to consider incorporation of a new corporation in Delaware (a state with almost no corporate tax) which is nonprofit, but not tax-exempt. The only way to receive the collateral benefits of tax-exemption, is to a (c)(3) nonprofit, and that would be difficult to meet. There is no real reason to go for tax-exempt status that isn't 501(c)(3), if the resulting organization is nonprofit. So long as the organization's profits do not accrue to an individual, but instead stay with the corporation, why not pay taxes? Prices would not rise that high. The benefits that our current operating structure most require (postal subsidies for example) would not be available as another type of exempt organization. Finally, you could sit tight, and fail to act. Especially if the SCA becomes better about filing its paperwork, there is a very real possibility that it wouldn't get caught. The IRS audits fewer than one half of one percent of exempt organizations a year, and sticks to review of paperwork: not actual facts. However, the danger is, if caught, the directors and officers responsible for failing to act, and all subsequent officers, are open to significant risk of financial penalties, and jail time. The likelihood of this information not being brought directly to the attention of the IRS is minimal. If we are in violation of the law, it ought to be reported. Our suspicions ought to be reported. Of course, one ought to consider the moral dimension as well. The federal government is subsidizing our postal rates, the states are giving us valuable litigation protection, we have access at reduced rates to many sites and government services, and we are exempt from taxes. In exchange for those considerations, we have promised to obey the law, and its intent. Our internal standards require us to embody chivalry, and decency. Feeding >from the public trough, without providing the benefits the government requires of us, is morally indefensible. WHAT CAN THE SCA DO TO PREPARE FOR ITS DISSOLUTION: The Directors of the SCA, if they feel the organization is in danger of dissolution, need to prevent over-zealous members from committing fraud, or >from placing themselves in jeopardy of personal financial loss. Fraud prevention would require clear directives to not spend down accounts, or hide assets, or purposely lose money. Protecting themselves involves not loaning money (or fronting it for events) nor signing contracts in their own name. Contacts should be signed as "agent for the SCA Incorporated". Plans can be made for providing guidance to local groups. The mailing list can be disbursed to local groups, so that should the physical computer be seized, the data is still available. Mostly, the Board needs to be a guiding force in keeping the people and their organization alive, even if the Corporation and the newsletters are not available. It is imperative that the Directors keep clean hands in all this. Do not use SCA assets or funds to plan replacement organizations: do not act counter to the fiduciary responsibilities you have to the public, the government, and the assets of the corporation. A PERSONAL NOTE: I first discovered this likelihood in the Spring of this year. I have worked hard and long with Lisa, Harold and others to try to see if there is a problem, and reduce any potential impact. I am honestly recommending what I think is the SCA's only option. Other options involve breaking or bending the law, and would place Directors and Officers at personal risk. I've been quite depressed about our conclusions. It is true that I believe that the Corporation has not been the best steward of the game that it could have been. I was involved in the Mandamus litigation because I feel that way. I also became a member of the Grand Council, because I feel that the SCA could have become a powerful tool for improving the game. I did not intend, or desire, a change of this magnitude. I am not pleased, and I fervently hope that (if this report is correct) the people, and our game, survive and eventually prosper. I am, however, afraid. I am not looking forward to being known as the "Man Who Killed the SCA". I suspect that in some quarters it will be inevitable, and I am sure that people will know my thoughts "better" than I do, and attempt to falsely read my mind. Motives will be imputed to me that I never had. I ask your assistance, in acknowledging that my over-developed sense of duty has lead me to bring bad news to you. It is that sense of duty that keeps me from burying this knowledge, and it is my conscience that requires me to do what I detest doing. Mark Schuldenfrei / Lord Tibor of Rock Valley From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 13:02:55 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 12:30:09 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Keep going To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199510051528.LAA27547@abel.math.harvard.edu> (message from Mark Schuldenfrei on Thu, 5 Oct 1995 11:28:10 -0400) Tibor writes: >One of the nice things about the Society (as well as one of its major >weaknesses in the authenticity department) is that the entry level of >knowledge is deliberately low. Certainly true; indeed, this may well be an effective Landmark of the Society. But it *does* prevent us from doing what a serious re-enactor would call "living history", and I wonder whether that is necessarily an either-or decision. I suspect that a few higher-authenticity events would not bring about the end of the SCA, and I can't see the number ever being higher than a few... (However, I don't care passionately about the subject, and I think we *are* getting off-topic here...) -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "the net, my erlenmeyer flask" -- mr x From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 13:14:32 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 12:40:49 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: various (read first) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Alysoun What is the IKC doing? A brief but obvious point here. We complain that the Board is not responsive or accountable to us. How is the IKC more responsive or accountable? How is the discussion of the GC related to the broad membership? A lot of people don't have computer access, a good many do not get membership mailings--the way they are connected is through their local group. If any policy or rule-setting body is not in communication with the local group (two-way communication), how can it be responsive? On the "what if": judging from the number of people reading how-to books on incorporating, I would suspect that there is a lot of thought going on about what a new SCA would look like. If SCAinc folds, there would be a number of competing versions out there. Not all of them would simply pick up the current by-laws, corpora, etc. (Why should the king be determined by heavy combat--did this work all that well the first time? Why combat at all, or why not rapier or archery? Rapier and archery should be orders equal to knighthood. Etc.) If various branches incorporate, what are they incorporating as--if we have to go through all this bother, we might as well call ourselves a barony or kingdom or whatever. What about strong households or interest groups? Why shouldn't the archers or the rapier people incorporate and rebuild from there? And for curiosity's sake, what are all of you planning to call the new SCA? On Arthur's postings: I am willing to try--we need to get the discussion organized! As Justin said, on the membership committee the problem we kept running into is that any one thing depends on something else, so we keep running in circles. For procedure, is there some way we can develop a matrix? List topics across the top of the page and again down the page, so all the columns and rows intersect. (What I wouldn't give for a blackboard!) Anyhow, the idea is to have a cubbyhole to peg different parts of the discussion, so we can get an overview of all of the pieces of the puzzle. (The puzzle analogy is Justin's and I think it is very apt.) Then, for the next stage of discussion we start with broad objectives first, like improve responsiveness, run it across a row (responsiveness of board to board, of board to kingdom, to non-US groups, to members and so forth). This won't necessarily cause solutions to emerge, but it can at least focus the discussion and keep ideas from getting lost (i.e, if we are focusing on board to member and something is relevant to non-US members we don't have to go off on a tangent, we just note it in right spot to take up later.) This sounds complicated, but if we were meeting in person it wouldn't be so bad. I have no idea how to post such a thing, we'll all have to make our own charts and keep them handy. See separate posing on org. chart From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 13:17:05 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 5183 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 12:00:46 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: A report for the Board To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Tibor. My next post will be a long one. In it I discuss the tax status of the SCA Incorporated, and what I (and others) believe is the SCA's violations of portions of the Tax Code. I have emailed copies of this report to the five directors that have email. I shall be mailing copies to all of them soon. This report does not claim to be a Grand Council report. It should have been one, but I just didn't have time to get it done with enough leisure to allow a few rounds of commenting. I apologize. I have appended to this first note, two parts from the full report. One is the introduction and summary, and recommendation. The other is a personal note that appears on the last page. ----------------------- Digested report follows ----------------------- Greetings to the Board of Directors, from Mark Schuldenfrei (Tibor). What follows is a important document, with grave potential for the organization. I urge you to read it carefully, along with the accompanying opinion letter from tax attorney Lisa Steele (Esclarmonde du Colleur). We were assisted by Harold Feld (Yaakov Ha Mizrachi) an administrative law attorney. This letter is not written by an attorney. SUMMARY: Lisa, Harold and I investigated the validity of the federal tax-exempt status of the SCA Incorporated. What we have found is that the SCA is almost certainly NOT a valid tax-exempt organization under the Internal Revenue Code statutes which govern such organizations. Not as the 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization that we have claimed, and not as any other form of tax exempt organization. The specific violations are that the SCA has a significant social purpose, which is not related to the exempt purposes listed in our bylaws, and that we have a history of private inurement via theft. Please note that if the IRS chooses to address these issues, the the burden of proof that we have always complied with the law is upon us. While the risk of the IRS discovering this on their own is minimal, the Directors have a legal, moral and fiduciary responsibility to report this status, and possibly correct it. It is my opinion that no such correction is possible, without damaging the organization beyond recognition, and attempts to convert the existing organization to another form of exempt organization would be ground-breaking, and probably fruitless. If this interpretation is correct, the only appropriate path is to inform the IRS, and pay back taxes, and dissolve the Corporation. The stakes rise, however, if you fail to notify the IRS. There is grave risk to any Director or Fiduciary officer who knows (or can be expected to know) that the organization is in violation of IRS Codes, and fails to report it. This risk includes civil, or even criminal fraud charges, fines and penalties, which may not be covered by our Directors and Officers insurance (in my opinion). This letter and the accompanying legal opinion letter are notice enough. You cannot fail to act, in some way. At best, you should seek a binding opinion (letter ruling) from the IRS that the SCA is still a valid exempt organization. RECOMMENDATION: The Board of Directors seek highly competent tax counsel at once, brief them fully, and act either to dissolve the Corporation, or have the IRS rule that it is not in violation of exempt organization laws. The authors of this report are prepared to be of full assistance. Action must be taken before the next annual tax deadline falls due: which would be May 15th 1996, covering the 1995 tax year. ----------------------------- [Snip of entire report] ----------------------------- A PERSONAL NOTE: I first discovered this likelihood in the Spring of this year. I have worked hard and long with Lisa, Harold and others to try to see if there is a problem, and reduce any potential impact. I am honestly recommending what I think is the SCA's only option. Other options involve breaking or bending the law, and would place Directors and Officers at personal risk. I've been quite depressed about our conclusions. It is true that I believe that the Corporation has not been the best steward of the game that it could have been. I was involved in the Mandamus litigation because I feel that way. I also became a member of the Grand Council, because I feel that the SCA could have become a powerful tool for improving the game. I did not intend, or desire, a change of this magnitude. I am not pleased, and I fervently hope that (if this report is correct) the people, and our game, survive and eventually prosper. I am, however, afraid. I am not looking forward to being known as the "Man Who Killed the SCA". I suspect that in some quarters it will be inevitable, and I am sure that people will know my thoughts "better" than I do, and attempt to falsely read my mind. Motives will be imputed to me that I never had. I ask your assistance, in acknowledging that my over-developed sense of duty has lead me to bring bad news to you. It is that sense of duty that keeps me from burying this knowledge, and it is my conscience that requires me to do what I detest doing. Mark Schuldenfrei / Lord Tibor of Rock Valley From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 13:19:45 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 12:45:16 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: org chart To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L More from Alysoun I've been a committe of one working on an organizational chart as I volunteered to do way back when. Related but independent, Gyrth is working on a list of current and possible corporate functions. (Other people expressed interest in this but have not come back to me on it.) We are not likely to get a useful org. chart. After wasting a great deal of time waiting for an "official" communication link between the Council and the Board, and doing some "unofficial" prodding in this direction, I gave up and contacted our ombudsman direct. He was very courteous and offered to send me an organizational handbook (which I already have). He did not understand why we would want a more detailed account of how things actually work (who reports what to whom when and where that position is budgeted). He did think that a comparative chart of the different kingdoms would be a good idea and suggested that this would be a good Council project. Needless to say this does not make me a happy camper. His response indicates to me that the Board is working blind and that alone in my mind explains a great many of the problems we have. It also raises the question of what level of discussion the Board expects from the Council. If he is representative of Board opinion, we can assume the more detailed a recommendation we offer, the less likely it is to be considered. This is not the end of the world. It is not uncommon for a board-level committee to do the rough ground-clearing work on an issue. For example, an organization might appoint a committee to look at a broad issue area, say public image. The main task of that committee is to determine what the problems are, to come back and say no, we don't have a public image problem or yes, we do and to support that statement. If the answer was yes, the committee would likely also present target areas that define the problem more specifically along with considerations and reports. This would be like: Yes, we have a public image problem: we are not well known to people under 30 and we are perceived as snobs. The committee would offer a general recommendation: that the board consider ways to reach younger people and to demonstrate our democratic nature. The board would not sit around and do this themselves. Depending on the organization, they would make the recommendations into objectives to send to standing committees, form a special implementation committee to come up with a specific plan, and/or pipe it out in a consciousness-raising format. So it might be that one committee would make plans for a wide campaign (like billboards or magazine advertising) while another would go through the institutional side of things (price of membership, etc) to see how those might be impacting the target areas. And/or the responsibility would fall on local branches--how do we stand in this area, what can we do to improve. Now, the SCA is not a very efficient organization. And so far, neither is the Council. From my own (biased!) perspective, it is sort of like one mass of jello trying to have impact on another mass of jello. One way of viewing this is that there is nothing wrong with jello. On that view some of the complaints we have considered are out of place and others are misdirected. Another view is that the complaints are a signal that jello is not the best way to be, that the time has come to get an efficient organization. This is my personal opinion, but I can work for better jello if in fact that is what is wanted. (In fact organization-type people are veritable jello chefs.) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 14:00:11 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 11:13:35 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Keep going To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Steffan, a bit chopped down... -- Justin >From: "Steven H. Mesnick (\"Steffan ap Cennydd\")" >Subject: RE: Keep going >Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 11:05:46 -0400 [Steffan replies to Tibor's reply to Magnus:] > Another problem: Should we as a GC come up with some suggestions on > stateting the parameters of the Dream, or the Game or whatever?...I think > so.... > >I would have thought this more a matter for the IKC. Actually, there's a good deal of "prior art" here -- I reference the work of the Landmarks Ad-Hoc Working Group some time ago (me, Siobhan, Solveig, etc.) Steffan From owner-scagc-l@Listserv.aol.com Thu Oct 5 14:10:27 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 11:10:13 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Is there a decision making policy yet? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Kevin. A few comments follow... -- Justin >From: Dennis Clark >Subject: Is there a decision making policy yet? >Date: Thu, 5 Oct 95 8:49:34 MDT Hi all - Kevin here, I have been following this forum since its inception, and all it is is a forum. As a decision or policy making body it is a bust so far, or it seems to be. Has this body come to some consensus on how to find a consensus? Sorry about that, but it does seem to be a needed part of this group to have some way to : * decide on an agenda * make a list of action items * discuss each action item ONE AT A TIME * form a consensus on each action item ONE AT A TIME * build a policy statement from this consensus * submit said statement to the BoD in a timely manner There are of course subjects under each of the bullet items above, but you can see my point here. In other words, this list now sounds exactly like rec.org.sca, too much discussion, no action. For this council to be effective, it must be an action group, not a discussion forum - if you want a forum, drop bombs on ROS and read the responses. I am Sorry if I have ruffled any feathers, and even sorrier if I have missed this organization when it occurred. However, I have not seen any agendas put forward, or recognized them anyway. Kevin P.S. I am not currently going to volunteer to set any of this up, I currently am a full-time student in CS and working full-time for HP. I am just scanning this group for Sir Titus who is a GC member and giving his feedback. He isn't on the "net" yet. (soon will be though) -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Dennis Clark (303)229-4313 telnet 1-229-4313 email dlc@fc.hp.com | | Hewlett Packard WSY Perf. Lab, 3404 East Harmony Rd. Ft. Collins CO 80525 | | Be well, Do good work, stay in touch -- Garrison Keillor | ------------------------------CUT HERE---------------------------------------- ----------------------- Justin here -- Kevin's quite right; we are *not* currently set up to be effective. The biggest problem, I think, is something of a leadership vacuum. Caroline is co-ordinator, and I think everyone sort of assumed she would be the effective chair, but she's said that she has neither the time nor desire to do that. Without some agenda-setting, though, it's hard to see how we're going to manage to materialize anything. (I don't think we need a *strong* chair, but someone needs to do some gentle but firm steering here.) -- Justin Who absolutely does *not* have the time... From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 14:31:07 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: david friedman Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 10:57:25 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: david friedman Subject: Re: Full Report on SCA's Tax Status To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >For example, in 1993, the total income reported for the SCA was 40,000 >dollars. This was a year in which the Board Minutes reported that income >was exceeding expenses. Yet, the event we call Pennsic, alone, produced >15,000 dollars of income, and my local group in Boston earned around 2,000 >dollars that year. The group we call the East Kingdom earned around 3,000 >dollars from profits unrelated to Pennsic. This implies that, overall, all >other thousand groups earned a total of under 20,000 dollars? Did the >corporate level lose so much money, despite never reporting a loss, that >it absorbed those profits? I think you are confusing income with profit here. If what is reported is income, then the question of how much money the corporate level lost is irrelevant--that goes to expenses. Similarly, you cite income from Pennsic but "profits unrelated to Pennsic." One question occurs to me ... . Suppose the SCA Inc. were organized, as I think it should be, as a federation of kingdoms. Could it then function as 501(c)3 educational? The kingdoms might be doing social and other things, but the corporation could reasonably claim that its money was being spent on educational purposes (T.I., putting aside advertising issues), including helping the kingdoms with the educational part of their activities. Obviously this does not speak to your point about risks or obligations due to past errors. David/Cariadoc David Friedman School of Law Santa Clara University From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 15:14:38 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2292 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 14:41:06 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Full Report on SCA's Tax Status To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: from "david friedman" at Oct 5, 95 10:57:25 am Cariadoc correctly points out: I think you are confusing income with profit here. If what is reported is income, then the question of how much money the corporate level lost is irrelevant--that goes to expenses. Similarly, you cite income from Pennsic but "profits unrelated to Pennsic." Yes, I was sloppy with language there. I meant profit, for all those numbers. Thanks for the correction. (And it goes into version two of the report, should there have to be one.) The SCA reported income minus expenses of $40,000. One question occurs to me ... . Suppose the SCA Inc. were organized, as I think it should be, as a federation of kingdoms. Could it then function as 501(c)3 educational? The kingdoms might be doing social and other things, but the corporation could reasonably claim that its money was being spent on educational purposes (T.I., putting aside advertising issues), including helping the kingdoms with the educational part of their activities. Umm, for that you'd need a better expert than an informed layman. I doubt it. There doesn't seem to be much case law in this area, as Lisa pointed out. But the guidelines listed in IRS publications imply modern credentialism, and standards of professionalism. This seems antithetical to the SCA credo (of calling authenticists Nazi's, and having almost no formal standards for participation.) There may well be room for a 501(c)(3) corporation that provides educational materials for re-enactors and re-creationists... but I suspect it would have only cursory relationship with coordinating groups that are primarily social. I can conceive of such a relationship, but my conception finds it strained. Still, there are possibilities there. On the flip side, what would be the advantage of having such an exempt organization? The "Kingdoms Inc" would still be primarily social organizations. It seems to me that such an educational organization would be orthogonal to the social ones, and therefore an issue for a later day. But my priorities are not yours, although for a suitable fee... (:-) I suspect that, from your bare description, we are playing blind man and the elephant. With better communication, we could probably reach an understanding, and make a better determination. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 15:41:04 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 10:51:04 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <951005083705_36951823@mail04.mail.aol.com> (message from Magnus MagUire on Thu, 5 Oct 1995 08:37:06 -0400) Magnus writes: >I reiterate that there can and should be one SCA International Inc. > >This group can and should be the licensing authority for continuity between >multiple >National, or Kingdom or even State Organisations. As Tibor said, I largely concur, but am not certain this needs to be a formal corporation -- this is essentially a central ground for us to come to agreement on Big Issues, and is (I think) mainly concerned with the Game questions. It might need a thin leaven of Corporation so it can handle a little money itself, but that's essentially a side-note; "SCA International Inc" would just be the mundane face of a mostly in-Game body. This is more than a detail -- it's a question of focus. This body *should* be mainly focussed on "identity" issues, not mundane ones, insofar as possible, leaving most mundane issues to the Corps... (This is, I should note, pretty much what I've long felt the IAC should evolve into...) -- Justin Who, aside from this detail, finds Magnus' description spot-on right... Random Quote du Jour: "People only accept the truth of nonfiction if it corresponds to the truth they have been trained to accept in fiction. Even if that truth is false." -- from Journey From owner-scagc-l@Listserv.aol.com Thu Oct 5 15:52:23 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 11:02:17 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Keep going To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <951005083714_36951904@mail02.mail.aol.com> (message from Magnus MagUire on Thu, 5 Oct 1995 08:37:15 -0400) Magnus responds to Alysoun: >>I have heard of four approaches to the Game. One could be called >Authenticity >>Plus, a serious living-history approach. Another is Learn as You Go, a >>continuing adult ed. model. Then there is SCA-Lite, a no documentation, go >>with what looks good approach. And finally there is Medieval Fantasy, which >>can range from Camelot to whatever. > >This does seem to cover most all. >This Medieval Fantasy doesn't belong tho. Actually, due to our rules, the Authenticity Plus model fits even worse. The fact is that there is a *very* strong tradition in the Society that an event must tolerate the lowest common denominator, which tends to foil any *serious* attempts at living history. (You can do sort of "living history lite" with themed events, but my experience is that these always fall short of what the serious folks would call "living history".) I think this is a little unfortunate -- I'd *like* the Society to have room for heavy-authenticity events now and then, although I wouldn't want to see them predominate. I personally think we're big enough, and strong enough in our identity, to not be threatened by the mythical Authenticity Police swooping in and taking over the game... By contrast, much of the fantasy slips through under the "attempt" clause, although many areas manage to prevent most of it through peer pressure and education... >A problem arises: I personally would interpret that the Camelot stuff is >very period. >Maybe not 5th Century but certainly belonging to the later Medieval period. >I'd even go so far as to state that this is one of the fudaments of our >entire Society. Matter of local culture, I think; I've observed that some places are practically built around the Camelot notion (it underlies a lot of peoples' concepts of "The Dream"), while others tend to have much less of it. Of course, "Camelot" is an enormously fuzzy concept in and of itself... >Another problem: Should we as a GC come up with some suggestions on >stateting the parameters of the Dream, or the Game or whatever?...I think >so.... Actually, I would say not *if* we can avoid it -- as far as we can, I'd prefer to see the GC stick to the mundane issues, and leave the Game definition for other bodies. (Both to keep our job more manageable, and to keep from amassing too much influence; it's easy to get carried away with our own self-importance.) We may have to touch on these issues to get the job done, but I'd prefer we not dive into them too deeply... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "Let me just open this review by saying that there are few things which enhance a midnight film experience more than pogo-hopping kung fu vampires. It's the sort of subtle plot element that a good Hong Kong martial arts film is known throughout the world for, and ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPOOKY KIND, PART II, is a fine addition to the hall of fame." -- from "SIFF Reviews", by Moriarty From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 17:25:31 1995 Return-Path: Priority: normal X-Mailer: ExpressNet/SMTP v1.1.5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Roy Gathercoal Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 13:46:36 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Roy Gathercoal Organization: George Fox College Subject: Royalty and their inherent collective good sense To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I heartily do not agree with Justin's assessment of the ability of royals to find good sense. It has been due to the quiet and behind-the-scenes work of the kingdom and corporate officers that more damage has not been done by one royal or another going amuck. And collectively, the potential for disaster gets worse. On at least two occasions, the assembled royalty at Pennsic came close to doing something truly stupid--and many have admitted it to be so later. This is not because they are bad people, but they are not trained from birth to rule, as is the historic model in many medieval cultures, and they are not selected to rule based on ability to rule. They are ordinary people, with ordinary abilities, ordinary problems and ordinary relationships. I do not mean this in a mediocre way, but in a distribution way. For each extraordinarily good crown (e.g., in terms of listening ability, cognitive complexity, ability to process diverse and even contradictory information without simply accepting some and rejecting others), we have an extraordinarily bad crown (e.g., has one or two close advisors who are the only people listened to, believe the kingdom is out to get them, sees every question as a challenge) and probably 10 crowns whose abilities are somewhere in the middle. Further, when these get together, they are isolated from their own kingdom's checks and balances--and it is common for one skillful manipulator to be able to sway crowns to a particular course of action (the appeal to ego is a time-honored and distressingly effective tactic). While I will not comment directly on the Estrella meeting, I will say that it was not by any means unanimous, and that at least two kingdoms expressed great distress at the actions of their crown when they became known. The leadership of yet another kingdom expressed concern that the crown had significantly overstepped its commission from the kingdom (which included a non-confrontation proviso). Let us not mistake the appearance of calm for the absence of serious problems. In fact, it has been a rather high priority of the corporate officers to make the crowns look good, because that is such an important part of the game. We do know that the emporer has no clothes, but we will be worse off if we expose the Crown as not all that different from the rest of us. . . Gareth (who has spent a great deal of his SCA life advising, supporting and defending Crowns) -- From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 17:33:49 1995 Return-Path: References: <199510051841.OAA07225@abel.math.harvard.edu> Approved-By: David Schroeder Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 17:01:56 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: David Schroeder Subject: Re: Full Report on SCA's Tax Status To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199510051841.OAA07225@abel.math.harvard.edu> Hi folks... I know I've been rather quiet of late -- a new job is keeping me busier than usual -- but I thought it rather ironic to learn >from the Post Office that they'll be phasing out the special mailing rates given to non-profit organizations starting now and over the next two years, so that by 1998 there will be no postaged-related benefit to being a non-profit group. There goes one of the justfications for the Corporation's existance, friends. My best -- Bertram From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 17:45:51 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 17:14:03 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Administrivia To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Kwellend... -- Justin >From: "David W. James" >Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 15:55:10 -0400 >Subject: Administrivia Note that if anyone would like to take Mark's place in the hot-seat (getting all the non-editor mail to the list) I can make the change. It isn't something that I'd like to do on a regular basis (as it involves removing all of you as editors and re-instating you in a new order) but it can be done. Perhaps a monthly rotation? Unfortunately, the listserv software simply sends everything to the first person listed as an editor in its tables, so I can't ask it to randomly divy out the mail to people. If someone would like to create a script that does so, I can certainly create an alias which impliments the script to achieve this function. David From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 18:27:26 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1712 Approved-By: Joseph Heck Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 16:53:29 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Joseph Heck Subject: Re: Tibor's report on the SCA's Tax Status To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Tibor, please be wary of your sweeping generalizations that are being introduced into your rhetoric. Your following statements are not obviously true in every case, and there's a significant movement in Calontir for people to do things "more medievally". > But the guidelines listed in IRS publications imply modern > credentialism, and standards of professionalism. This seems antithetical to > the SCA credo (of calling authenticists Nazi's, and having almost no formal > standards for participation.) I believe most of what people call "Auth Nazi's" is more a response to over-eager people and personal attacks on them in regards to attire. > There may well be room for a 501(c)(3) corporation that provides educational > materials for re-enactors and re-creationists... but I suspect it would have > only cursory relationship with coordinating groups that are primarily > social. I can conceive of such a relationship, but my conception finds it > strained. Still, there are possibilities there. Perhaps I've missed something here, but I always understood that ANY situation/organization that was educational was also social. We do an awful lot of social things, but the focus of our social interactions is based on recreating one aspect or another of medieval life, arts, or culture. I believe your statements are greatly exagerated, and you are doing significantly more harm then good in the presentation of your concerns. Terras -- joe (314) 882-5000 ccjoe@showme.missouri.edu University of Missouri - Columbia "with a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!" -- Calvin ccjoe From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 18:34:32 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1205 Approved-By: Joseph Heck Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 16:53:46 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Joseph Heck Subject: Vote! To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L The Grand Council is in dire straights from my point of view. Since it's switch to listserv status, 17 of our 39 or so members (less than half) have chosen to speak, although a plethora of messages are being sent. While some good discussion appears to be ensuing, it lacks a definitive "hand on the wheel". We are in desperate need of some leadership to this think-tank, and it needs to happen soon. Whomever this person is, we'll need to agree, or they'll have to have an obvious perceived authority. I'm not it - obviously, neither are several others, but we can CHOOSE someone. So - let's do it - and let's do it now. I'll organize any voting, happily with anyone else if they want to help. So - anyone want to volunteer or motion someone to be "our leader"? You can send any mail regarding this to "vote@showme.missouri.edu", and I'll make any and all votes public upon completion. vote@showme.missouri.edu Terras -- joe (314) 882-5000 ccjoe@showme.missouri.edu University of Missouri - Columbia "with a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!" -- Calvin ccjoe From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 19:20:03 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Maghnuis@AOL.COM Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 18:43:19 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Magnus MagUire Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In a message dated 95-10-05 09:09:20 EDT, you write: >Magnus wrote: > I reiterate that there can and should be one SCA International Inc. > >Quibble question. Why Inc? Where Inc? I don't see the value in it, but >there might still be some. > > Tibor Why Inc? So it can have some legal status and authority for the times they are required. Where Inc? U.S. someplace. Unless there is some reason to start from scratch, revamping the current Corp should work fine. M From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 19:42:59 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 280 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 19:00:32 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Vote! To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199510052153.QAA80442@gold.missouri.edu> from "Joseph Heck" at Oct 5, 95 04:53:46 pm You can send any mail regarding this to "vote@showme.missouri.edu", and I'll make any and all votes public upon completion. Terras, that's a good offer. I was discussing this in passing with Sir Edward (our Board ombudsman) this weekend. You might give him a call. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 20:03:08 1995 Return-Path: X-Nupop-Charset: English Approved-By: flieg@GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 16:26:59 -0800 Reply-To: flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Flieg Hollander Subject: Re: Full Report on SCA's Tax Status To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In message Thu, 5 Oct 1995 17:01:56 -0400, David Schroeder writes: > Hi folks... > > I know I've been rather quiet of late -- a new job is keeping > me busier than usual -- but I thought it rather ironic to learn > from the Post Office that they'll be phasing out the special > mailing rates given to non-profit organizations starting now > and over the next two years, so that by 1998 there will be > no postaged-related benefit to being a non-profit group. > > There goes one of the justfications for the Corporation's > existance, friends. > > My best -- Bertram > But we _are_ a non-profit org until the IRS or whatever says so. We do have the original IRS letter, and we have survived audits/reviews of our non-profit status. (At least twice during Hilary's term as Steward, and I believe at least once before that.) I believe that Tibor's analysis is mostly correct and mostly irrelevant. If the IRS after several investigations is still satisfied to call us a 501(c)3, then I won't argue with them. I also think that Tibor under-estimates grossly the amount of education that we actually do. I know that I learn at _least_ one new thing per event, which is better than I can say for some seminars that I have attended, given by acredited professionals. The fact that we are irregular is _not_ an inherent problem. I also disagree that the SCA, Inc. has a social _purpose_, other than to its members. We do our education within a social framework. All of this is moot. The only real way to tell if Tibor is right or wrong is to have the IRS rule on us (again). I see no reason to panic or to over-react on this, and I do not feel that the SCA as a whole has anything particularly to fear. * * * Frederick of Holland, MSCA, OP, etc. *** *** *** flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu _|___|___|_ |===========| (((Flieg Hollander, Chem. Dept., U.C. Berkeley))) ================== Old Used Duke ================= [All subjects of the Crown are equal under its protection and no Corporation is going to convince me otherwise.] From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 20:22:44 1995 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: IN%"SCAGC-L@Listserv.aol.com" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 19:55:18 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: Is there a decision making policy yet? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L about justin's request for a chairman? leader? policy coordinator? i was going to suggest we discuss what we'd need in such a, um, head honcho, but that'd lead to more discussions. ah, hell - so, do we need a firm leader, to suggest areas of discussion, shut off debate when it's obvious nothing new's being said, take votes, quell flamewars, write reports, and the whole nine yards? or just someone to coordinate votes? alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 20:28:56 1995 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: IN%"SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 20:00:32 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L on SCA International Inc: why incorporate such a thing? if there were a federation/international council/united kingdoms thing set up, such a thing might need a phone number, a mailing address, and little else. the co-ordinating committee would be paid from each kingdom, and what little office staff there'd be (to answer the phone and to answer the mail) could be paid from each kingdom on a per-share basis. there might also be a minimal petty cash fund. in other words, it'd be run as a small, small business that just happens to have a very wide influence. just a thought. alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 5 20:34:37 1995 Return-Path: Encoding: 4 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 20:01:00 PDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Flieg To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Flieg is right. Finnvarr, ex-Director From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 08:55:29 1995 Return-Path: Encoding: 28 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Approved-By: "Potter, Michael" Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 05:33:00 PDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Potter, Michael" Subject: Tibor's post and listserv matters To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I do not think that it was appropriate to broadcast post Tibor's opinions. That is one large disadvantage to going to a listserv-based mailing list that is not moderated. Even if he is right (and I have my doubts, especially due to the fact that the IRS has already ruled in our favour a few times and I have a different opinion about our activities), he did not use the correct forum to get his message across. I was not surprised with the opinions expressed by the lawyers involved, nor by Tibor's opinions. However, it has been my experience as a public acountant and in my dealing with lawyers that when asked an opinion there is a tendency to present the "worst-case". That way, you cannot be blamed if something does go wrong. However, I'm always amazed that when asked to defend a position how good the arguments can be. I would ask that Tibor and others in the Grand Council consult with a few other members before posting strong statements or what may be contraversial opinions. I'm not suggesting consulting with everyone or consulting for every posting, but an independent review often improves the way a message is presented. I found, for example, that Tibor's post was over-wrought and could hve been toned down and still delivered the same message. In addition, consultation allows others to judge if the posting is appropriate for the Grand Council mailing list. regards, Michael G. Potter Sir Myrdin the Just From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 09:01:09 1995 Return-Path: Encoding: 64 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 08:31:00 PDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Steve Muhlberger Subject: Tibor's letter To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Dear Councillors and other members of the SCA I do not feel that the way to deal with any government agency is to go to them and say, "I'm guilty, punish me!" Could any enforcement body resist such an invitation? The logic of our rather eccentric educational enterprise has been out in the open for a very long time. Government agencies have had access to the information, and have found little to be disturbed about. The fruits of the enterprise, after thirty years, are beginning to emerge in a very impressive way. We could go to the government and say, "Surprise, we were fooling the whole time!" Indeed, Woodford of Lorien went to court when I was on the Board and said that was exactly what the Board had been doing the whole time. He claimed we were knowingly fraudulent from 1968 on. The Board disagreed with him then, and I still disagree with him now. Among the more serious members of our community there is the constant feeling, akin to an inferiority complex, that what we are doing is somehow shameful, immature, or too much fun to be taken seriously. We can't be educational because we don't spend all of our time in a classroom being droned at by the likes of me. This was an important part of Woodford's outlook, and the issue obviously bothers Tibor, too. But those of us who are professional academics know full well that the best things done in the SCA would never be done in the academic community because the culture would not reward them (save in the most unusual of circumstances). Also, that we reach an audience that, by and large, would never step into a classroom or a library to investigate cuir-boulli or mead-making or the proper construction of chausses without the motivation that our social aspects provide. But given that social milieu, our people do go into the libraries, do form their own teaching and learning circles, do publish!!! and produce the most amazing things. And are rewarded by their fellow members, by our elective leadership, by the very strucure of the corporation for doing so. We are just at the beginning of an incredible explosion of activity that will astound us -- us all the more, because we've seen it from the beginning. There may or may not be serious legal issues here that need to be investigated. However, I feel quite passionately that on the sheer intellectual issue of whether we are a real educational organization, we are on the side of the angels, and I will gladly argue that point in any forum whatever on any day you care to name. (In fact, I am giving a paper on that point at the McMaster University conference on The Middle Ages in Contemporary Popular Culture, end of March, 1996.) Given that conviction, I see no reason to throw everything up in the air and act like we've been caught. If we are not willing to make our own argument, to have the courage of our convictions, no one else is going to supply those things for us, and we should cut to the chase, fold everything up, and see if anything worthwhile emerges from the resulting chaos. I think that would be a ridiculous betrayal of what all of us have been doing for the last three decades. Finnvarr Steve Muhlberger, Ph.D. (Early Medieval History, University of Toronto, 1981) Associate Professor of History Nipissing University North Bay, Ontario From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 10:26:12 1995 Return-Path: From: "Pat McGregor" To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Subject: Re: Tibor's letter In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 06 Oct 1995 08:31:00 PDT." <30754D5C@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 07:25:47 -0700 Sender: pat@hugo.lloyd.com This message was originally submitted by pat@HUGO.LLOYD.COM to the SCAGC-L list at LISTSERV.AOL.COM. If you simply forward it back to the list, using a mail command that generates "Resent-" fields (ask your local user support or consult the documentation of your mail program if in doubt), it will be distributed and the explanations you are now reading will be removed automatically. If on the other hand you edit the contributions you receive into a digest, you will have to remove this paragraph manually. Finally, you should be able to contact the author of this message by using the normal "reply" function of your mail program. ----------------- Message requiring your approval (32 lines) ------------------ Greetings from siobhan -- The estimable Fionvarr wrote: >Dear Councillors and other members of the SCA > >Given that conviction, I see no reason to throw everything up in the air and >act like we've been caught. If we are not willing to make our own argument, >to have the courage of our convictions, no one else is going to supply those >things for us, and we should cut to the chase, fold everything up, and see if >anything worthwhile emerges from the resulting chaos. I must agree with all of Fionvarr's points, as I can point to many folk who do research and study just for the purpose of the SCA. As a former corporate officer, I think that we should take this as a clarion call to get our act in order concerning paperwork, internal governing structures (re personal inurement: there was a _reason_ we instituted audits of Kingdom Chronicler's books on a regular basis...), and so on. Let us clean up the house, not surrender. Tibor's (and his colleagues') research is a solid piece of work for us to stand on in our reform efforts. Let's use it. siobhan ====================================================== Siobhan Medhbh O'Roarke / Pat McGregor/ siobhan@lloyd.com House Northmark, Mountain's Gate, Cynagua, The West http://www.lloyd.com/~patmcg/sca.index.html From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 11:06:27 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 10:40:27 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Vote! To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Nathan (there seems to be an address glitch somewhere)... -- Justin >Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 19:06:43 -0500 (CDT) >From: Nathan Clarenburg >Subject: Re: Vote! Terras wrote: > While some good discussion appears to be ensuing, it lacks a definitive > "hand on the wheel". We are in desperate need of some leadership to this > think-tank, and it needs to happen soon. YES!!!!!! We've defined a lot of issues, so let's commit them to paper and submit them for "official" consideration. I think we've amply proven the inadequacy of this free-format GC organization. If we can't repair our own organization what hope do we have of reforming the Society? Nathan Adelaar * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * "Nobody ever escaped punishment for unrighteous treatment of a cook." -- Menander's "Dyskelos" (ca. 300 BC) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 11:09:02 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 10829 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 10:35:32 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Full Report on SCA's Tax Status (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >From David/Kwellend-Njal, via Tibor. On Oct 5, 12:01pm, Mark Schuldenfrei wrote: > There are five standard tests that are applied to nonprofits with a > tax-exempt status in the educational category. They are, in no particular > order: > [Political Test] > 1. Does it engage in any political lobbying > [Financial Test] > 2. Does it meet income reporting and distribution standards > [Operational Test] > 3. Is it exclusively dedicated to its exempt purpose > [Organizational Test] > 4. Were and are it's organizational documents in correct order > [Private Inurement Test] > 5. Did anyone have, or has anyone had access to its funds for private > inurement. I hope that your full letter includes the letter of the law concerning these obligations... > About the only one of those standards the Society for Creative Anachronism > meet for certain, is the political activity test. The others are doubtful, or > clearly failed. One problem with this letter, as written and reproduced here, is the frequent failure to note statements of opinion as such. > Specifically: > [Financial Test] > 2. The SCA may not meet the income distribution requirements for a private > foundation, and may not have gotten certification as a public charity. > It's reporting of donations is also suspect. Statement of violation rests on an unproven point (lack of certification.) Relevant questions are: Does such certification exist (who would have it, how would it be verified)? Have the requirements for such certification changed since the incorporation of the organization and, if so, how do they address the issue? (If the SCA, INC was allowed to act as a public charity, and has continued to act as such in good faith while legal standards have changed, is the corporation covered to any extent. This letter appears to be based on a stong beleif that we do not meet the standards as they exist today. Was this always the case?) > [Operational Test] > 3. It has at least one substantial purpose, not related to it's exempt > purposes: it is a social organization. (See St. Louis Science Fiction > Limited v. Commissioner, included as an addendum to the opinion letter). > I doubt that anyone could argue we don't have a substantial social > purpose. Our ability to meet the educational standard is also > debatable, as we do not use conventional means of education. Your doubts are not well founded; I'll debate that point. I hold that while some individuals in the organization may use it for a substantially social purpose, that is not the organizations purpose, as substantiated by personal experience from my earliest days in the organization 14 years ago. Since my earliest days in the SCA (back when I was your typical stick-jock) the SCA as an organization has functioned with an educational purpose. > [Organizational Test] > 4. It's organizational documents are not reliably updated, and it has > consistently failed to file taxes promptly. We frequently apply for > two filing extensions each year. At least twice the corporation has > failed to file at all. The filings may be substantially incorrect. > (See below.) Not to mention that the organization has been successfully > litigated against for violating it's bylaws, and that it fails to > comply with IRS regulations for public disclosure of tax documents. Some of these are grave failings, and it would appear to be the responsibility of the Board of Directors to correct them as soon as they are made aware of them (and, in truth, the members of the Board should have been aware of these requirements, but that sounds like more grounds for a malpractice suit against the agency providing the Corporation with legal council for the last several years.) Use of the legal remedies for filing (extentions) would not seem to be a violation. Failure to file would be, but we would need more evidence that this alone would be proof of failure of this test. > [Private Inurement Test] > 5. Several times money been stolen from the SCA, and applied to private > uses. This IN AND OF ITSELF is something the IRS can treat as a > violation. In addition, we frequently operate in a fashion which allows > merchants to benefit privately. This MAY be private inurement (again, > see St. Louis Science Fiction Limited v. Commissioner). There is some > doubt that Kingdom travel funds are not private inurement. Has such theft been discovered and condoned? Or has it been prosecuted and an attempt to recover such funds made? Morally this charge doesn't make sense, but then, we are dealing with The Law, not right and wrong... You list the merchant question here, but fail to discuss this aspect of merchants later on; please elaborate. Corporations (even non-profits) are not allowed to fund officers and agents expenses? > Problem one: Filing status. > All educational exempt organizations are private foundations, unless the > IRS separately certifies them as public charities. We have filed tax returns, > and generally acted as if we are a public charity. But the IRS and the SCA > do not have any of the requisite paperwork as a public charity. How was this conclusion reached? > Problem two: Qualifications for filing as a private foundation. > Private foundations are required to file tax forms we have not filed in > the last several years, such as the 990-PF. This could be a problem. It > owes taxes on investment income, such as the SCA was receiving while it > held Kingdom Historical Trust Incorporated's income (aka the West Kingdom > Land Fund). There are strict rules against self-dealing, such as when Dave > Thewlis helped to provide the SCA with computer equipment while he was a > Director. Furthermore, private foundations are required to distribute at > least 5% of their income as grants to other agencies, which we have never > done. Does this follow from our asserted failure to be a public charity, or is it in addition to it? > Problem four: Irregularities in reports. > Candidly, It is difficult to trust the numbers in the tax reports, as they > are inconsistent with facts that SCA participants know, but which the IRS > would not. > For example, in 1993, the total income reported for the SCA was 40,000 > dollars. This was a year in which the Board Minutes reported that income > was exceeding expenses. Yet, the event we call Pennsic, alone, produced > 15,000 dollars of income, and my local group in Boston earned around 2,000 > dollars that year. The group we call the East Kingdom earned around 3,000 > dollars from profits unrelated to Pennsic. This implies that, overall, all > other thousand groups earned a total of under 20,000 dollars? Did the > corporate level lose so much money, despite never reporting a loss, that > it absorbed those profits? Sounds like you need to have an accountant look at the books. Surprise. > Problem five: So many officers are responsible for accepting gifts of more > than an insubstantial nature, that I am confident we are failing to follow > IRS procedures for handling tax deductible gifts. I have no proof, > however. Can you give examples, if not proof? > Operational Test: > A tax exempt organization must follow it's bylaws and articles of > incorporation perfectly, fulfilling those promises which are called it's > exempt purposes. It doesn't have to do all of them. In order to prevent > people from fraudulently misusing tax exempt status for inappropriate > purposes, exempt organizations cannot serve serve any purpose outside of > its the list of exempt purposes in its founding documents. > The US Supreme Court ruled on this in Better Business Bureau v. United > States (see citations in the accompanying opinion letter), where it said > that the number and importance of an organizations purposes were not relevant, > so long as an organization serves any substantial purpose which is not > exempt. In that case, the organization forfeits its exempt status. > > There are several standard purposes which are considered specifically non- > exempt: commercial, recreational, and social. Sure, organizations that are > gatherings of people in a common exempt cause will have social implications, > and the law allows for that. But more than an insubstantial amount of social > activity is a reason for disallowing exempt status. Please see two > relevant cases, for reasoning which closely parallels our own position: > Minnesota Kingsmen Chess Association v. Commissioner, and St. Louis Science > Fiction Society v. Commissioner. (The abstracts for both of those cases are > part of the opinion letter, in an addendum). These cases are not binding on > the IRS, or the tax court. But they do reflect typical thinking and are > indicative of the treatment we can expect. > > I don't think that anyone could accurately argue that the primary purpose > at our gatherings is solely educational in nature. There is always a > substantial social component. In order to qualify properly, nearly all > our time and energy would have to be spent on educational activities. This > is clearly not the case. Consider how rarely, for example, the actual > history of the period is discussed in our documents, or mentioned at our > events in any formal way. Compare this to the fun activities, and the > social "face time" we spend. What form would you like that arguement to take? I believe that you are taking the wrong path here. It would be far simpler, I believe, to prove that the organization has a recreational purpose than to prove that there is an institutional social purpose. > Organizational Test: > One could also discuss several other questions, none of which have an easy > answer. For example, the SCA has sold many materials via the Stock Clerks > office. Are those part of our exempt purpose, or are they unrelated > business income? One could argue either way. Certainly some of the things > that used to be available were purchased from outside vendors, and were > commercial endeavors. And the avowed purpose of creating the SCA > Marketplace was to increase revenue, not to fulfill exempt purposes. Are the matterials distributed of an educational nature? How does selling materials directly related to your defined mission stand? David From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 11:49:35 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 3332 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 11:15:52 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor's report on the SCA's Tax Status To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199510052153.QAA48100@gold.missouri.edu> from "Joseph Heck" at Oct 5, 95 04:53:29 pm Terras wrote, to me (Tibor): please be wary of your sweeping generalizations that are being introduced into your rhetoric. Your following statements are not obviously true in every case, and there's a significant movement in Calontir for people to do things "more medievally". Most likely, guilty as charged. I am, in my way, a passionate person, and I like to make my points emphatically. Since I can't talk with my hands on the net (except by typing) I am probably guilty of "over-writing". Please filter accordingly. I also hate the conclusions that I came to. Perhaps this too has colored my language. I appreciate the correction, especially when it is given so nicely. I wrote: > But the guidelines listed in IRS publications imply modern > credentialism, and standards of professionalism. This seems antithetical to > the SCA credo (of calling authenticists Nazi's, and having almost no formal > standards for participation.) I believe most of what people call "Auth Nazi's" is more a response to over-eager people and personal attacks on them in regards to attire. I've seen that. I've also seen (and been responsible for) abysmal standards of authenticity. Regardless of the presence of the mythical A-police. Let's focus on my real point, instead of the potential overstatement. Stick with the first sentence, instead. "The guidelines listed in IRS publications imply modern credentialism, and standards of professionalism." > There may well be room for a 501(c)(3) corporation that provides educational > materials for re-enactors and re-creationists... but I suspect it would have > only cursory relationship with coordinating groups that are primarily > social. I can conceive of such a relationship, but my conception finds it > strained. Still, there are possibilities there. Perhaps I've missed something here, but I always understood that ANY situation/organization that was educational was also social. We do an awful lot of social things, but the focus of our social interactions is based on recreating one aspect or another of medieval life, arts, or culture. I touched on that, briefly, when I mentioned that any human interaction for a common cause is somewhat social in nature. But having anything more than an insubstantial social purpose, is too much for the IRS. It doesn't have to be more than overwhelming. If the social value of the SCA is greater than the bare minimum required to get it's exempt purposes accomplished, then it is a violation of exempt purpose. I submit, that the SCA has a social component that is independent or exceeds its exempt purposes. That's why I like it so much. Let's try this from another tactic. If the SCA were to become only about teaching, lecturing, and demonstrations of period culture, and was almost solely involved with public demonstrations, classes and academic standards, how many people would still "Play our Game", or "Live in the Dream"? Would you? Chances are, I wouldn't. I believe your statements are greatly exagerated, and you are doing significantly more harm then good in the presentation of your concerns. That may be true, and I regret it if so. I appreciate your attempts to imrpove my presentation, and your efforts to focus on the actual issues at hand. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 11:53:14 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 11:18:37 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <30752265@tmpgw951.allied.com> (POTTERM@mtomp004.allied.com) Myrdin writes: >I do not think that it was appropriate to broadcast post Tibor's opinions. I disagree somewhat here. I think it's useful for the Council to know what's going on; to that end, I'm glad Tibor posted it. It is *not* clear to me that it's appropriate for us to go spending lots of time on it at this point. I think Tibor's main recommendation is spot-on appropriate: the Board should obtain some qualified tax advice, and get an opinion on how serious the situation really is. If that advice concurs with Tibor's opinion of the severity of the situation, then his other recommendations are probably appropriate (and at that point it *is* our problem). If not, then we may not need to worry about it at all. Overall, I'm glad to know this is coming, and that it's a *possible* medium-term problem, so I'm glad Tibor made us aware of it. I don't think we should be panicing about it now, though... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "I've been forged! I've been forged! I'm *SOMEBODY*!!!!!" -- John Woods From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 12:06:36 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1210 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 11:34:57 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <951005184318_71313343@emout06.mail.aol.com> from "Magnus MagUire" at Oct 5, 95 06:43:19 pm Magnus suggested there should be an SCA International Inc, and I asked for reasons why Inc, and Where Inc... The answer: Why Inc? So it can have some legal status and authority for the times they are required. Where Inc? U.S. someplace. Unless there is some reason to start from scratch, revamping the current Corp should work fine. This just begs the question further, Magnus, I am sorry to say. What legal status? What authority? How would becoming a corporation give this SCA International more authority? I worked on this as a side project for a while in early 1994, when the last crisis was so acute. *I* couldn't find a reason why. I am still hoping that you have one. But I am no be-all and end-all on this sort of thing. But it's not obvious that incorporation leads to any authority, nor that legal status gained thereby (which is primarily useful for retaining assets and signing contracts for goods or services) is worthwhile. To me, what you've said is a bit like saying to me "You should have a driver's license. It gives you legal status, and authority when required." But what if I don't have a car, or want one? (Nothing inflammatory meant.) Please expand. Tibor From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 12:11:50 1995 Return-Path: Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 11:11:46 -0500 (CDT) From: Nathan Clarenburg To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? In-Reply-To: <199510061534.LAA10287@abel.math.harvard.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This message was originally submitted by nathan@CIS.KSU.EDU to the SCAGC-L list at LISTSERV.AOL.COM. If you simply forward it back to the list, using a mail command that generates "Resent-" fields (ask your local user support or consult the documentation of your mail program if in doubt), it will be distributed and the explanations you are now reading will be removed automatically. If on the other hand you edit the contributions you receive into a digest, you will have to remove this paragraph manually. Finally, you should be able to contact the author of this message by using the normal "reply" function of your mail program. ----------------- Message requiring your approval (23 lines) ------------------ Tibor wrote: > But it's not obvious that incorporation leads to any authority, nor that > legal status gained thereby (which is primarily useful for retaining assets > and signing contracts for goods or services) is worthwhile. [Wonderful driver's licence analogy snipped] I think assets and contracts have become part of the SCA experience. We expect Kings and Queens to have Crowns, expect to be able to rent a hall or campground (often requiring insurance), and expect to occasionally attend a feast. To change these expectations would be to fundamentally change the current Society. So to return to Tibor's analogy, I think we DO want to drive. The real question is HOW to do it legally....and of course whether we're all in the same car, and what's tuned on the radio! Nathan nathan@cis.ksu.edu * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * "Nobody ever escaped punishment for unrighteous treatment of a cook." -- Menander's "Dyskelos" (ca. 300 BC) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 12:22:22 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 4722 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 11:51:17 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Full Report on SCA's Tax Status Comments: To: flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <59287.flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu> from "Flieg Hollander" at Oct 5, 95 04:26:59 pm Greetings from Tibor. Flieg wrote: But we _are_ a non-profit org until the IRS or whatever says so. This is important to recall. Although it is probably not appropriate for individuals to deduct donations if they feel confident the SCA is not a valid 501(c)(3), it is vital to remember that until the IRS rescinds that status, we have it. We do have the original IRS letter, and we have survived audits/reviews of our non-profit status. (At least twice during Hilary's term as Steward, and I believe at least once before that.) We don't have the original, although I do have a copy of one dating from 1989 that says we are still considered exempt. The audits have no legal standing. We could pass an audit with flying colors, and a month later have new information come to light, and we could lose our exemption retro-actively. That was something I think I mentioned. Consider what happens during an audit. The IRS asks for the paperwork used to create our 990s, and some newsletter material and some background about our activities... this stranger to us gets the documents we provided our accountants, and a copy of Compleat Anachronist, and some testimonials on some demos, and an A&S report. This does not give the auditor the inside picture that you and I might have, it gives them a self-consistent and "best face" picture of who we are. As long as the image holds together, we can pass an audit. But attendance at one of our functions might show a different picture. Or it might not... judgement call. I believe that Tibor's analysis is mostly correct and mostly irrelevant. If the IRS after several investigations is still satisfied to call us a 501(c)3, then I won't argue with them. But I believe we know things they do not. An "investigation" is a much fuller process than a cursory audit, and the audit is not binding upon the IRS. I also think that Tibor under-estimates grossly the amount of education that we actually do. Tibor does NOT underestimate the education we manage to accomplish. I can quite easily point to my own self-improvement for supporting documentation. The question is not "Have people learned". The question ought to be "Do we meet the arbitrary standards of the IRS". People keep forgetting this. I would HAPPILY attest that I have learned far more real history in the Society than I have ever learned from formal education, and that I have learned a lot about modern issues as interesting spin-off ideas from the Society. No question. The fact that we are irregular is _not_ an inherent problem. This may be the rock I founder on, that Flieg does not. I believe that as far as the IRS is concerned, our effectiveness isn't nearly as important as our conventionality. I keep trotting out this example. I learn something from the newspaper, every day. That does not make IT a valid educational tax exempt organization, nor would it if they tried. It has a substantial commercial purpose. Text book publishers similarly, and similarly for some of the "technical institutes" that exist, like those that teach radio and TV broadcasting, or professional psychology schools. It isn't the results that matter alone, it's the trappings. I also disagree that the SCA, Inc. has a social _purpose_, other than to its members. We do our education within a social framework. That is true. But that social framework, despite it's effectiveness (which I attest to) makes us ineligible for exempt status. A hammer is a good tool, and it works. It can also drive screws into wood. But it doesn't qualify as a screwdriver. All of this is moot. The only real way to tell if Tibor is right or wrong is to have the IRS rule on us (again). I see no reason to panic or to over-react on this, and I do not feel that the SCA as a whole has anything particularly to fear. The IRS, to my knowledge, has never ruled on us in a binding fashion. We passed a cursory spot check. I believe that there is enough doubt about whether we would pass an in-depth analysis, that I feel we should check. And I feel there ought to be enough doubt in the minds of the Directors, that their legal responsibility is to engage competent counsel, and check. As an aside, there are millions of exempt organizations incorporated in the US, and some congressional testimony I saw claims that generally, they can check on only one half of one percent of them each year. I doubt any of them get more than a cursory inspection. The Society has nothing substantial to fear. But I suspect the Corporation does. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 12:48:45 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 4613 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 12:19:18 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <30752265@tmpgw951.allied.com> from "Potter, Michael" at Oct 6, 95 05:33:00 am Sir Myrddin, Thanks for the thoughts. I posted to the GC list, because it contains some of the finest minds in the Society, and people with superb backgrounds. I want to be influenced, and informed, by people of intelligence and background, and I want the Board to be likewise influenced. The listserv change means little: Justin's policy was to put through whatever he was asked. I appreciate the commentary (both on the note, and the meta-notes like yours and Terras) and find in them the justification I require. On to the facts. Even if he is right (and I have my doubts, especially due to the fact that the IRS has already ruled in our favour a few times and I have a different opinion about our activities), [...] This was something I found surprising in my researches, and clearly it is still surprising to many of you. The audits we have undergone are not considered rulings, and have absolutely no legal weight. They are cursory inspections, only. The IRS works in fashions counter to common sense... (:-) I was not surprised with the opinions expressed by the lawyers involved, nor by Tibor's opinions. However, it has been my experience as a public acountant and in my dealing with lawyers that when asked an opinion there is a tendency to present the "worst-case". That way, you cannot be blamed if something does go wrong. However, I'm always amazed that when asked to defend a position how good the arguments can be. I tried to represent that in my report. Perhaps I failed. Much of the text in my report concerns cloudy issues. I tried to raise the issues involved, and my conclusions about them, while marking them as cloudy. In at least two cases, private inurement and operational areas, there are clear and significant violations, that are not (to me) matters of opinion. Our social nature exceeds that which is the minimal required to fulfill the exempt purposes we list, and the SCA in its Board Minutes discussed theft >from the organization by the former chief financial officer. I believe the word embezzlement was used. (But it's worth re-checking.) I appreciate the point of view about attorneies in your note. In our adversarial system of justice, attorneies frequently are handed a point of view, and apply themselves to making that particular case as strongly as possible. That, however, is not the only way attorneies work. And I'd like to applaud Lisa, in particular, for her interest in trying to determine the facts. She is a former professional researcher for the Tax Court, and has worked as a researcher for a Judge of that court. Judge Chabot, I presume, would not have appreciated a biased workup of the issues, and Lisa assures me she took the same even-handed approach in her document. (And, all you've seen is my gloss on her work, anyway.) I appreciate, and share, the general public bias against the legal system and it's practitioners. But I think your ad hominem dismissal (ie, consider the source) to be prejudiced and prejudicial. The facts stand, whether from the mouths of babes, weasels or lawyers. Lisa and I spent many hours discussing both sides, pro and con, trying to determine which interpretation was fairest. For example, for quite some time I was convinced that the SCA did not meet the public support test for public charities. And was not quite up to snuff on the facts and circumstances test that is applied to such violators. But, further homework showed that we are, in fact, exemplary in the public support test. So, I deleted it from my commentaries, as not being a danger to the organization. (Our lack of public charity status is another issue.) I would ask that Tibor and others in the Grand Council consult with a few other members before posting strong statements or what may be contraversial opinions. I understand why you say this, but with all due respect: I hardly believe you to be right. We are here, among other reasons, to try to find common ground, or delineate areas of disagreement to a fare-thee-well. Insulting or gratuitous opinions are unworthy of us: but strongly held opinion, especially when clearly demarked as such, may be worth everyones time. I found, for example, that Tibor's post was over-wrought and could hve been toned down and still delivered the same message. You should have seen the first drafts... Not that you are necessarily mistaken. It was written under deadline, and in the presence of particularly strong emotion. I don't doubt it carries that taint, although I hope, not the reek. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 12:58:30 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 12:20:35 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Michael... (One general comment: folks, we're straying *dangerously* close to the temper line here. These are emotional issues; if we're to accomplish anything, let's do it with great and deliberate calm...) -- Justin Who doesn't think we've crossed the line yet, but doesn't want to see us do so... >Date: Fri 06 Oct 1995 08:05 CT >From: UDSD007@DSIBM.OKLADOT.STATE.OK.US (Mike.Andrews ) >Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters "Potter, Michael" (Sir Myrdin the Just) wrote: > I do not think that it was appropriate to broadcast post Tibor's opinions. > That is one large disadvantage to going to a listserv-based mailing list > that is not moderated. Even if he is right (and I have my doubts, > especially due to the fact that the IRS has already ruled in our favour a > few times and I have a different opinion about our activities), he did not > use the correct forum to get his message across. While I acknowledge that you are entitled to your opinions, I will differ w.r.t. them. The issue he presented can only be decided by the I.R.S., and they are not bound by their own past errors. I think that this forum is as appropriate as any for the initial presentation of his post; if you disagree, then where do you think he should have made his conclusions known? > I was not surprised with the opinions expressed by the lawyers involved, nor > by Tibor's opinions. However, it has been my experience as a public > acountant and in my dealing with lawyers that when asked an opinion there is > a tendency to present the "worst-case". That way, you cannot be blamed if > something does go wrong. However, I'm always amazed that when asked to > defend a position how good the arguments can be. Would you rather hear the "best-case" opinion (i.e., "everything's hunky-dory"), and have the Corp. find out the hard way that at least _something_ wasn't quite hunky-dory? How about you playing _advocatus Corporationis_ and presenting arguments that everything is OK; I'm interested in your arguments defending the 501(c)(3) status of the Corporation. > I would ask that Tibor and others in the Grand Council consult with a few > other members before posting strong statements or what may be contraversial > opinions. I'm not suggesting consulting with everyone or consulting for > every posting, but an independent review often improves the way a message is > presented. I found, for example, that Tibor's post was over-wrought and > could hve been toned down and still delivered the same message. In > addition, consultation allows others to judge if the posting is appropriate > for the Grand Council mailing list. My mailer won't let me review other mail while editing a response, darn it!, so I have to go on memory here, but it is my recollection that Tibor was by no means the only person involved in the effort for which he reported the results. Do you think he was the only person involved in composing the report? -- udsd007@dsibm.okladot.state.ok.us Michael Fenwick of Fotheringhay, O.L. (Mike Andrews) Namron, Ansteorra Pray, I beseech you, for the repose of the soul of Kathleen Anna Young Lister, once known as Baroness Caitlin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 14:00:03 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 13:24:53 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Nathan... -- Justin >Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 12:22:12 -0500 (CDT) >From: Nathan Clarenburg >Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? On the tax issues raised by Tibor: I think his letter was extremely important because it points to questions that need answers, which I believe is a big part of our purpose. I don't necessarily agree with Tibor's answers, but he acknowledges that he is sharing lay opinions and that we need solid professional opinions. I agree with Justin that this isn't a hot topic for our discussion, because all we could contribute would be more lay opinions. But I think we're almost ready to decide whether to ask the Board to solicit professional advice on this topic. I think we're also about ready to ask the Board to solicit advice about international tax obligations. Since the answers to these questions could greatly affect our eventual organizational format (and since tax penalties, if any, are mounting), I suggest that we obtain a GC concensus on these issues ASAP. Nathan nathan@cis.ksu.edu * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * "Nobody ever escaped punishment for unrighteous treatment of a cook." -- Menander's "Dyskelos" (ca. 300 BC) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 14:31:38 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1817 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 13:50:22 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Strategy and other points (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Lisa Steele, Esclarmonde, who is the tax attorney I keep mentioning. I've deleted some surrounding text that was private between the two of us. And, reformatted to make it easier to read. She hasn't read the dialogs here, yet. She has just subscribed (or is in the process of subscribing) to the GC list. Tibor Dear Friends: I cannot let Tibor accept this responsibility alone. As some of you know, I had some concerns about this issue in spring, 1994, when I was still an employee of the United States Tax Court. I did not research the question at that point because it would have been inappropriate. I began to research this in the fall, when I left the court. I discussed with Tibor my concerns and he said that he would like to see someone work on the problem. Early this year, I told Tibor that I was close to a preliminary draft of the report and that I had been approached by IRS for a job. We agreed to treat the earlier discussion as hiring counsel so that the report would be protected under attorney-client privilege if I were hired by IRS. (Tibor did wind up paying me for some of the research.) Tibor may have some responsibility for bringing this to your attention, but he alone should not be blamed. I see my role in the society as occassionally telling it when I think it is wrong and risking harm to itself and its members by acting without benefit of counsel. I too am saddened at the likely costs to SCA, Inc. and to the larger society. I believe, however, that the Society is larger than the corporation. I believe it can not only recover, but prosper from this examination. --Lisa You can respond to me at either the compuserve address on the report or to me at lsteele@mhc.mtholyoke.edu. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 14:54:41 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 433 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 14:00:17 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9510061724.AA14066@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Oct 6, 95 01:24:53 pm Nathan wrote: I agree with Justin that this isn't a hot topic for our discussion, because all we could contribute would be more lay opinions. But I think we're almost ready to decide whether to ask the Board to solicit professional advice on this topic. I would be tickled if the GC considered a formal recommendation to the Board that it seek professional advice on this topic. Issues of timing not withstanding. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 15:32:26 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2214 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 14:30:07 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Abstracts of value To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9510061718.AA14050@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Oct 6, 95 01:18:47 pm Greetings from Tibor. Just to add some actual substance to the fire, I'm going to reproduce the summaries of the two Tax Court memos I have from Lisa. They are interesting, and worth reading. First, I sent a private note to Finnvarr. I agree with him: we do a hell of a job of education, and I know I have benefitted. That is not to say, however, that the sort of education we provide is the sort that the IRS calls appropriate for exempt status. That is the part I think we would fail. But, it is a judgement call. Consider this absurd example: I run a restaurant that has reproduction art prints on the walls, and with every dinner over 10 dollars, I give out a 30 pages of history text, or original sources. I'm educating... am I a charity worthy of tax-exempt status? We are, however, in more clear violation of other issues (The Stewart matter of private inurement, and the social issue.) Discussing the educational issue is interesting, but distraction. Tibor The summary language of Minnesota Kingsmen Chess Association v. Commissioner: "A Minnesota chess association was ineligable for an exemption from tax under Sec 501(a), because the substantial purpose of its numerous chess tournaments was more recreational in nature than exclusively educational. Although the tournaments may have provided some educational benefit to the individuals involved, they were designed primarily to give club members an opportunity to compete against each other for prizes on a regular basis, and at least half the time devoted to the association's operation was spent in promoting and conducting tournament activities." The summary language of St. Louis Science Fiction Limited v. Commissioner: "A science fiction society failed to qualify for tax exempt status. Although many of the society's functions at its annual connventions (the society's principal activity) were educational, its overall agenda was not exclusively educational. A substantial portion of convention affairs were social and recreational in nature. Even seminars had a sportive bent. Plus, the society benefited private interest by arranging art auctions and setting aside rooms for private business." From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 15:54:35 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Greg Rose Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 13:17:17 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Greg Rose Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Hossein. I preface my remarks by saying that I do not endorse all of the conclusions reached by Mark, Lisa, and Harold. However, I find the suggestion that any contribution whatsoever by any member of the Council should be vetted by other members of the Council (or anyone else) before it is permitted into our discussions extremely offensive. The principal condition I placed on acceptance of a seat on the Council was an assurance by the Board that the Council would be permitted full and free discussion of any issue any chose to bring to its attention. If the Board was prepared to grant this, I find it doubly noxious an idea that the Council itself should presume to propose to "muzzle" the comments of any of our members. I note that no one objected when a completely anecdotal, unscientific "survey" of an outlier shire was presented in this forum -- indeed, it was used to trumpet how grass-roots membership opposed any change in the corporate structure (except more centralization and authoritarianism). Yet, when Tibor presented the opinions of legal scholars on a point of tax law relevant to the corporation's continued existence, some immediately suggested how intemperate he was to publish such a thing. That bespeaks a desire to silence a viewpoint for political reasons. That I will not abide, regardless of whose viewpoint it may be. Hossein/Greg From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 15:55:09 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 12:43:40 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Nathan (I've confirmed that slight address glitch, and will hopefully have it cleared up soon)... -- Justin Comments to follow... >Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 11:11:46 -0500 (CDT) >From: Nathan Clarenburg >Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? Tibor wrote: > But it's not obvious that incorporation leads to any authority, nor that > legal status gained thereby (which is primarily useful for retaining assets > and signing contracts for goods or services) is worthwhile. [Wonderful driver's licence analogy snipped] I think assets and contracts have become part of the SCA experience. We expect Kings and Queens to have Crowns, expect to be able to rent a hall or campground (often requiring insurance), and expect to occasionally attend a feast. To change these expectations would be to fundamentally change the current Society. So to return to Tibor's analogy, I think we DO want to drive. The real question is HOW to do it legally....and of course whether we're all in the same car, and what's tuned on the radio! Nathan nathan@cis.ksu.edu * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * "Nobody ever escaped punishment for unrighteous treatment of a cook." -- Menander's "Dyskelos" (ca. 300 BC) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 15:57:07 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 13:18:47 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Tibor's letter To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <30754D5C@smtpgate.unipissing.ca> (message from Steve Muhlberger on Fri, 6 Oct 1995 08:31:00 PDT) Finnvarr essentially argues two points with Tibor's letter; I'm going to further argue a bit with each of those. First of all, he argues that the SCA has an educational purpose, so we should be clear on that count. Yes and no. What I find interesting in Tibor's letter is the part about the IRS wanting the group to have *only* the educational purpose; the social purpose should be minimal. I'm sorry, but (speaking as a Laurel in a *highly* arts and research intensive Barony) it is quite clear to me that the social side is a *major* aspect of the Society. I'm not insecure about the SCA's education; for all our faults, I think we accomplish a helluva lot. But to claim that education is our *only* purpose is, I believe, lying to ourselves. I mean, this is the whole fun mavin/authenticity mavin divide -- part of what makes the SCA so vital and alive is that both the educational and social sides *are* so strong. I've played with clubs where one or the other clearly predominates; they aren't nearly as interesting and enjoyable. The question is, how serious is the IRS about the notion that the club must have *only* an educational purpose? Tibor believes that this is a dead-serious issue. I'd like a second opinion, from an uninvolved outside tax expert. If Tibor is right, and the IRS really means what it says (that to qualify for 501(c)(3), a group must have *only* an educational purpose), then I have to concur: we don't make the cut. It's just untrue to say that the social side is solely an adjunct to the education -- the social side is *usually* a purpose unto itself. I'm not ashamed of that at all -- it's just a fact. (Or at least, my opinion.) The other issue is, do we have to rat on ourselves? The government isn't likely to find out -- do we need to, as Finnvarr says, "go to them and say, 'I'm guilty, punish me!'"? Far as I'm concerned, it's a matter of ethics more than law. (For the *Board*, it's a matter of law; I have the luxury of getting to worry about it more abstractly.) Assume for a moment that we do *not* really qualify under IRS regs. (Which is not yet demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt.) The fact is, we are *not* just bending the rules at no cost. If we were, I'd be quite content to just continue on; my disregard for arbitrary laws is pretty famous. But we *are* costing, and pretty big -- we are receiving a *substantial* government subsidy. Consider: basic SCA membership is tax-deductible. Ballpark calculations: we have around 25K members, at $20 per head membership. That's about half a million dollars a year. Guess an average tax rate of about 20% -- that means that we are getting an indirect government subsidy, in the form of deducted taxes, of about $100,000 per year. That's a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it's probably correct to within a factor of two. And that *doesn't* figure in deductions for donations to local branches, and writeoffs for officer expenses, which are probably not trivial. (I'm ignoring the postal rate thing, since Bertram says that it will be going away -- I'm more concerned with the future than the past here.) Given that fact, that we *are* costing the government a substantial bundle of money, I think it *does* behoove us to be honest. Yes, we can wink and nod -- we can almost certainly continue to put the best face on whenever we are audited and get away with it. But if the reality is that we are breaking the law, we *should* admit it. This club values honor and honesty highly -- if that's to mean anything, it must apply at times like this, when something real is at stake. Cheap honesty is worth little. Again, I am *not* convinced yet that we are in violation. But I agree with Tibor that, if we are, then we should act on that... -- Justin Who regards this as the most serious issue, because it is the one that probably can't (and shouldn't) be fixed... Random Quote du Jour: * We attach an importance to it that is far greater than its actual size and influence warrant. -- From "Why the Internet is Like a Penis" (by Degan Dale?) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 16:04:21 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 727 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 12:57:32 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9510061643.AA13871@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Oct 6, 95 12:43:40 pm Nathan wrote: I think assets and contracts have become part of the SCA experience. We expect Kings and Queens to have Crowns, expect to be able to rent a hall or campground (often requiring insurance), and expect to occasionally attend a feast. To change these expectations would be to fundamentally change the current Society. Which "drives home my point" (Auugh!) How and why would an international organizing and coordination body be providing the services required to own property, run an event or attend a feast? We had postulated that local corporations would be potentially required in many local areas, and were discussing institutionalized cooperation between them. Why incorporate that body? Tibor From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 16:11:41 1995 Return-Path: From: "David W. James" Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 16:11:39 -0400 In-Reply-To: Mark Waks "Re: Tibor's letter" (Oct 6, 1:18pm) References: <9510061718.AA14050@dsd.camb.inmet.com> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.0 26oct94 MediaMail) To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Subject: Re: Tibor's letter Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii This message was originally submitted by vnend@AOL.NET to the SCAGC-L list at LISTSERV.AOL.COM. If you simply forward it back to the list, using a mail command that generates "Resent-" fields (ask your local user support or consult the documentation of your mail program if in doubt), it will be distributed and the explanations you are now reading will be removed automatically. If on the other hand you edit the contributions you receive into a digest, you will have to remove this paragraph manually. Finally, you should be able to contact the author of this message by using the normal "reply" function of your mail program. ----------------- Message requiring your approval (24 lines) ------------------ On Oct 6, 1:18pm, Mark Waks wrote: > First of all, he argues that the SCA has an educational purpose, so we > should be clear on that count. Yes and no. What I find interesting in > Tibor's letter is the part about the IRS wanting the group to have > *only* the educational purpose; the social purpose should be minimal. > I'm sorry, but (speaking as a Laurel in a *highly* arts and research > intensive Barony) it is quite clear to me that the social side is a > *major* aspect of the Society. Be careful, Justin. The social side is indeed there... as part of the Society. The question is, is it a major (the Minnisota ruling used an arbitrary 'more than half') part of the SCA, Inc. I would hold that it the social component can be there, but irrelevant to the corporations function. And, indeed, the corporation, as far as I can tell, does nothing to support the social side of the Society; almost all of its function is in support of the educational side (publication of TI and CA, insurance that allows our research to be tested (quibble... :-)) So, lets look at this another way: What does the Corporation do that fosters the parts of the Society that would put us in violation? If the reform movements rhetoric was not just words, then that distinction, between the Corporation and the Society, should be a crutial factor for consideration. Kwellend-Njal From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 16:13:07 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 12:54:20 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Now, responding to Nathan's letter that I just posted: >> But it's not obvious that incorporation leads to any authority, nor that >> legal status gained thereby (which is primarily useful for retaining assets >> and signing contracts for goods or services) is worthwhile. >[Wonderful driver's licence analogy snipped] > >I think assets and contracts have become part of the SCA experience. We >expect Kings and Queens to have Crowns, expect to be able to rent a hall >or campground (often requiring insurance), and expect to occasionally >attend a feast. To change these expectations would be to fundamentally >change the current Society. I think you're forgetting the context of the conversation. Tibor was responding to Magnus, who was proposing a situation where we have a number of small practical "local" corporations (where the definition of "local" might vary a bit, from national to state), with an overarching "SCA International, Inc" liscensing them and generally holding things together. Tibor questioned (and I concur) whether *that* body, the co-ordinating one, actually needs to be a formal corporation. We clearly need some form of incorporation, for the reasons you cite. But in this hypothetical environment (which I personally like a lot), with the mundane work being done by a number of smaller corporations, it's not clear that the center needs to be one. (I'm not sure that it *doesn't*, but I haven't yet heard any convincing reason why it should, and the KISS principle indicates to me that it probably shouldn't be unless there *is* a good reason to. Incorporation can provide some advantages, but at the cost of some extra work and expense.) This actually relates quite closely to a discussion we spent a long time on in the Membership Working Group. After a long discussion, we concluded that the SCA almost certainly does want some sort of central co-ordinating (and maybe to some degree governing) body. But we differed somewhat on what the scope of that body should be -- some people felt that it should continue to be as all-encompassing as today (or partly so), whereas others felt it should be cut down to just "identity" functions relating to the game itself, and keeping the Society playing together... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "The road to Hell is paved with politicians." -- from Lucifer From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 16:58:04 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 16:18:56 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Tibor's letter To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Kwellend... -- Justin >From: "David W. James" >Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 16:11:39 -0400 >In-Reply-To: Mark Waks > "Re: Tibor's letter" (Oct 6, 1:18pm) >References: <9510061718.AA14050@dsd.camb.inmet.com> >Subject: Re: Tibor's letter On Oct 6, 1:18pm, Mark Waks wrote: > First of all, he argues that the SCA has an educational purpose, so we > should be clear on that count. Yes and no. What I find interesting in > Tibor's letter is the part about the IRS wanting the group to have > *only* the educational purpose; the social purpose should be minimal. > I'm sorry, but (speaking as a Laurel in a *highly* arts and research > intensive Barony) it is quite clear to me that the social side is a > *major* aspect of the Society. Be careful, Justin. The social side is indeed there... as part of the Society. The question is, is it a major (the Minnisota ruling used an arbitrary 'more than half') part of the SCA, Inc. I would hold that it the social component can be there, but irrelevant to the corporations function. And, indeed, the corporation, as far as I can tell, does nothing to support the social side of the Society; almost all of its function is in support of the educational side (publication of TI and CA, insurance that allows our research to be tested (quibble... :-)) So, lets look at this another way: What does the Corporation do that fosters the parts of the Society that would put us in violation? If the reform movements rhetoric was not just words, then that distinction, between the Corporation and the Society, should be a crutial factor for consideration. Kwellend-Njal From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 17:57:10 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 17:16:38 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Tibor's letter To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9510062018.AA15325@dsd.camb.inmet.com> (message from Mark Waks on Fri, 6 Oct 1995 16:18:56 EDT) Kwellend makes the point that we might be clear of the "educational purpose" problem because the social side of the Society is mostly part of the *Society*, whereas the Corporation mostly serves the educational purpose. Interesting idea, and one that hadn't occurred to me. On a few minutes' reflection, though, I think it's got a couple of holes: First, I think that the Corporation is clearly supporting a lot of the social purpose as well. Events are at least as much social as educational (I would say that the majority of serious education I see tends to be at practices and such instead), and the majority of the Corporation's efforts are towards supporting events. Likewise, while many of the official resources (eg, CA) are clearly educational, many others (eg, The Known World Handbook) probably aren't. (That is, most of the content of The KWH is devoted to getting around in the SCA, not teaching about period.) So the argument is a little weak on the face of it. Second, much though I might wish the Society and Corporation were clearly separated, they currently aren't, and I'd be surprised if the IRS considered them so. This argument might work better if the SCA were heavily restructured, but I don't think it works now. Finally, even if that separation *was* clear, I think that it's bass-ackward. That is, the center of the SCA has traditionally been *terrible* about education. We have a nasty tendency to promote the worst misinformation in the structure of the Society and how it works, and information published by the SCA, Inc. has an unfortunate tendency to be inaccurate. The best education done in the SCA has usually been done from the local level. The Corporation can have a part in this, in facilitating the communications nets that help good information get spread around. But I think that's only a moderate part of its job; the main task is allowing events to run, and that, I think, is highly socially oriented. Interesting argument, though, with possibilities... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: Re: Ask Dr. Internet! 7. What is "Bandwidth?" As capacity on the Internet has increased, people have begun to transmit material other than simple text. One notable example is audio recordings of rock concerts. These audio files are much larger than even very long books, so they have become a standard unit of network usage. One Rolling Stone song equals one "band" width, and so on. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 20:23:24 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: Nigel Haslock Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 15:42:30 -0700 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Nigel Haslock Subject: Re: Tibor's Letter To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded by Fiacha! ========================================================================= Greetings to the members of the Grand Council and to the others listening to these discussions, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn. I was dismayed to read Sir Myrdin the Just's remarks: > I do not think that it was appropriate to broadcast post Tibor's opinions. > That is one large disadvantage to going to a listserv-based mailing list > that is not moderated. {snip} > I would ask that Tibor and others in the Grand Council consult with a few > other members before posting strong statements or what may be contraversial > opinions. I'm not suggesting consulting with everyone or consulting for > every posting, but an independent review often improves the way a message is > presented. I found, for example, that Tibor's post was over-wrought and > could hve been toned down and still delivered the same message. In > addition, consultation allows others to judge if the posting is appropriate > for the Grand Council mailing list. My concern has three separate grounds. First, it was my impression that the GC was created precisely to discuss controversial issues. The suggestion that something should not be posted because it is controversial is, therefore, disturbing. Likewise, the notion that everything must be "toned down" before the GC can deal with it strikes me as boding ill for a body whose job is to come to grips with issues about which people feel passionately. A fear of passion seems to me profoundly counterproductive. Surely if we respect one another and each other's views, we can deal with displays of honest feeling. If the council cannot, I don't see how it can fulfill its most basic function. Second, the suggestion that the GC's communications should be moderated would seem to imply that some members' opinions are rather less equal than others. (In particular, the opinion of whoever moderates the list is clearly treated as more equal than the views of those whom that moderation affects. And in general, Sir Myrdin's post would seem to imply that the views of those who express their passion are less equal than the views of those who conceal it.) Third, a great deal of the GC's legitimacy across the Society derives from the openness of its proceedings. What Sir Myrdin has suggested is that most of the really interesting stuff go underground, for fear of offending the list's sensitivies. Such a move, I think, would deeply undercut the authority and respect the GC can command with the Society, and in turn reduces the motivation for the Board (or anyone else) to listen to it. In general, it seems to me that a body whose job it is to find out what people want will suffer far more from stifling communication than from listening to impassioned opinions. For what an outsider's opinion is worth. Angharad ver' Rhuawn/Terry Nutter From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 20:29:49 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: Nathan Clarenburg Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 18:59:18 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Nathan Clarenburg Subject: Re: Tibor's letter To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9510061718.AA14050@dsd.camb.inmet.com> Justin wrote: > It's just untrue to say that the social side is solely an adjunct > to the education -- the social side is *usually* a purpose unto > itself. I'm not ashamed of that at all -- it's just a fact. (Or at > least, my opinion.) Let me play Devil's Advocate a moment... :*) I think the social character of the Society is NECESSARY for a lot of the education we do. There's no way to hold recreationist tourneys without the cheering throngs of onlookers. There's no way to develop bardic or field-heraldic skills without a throng to play to. And there's no way to learn to prepare period feasts without a willing group of victims...er... friends that pay for, eat, and give feedback on the chef's efforts. The same claim can be made for army-level military strategists, questmakers, and scores of others. We NEED lots of people at events for our recreation efforts to be successful. I submit that if the social character is in service to the educational purpose, we're kosher. > This club values honor and honesty highly -- if that's to mean anything, > it must apply at times like this, when something real is at stake. Cheap > honesty is worth little. It can hurt a lot, but Amen. Nathan nathan@cis.ksu.edu * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * "Nobody ever escaped punishment for unrighteous treatment of a cook." -- Menander's "Dyskelos" (ca. 300 BC) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 20:39:03 1995 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: IN%"SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 20:11:14 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L so, in a worst-case scenario, the irs takes away our not-for-profit status, and hits us for the past several years' worth of taxes, and we have to start paying taxes in the future, at least until we get the n-f-p status back. this brings up a problem: i've heard that our finances are not, um, exactly in good, reportable form? tax forms are regularly filed late, and the accountant used by csos gave up? my questions are: how much back taxes _would_ we owe? and how much would we owe next year? and won't the corporation's financial cash flow and accounting procedures need to be firmed up? (you know, the ideas i suggested a month or so ago - what _is_ the corporation doing about proper accounting procedures? ties in directly with how much we'd owe. . . ) alban, marginally incoherently From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Fri Oct 6 23:28:00 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Chronique@AOL.COM Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 22:55:01 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Brian R. Price" Subject: Re: Vote! To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I fear that I must agree with this. I came to the GC with a real passion for bringing some order to the chaos, but have been deluged with the disconnected conversations. I see no direction; and no real progress. I move that we take a single issue at a time, and reach some consensus based on focused discussions! I still believe in what we are trying to do here, but frankly, I don't physically have the time to devote to reading and answering these things! Answering a message doesn't move us forward, it just contributes to the whopping stack of paper here next to the computer. The best political documents are short, to the point, and VERY focused on what the intended outcome is. Brian R. Price From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sat Oct 7 07:30:22 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Sat, 7 Oct 1995 11:57:16 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Tibor's letter To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >I think the social character of the Society is NECESSARY for a lot of the >education we do. There's no way to hold recreationist tourneys without >the cheering throngs of onlookers. There's no way to develop bardic or >field-heraldic skills without a throng to play to. And there's no way to >learn to prepare period feasts without a willing group of victims...er... >friends that pay for, eat, and give feedback on the chef's efforts. The >same claim can be made for army-level military strategists, questmakers, >and scores of others. We NEED lots of people at events for our recreation >efforts to be successful. > >I submit that if the social character is in service to the educational >purpose, we're kosher. Thank you, Nathan, you've said it. The crucial word in the social/education= al=20 debate. This is exactly the way it works, and if it gets us nothing before = the=20 US law (or Californian, whatever...) I'm tempted to say things about that l= aw=20 that I have no right to say, not being a citizen.=20 /Catrin Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Oct 8 12:14:50 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Sun, 8 Oct 1995 11:29:04 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: vote; matter of confidence To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Alysoun [I'll vote but for whom? If no one is willing to take leadership, how about offering agendas to vote on, select one, and then ignore anyone who wanders off the topic?] Tibor's letter is an example of the crisis in confidence that besets us. Here we have someone who has so little confidence in SCAinc or in the broader organization that he felt he must take it upon himself to study these matters, to even protect confidentiality by paying out of his own pocket. He did not feel that he could go to any officers or the Board with this concern when he first encountered it; he did not trust these people to . . . what? Listen to his concerns? Examine the matter thoroughly? Even now, he has not trusted the rest of us to read and understand Lisa's opinion letter, giving us only his report. It is a sad comment that there are doubts about our handling of finances and paperwork. Sadder still is that our educational mission is better understood outside the Society than by many of those within it. A favorable ruling by the IRS will not resolve this. Some people will believe that the ruling derived from incomplete information about "what we really do." I particularly regret how Tibor's letter presents the United States revenue service to those of you who are not US citizens. Contributing to this negative impression may be peculiarities in our English usage: a public charity sounds like we should be offering soup to the poor. This designation covers a wide range of organizations from churchs, schools, and hospitals to local agricultural organizations that "encourage interest and proficiency by young people in farming and raising livestock" by awarding cash and other prizes at an annual fair (p. 35, IRS Pub. 557). Whether any court ruling is relevant to our particular organization will depend on to what degree our situation is like the case where the ruling was made. So, for example, the question is not if we have merchants at our events. We should ask how the merchanting at St. Louis Science Fiction differed from the booths and amusements at an agricultural fair (the IRS example) and how does our own situation compare. Without more details we cannot judge this and sometimes a fine line must be distinguished through further court interpretation or established through legislation. The significant point to remember is that the broader the ruling, the greater the number of organizations affected. Should there ever be anything so sweeping as "theft from the organization will result in loss of exempt status," every exempt organization in the country would take note and many of them are in a far better financial situation than SCAinc to fight the decision. For US citizens who have been disturbed by Tibor's letter, I suggest you spend some time this fall visiting the meetings and activities of other organizations of our class (ask if they are educational and if a donation would be deductable). Those of you jumping on Sir Myrdin's reserve should consider that not all national cultures find it in good taste to wave such matters around intemperately, but that does not mean that they hide such concerns. I _am_ a US citizen and I think it would have been more appropriate for Tibor to present Lisa's letter instead of his own impassioned report. What we want is the best argument, not the most emotional. Some toning down and corrections such as the one pointed out by David/Cariadoc would improve Tibor's document. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Sun Oct 8 20:24:22 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Sun, 8 Oct 1995 19:58:22 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: MOTION: GC PROCEDURE/ORGANIZATION To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I motion that *THE* topic on the floor of the Grand Council From November 1 to December 31 1995 be grand council procedure, organizations, etc. To include a discrete procedures for 1) placing a topic on the floor of the GC and both focusing discussion upon it and limiting the length of that discussion 2) closing an item of discussion with an official GC position 3) determining the necessity for an 'officer' (Secretary, facilitator etc) and a means of Filling and vacating that office, as well as determining its scope of responsibility Arthur who is very rarely heard as a voice for order and homogeneous progress.... From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 13:16:56 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2261 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 12:05:11 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor's report on the SCA's Tax Status (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded by request. Tibor Forwarded message: From btuck@winternet.com Fri Oct 6 18:35 EDT 1995 Posted-Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 17:34:43 -0500 Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 17:34:42 -0500 (CDT) From: Ben Tucker To: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor's report on the SCA's Tax Status In-Reply-To: <199510061515.LAA08886@abel.math.harvard.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 1625 (please forward to the scagc-l), thanks. On Fri, 6 Oct 1995, Mark Schuldenfrei and Terras were having a discussion: > Perhaps I've missed something here, but I always understood that ANY > situation/organization that was educational was also social. We do an > awful lot of social things, but the focus of our social interactions > is based on recreating one aspect or another of medieval life, arts, > or culture. > > I touched on that, briefly, when I mentioned that any human interaction for > a common cause is somewhat social in nature. But having anything more than > an insubstantial social purpose, is too much for the IRS. It doesn't have > to be more than overwhelming. > > If the social value of the SCA is greater than the bare minimum required to > get it's exempt purposes accomplished, then it is a violation of exempt > purpose. I submit, that the SCA has a social component that is independent > or exceeds its exempt purposes. That's why I like it so much. The question here, though, is to what extent the financial arrangements of the corporation are involved in the social component. The organizational purpose as stated in the governing documents, both when the tax ruling was made, and now, specifically include "recreations, tournaments, feasts", etc. These activities were well described in the governing documents when the IRS made its ruling. The *organization's* contribution to the *financial* dimension of "our social component" over and above the costs of doing the above mentioned activities is negligible. Ben Tucker (Owen thinks tax collectors work for the King). From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 13:35:41 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 10524 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 12:57:24 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: vote; matter of confidence To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <951008112903_39212723@mail06.mail.aol.com> from "Carole C. Roos" at Oct 8, 95 11:29:04 am Greetings from Tibor. No offense intended, Alysoun, but your letter smacks of attacking the messenger, and not the message. Please, let's try and stick closer to the issues at hand? While I could defend why I have done what I've done (or, at least, explain the thought processes that went through my head) it isn't really all that relevant. The pretext of the personal comments was: Tibor's letter is an example of the crisis in confidence that besets us. Frankly, the creation of the Grand Council is a better example of the crisis of confidence that besets the organization. Rather than bemoan such a fate, we ought to enthusiastically accept our charter, and do what we can to restore confidence, and improve the organization. Not snipe at each other. The balance of this letter is, quite honestly, only somewhat more than my breast-beating upon each of Alysoun's points. I do raise some interesting points toward the end. I apologize, but find the ad hominems difficult to simply leave unrefuted. Here we have someone who has so little confidence in SCAinc or in the broader organization that he felt he must take it upon himself to study these matters, to even protect confidentiality by paying out of his own pocket. I would have thought that, having read Lisa's note, you would have a better understanding. As part of what I consider the charter of the GC, I wanted to look at our tax status and our relationship with the US Government. It seems quite up the alley of the Grand Council, and I wouldn't question it. Contrariwise, would you care to admit that you haven't taken it upon yourself to study matters relevant to the Grand Council? If not, why do you serve? I humbly believe that what you level as an accusation, is a sense of duty we should all have. Lisa and I covenanted a formal attorney client relationship, so that we could continue to use her work for us (and not against us) should she become an IRS employee. This is something she was actively pursuing at the time. Had I not done so, she might well have had a legal duty to divulge her suspicions directly to the IRS, instead of the Board. And, given the level at which she would be operating (working directly for a Tax Court Judge, last time she was on staff), I presume her suspicions would have been of significant weight. Perhaps you care to put another face on it, but I spent shekels out of my pocket protecting the SCA. Twist it how you like. He did not feel that he could go to any officers or the Board with this concern when he first encountered it; he did not trust these people to . . . what? The way I looked at it at the time, was the following. I considered the worst possible case scenario. If we had reported vague suspicions to the SCA, but did so on the record, and then at a later time the IRS DID choose to investigate, found a problem, and somehow found the letter, the risk to Directors was personally significant. Lisa counseled me (and I agree, fully) that once the Board was formally notified, the game entered a new, and more significant level. Before it reached that level, we both felt that we wanted to do our homework, and to have considered as many alternatives as possible, and present what we considered best. Again, it wasn't a matter of trust, it was a matter of protection. Even now, he has not trusted the rest of us to read and understand Lisa's opinion letter, giving us only his report. How insulting. Did you ask for it? Did you write me and ask for a copy? Later in your note, you berate me for bringing the issue up here at all. Which is it? FYI, Lisa wrote the report in a word processor that doesn't convert to ASCII very easily. She is in the process of putting it together, and it will be posted. Alysoun, you have no business insinuating my motives this way. In private email with Lisa and I (in which we have always been candid) you insinuated that Lisa distorts issues. I don't know who placed such a vile bee in your bonnet, but it isn't terribly kind, nor mannerly. If you have questions, I am prepared to answer them. I've spent an inordinate amount of time in the last few days, answering email. I've answered them all (or will, as they are accreting pretty quickly.) This is rude, and unfair, and I truly don't appreciate it. When you sent me a question about this a few weeks ago, you got full and complete cooperation and answers. I don't like to see you pretend this way. It is a sad comment that there are doubts about our handling of finances and paperwork. I have no doubts. CSOS has the financial paperwork of the Society, and it's a mess. What facts do you have to the contrary? Sadder still is that our educational mission is better understood outside the Society than by many of those within it. Evidence? I'm not even sure exactly what you mean... A favorable ruling by the IRS will not resolve this. Some people will believe that the ruling derived from incomplete information about "what we really do." Perhaps you don't understand what a formal ruling of the IRS is, then. Such "Some People" comments are not terribly useful. Some people think the Earth is flat... I particularly regret how Tibor's letter presents the United States revenue service to those of you who are not US citizens. You know, I've never seen a tax payer defend the IRS before... (:-) Contributing to this negative impression may be peculiarities in our English usage: a public charity sounds like we should be offering soup to the poor. This designation covers a wide range of organizations from churchs, schools, and hospitals to local agricultural organizations that "encourage interest and proficiency by young people in farming and raising livestock" by awarding cash and other prizes at an annual fair (p. 35, IRS Pub. 557). Check again, dear. While I don't have Pub. 557 with me right now (and, BTW, who was it who told you how to get it, and that you should read it?) I would point out that the private foundation v. public charity v. private operating foundation issues are a narrow technical one, which doesn't apply to agricultural organizations. They only apply to 501(c)(3) groups. I honestly don't recall which type an agricultural organization is. Yes, the language is confusing. That's why I recommended Mancuso's book, and why I recommend the book I have with me today, "A Legal Guide to Starting and Managing a Nonprofit Organization", 2nd edition (Hopkins, Bruce R.) The history of abuse of tax-exempts makes interesting reading. Most of the legislation is reactive to particular abuses. Whether any court ruling is relevant to our particular organization will depend on to what degree our situation is like the case where the ruling was made. So, for example, the question is not if we have merchants at our events. We should ask how the merchanting at St. Louis Science Fiction differed from the booths and amusements at an agricultural fair (the IRS example) and how does our own situation compare. This is actually a good point. Since our merchants are not necessary to our re-enactments, that we give them use of space we pay for, for their commercial use for private enrichment, at a price well below what comparable rates would be, is one good reason. Ask any merchant about our fees, compared with Renaissance Fairs, or SF cons, or other situations. We're cheap. They, of course, have a right to pursue commerce, and I spend a lot of money with them. I love the shopping at Pennsic, for example. But despite their legitimate rights, I don't see that it's part of our educational mission to let them sell directly to our participants, on our time and dollars. Sure, we like it. *I* like it. So? Lisa raised St. Louis because she felt it on point for the social and recreational aspects. There are illuminating aspects for private inurement, but that isn't primarily why it is relevant. Illuminating isn't necessarily conclusive. Nor is identity in all things necessary for the case to be relevant in some things. The significant point to remember is that the broader the ruling, the greater the number of organizations affected. Should there ever be anything so sweeping as "theft from the organization will result in loss of exempt status," every exempt organization in the country would take note and many of them are in a far better financial situation than SCAinc to fight the decision. Fight it, exactly, how? You aren't making much sense, Alysoun. The laws are on the books already, and the IRS is using it as a litigating position. Lisa has done some basic research in this area, and so cannot discuss it. On the other hand, it ought to be a word to the wise that she brought it up as possible... If she knew it to be a completly bogus worry, she would have deleted it. We deleted a number of completely bogus issues. For an example, there is theoretically one way the SCA could not only resolve this problem, but never have a problem again. And that is by getting Congress to declare it an exempt nonprofit under 501(c)(1). The chances of that happening, are so miniscule as to be ridiculous. We deleted it from her report, and mine. For US citizens who have been disturbed by Tibor's letter, I suggest you spend some time this fall visiting the meetings and activities of other organizations of our class (ask if they are educational and if a donation would be deductable). Ask if they have a binding ruling upon them. Check out exactly which portion of the IRS code exempts them. Be sure they are 501(c)(3) educationals, be sure they are under 509(a)(2) for type of organization. Get a copy of their 1023, 990, and public charity rulings. I know lots of people who cheat on their taxes, and have never been caught. Remember that less than one half of one percent of all exempt organizations are audited each year, and generally they reserve that process for larger groups. I speed in my car all the time, and get away with it. That doesn't make it legal. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 13:47:12 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2271 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 10:59:09 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <01HW4RWAFIEG8Y91T0@delphi.com> from "Alban St. Albans" at Oct 6, 95 08:11:14 pm so, in a worst-case scenario, the irs takes away our not-for-profit status, and hits us for the past several years' worth of taxes, and we have to start paying taxes in the future, at least until we get the n-f-p status back. Not exactly. The worst case scenario includes the problem that, since all our assets were garnered under the rubric of nonprofit status, and our bylaws require that our assets be irrevokably dedicated to such groups, and since the IRS requires this too... everything the SCA owns goes to other 501(c)(3) groups. That's the REAL worst case. (Well, there is a further worse case where people go to jail, but that seems too far fetched to believe in.) this brings up a problem: i've heard that our finances are not, um, exactly in good, reportable form? tax forms are regularly filed late, and the accountant used by csos gave up? Both of them gave up, and each of the volunteers we've talked with so far has demurred on providing the service. my questions are: how much back taxes _would_ we owe? and how much would we owe next year? and won't the corporation's financial cash flow and accounting procedures need to be firmed up? Last first, yes they would. We would owe quite a bit, depending upon what sorts of views the IRS would take on our failure in status. At a minumum, all back corporate taxes, plus interest, plus a 20% penalty to the IRS, and anything that might be left to go to other exempts. In the future (for, say, fiscal 1996 if we got on the stick) we would owe standard state and federal income tax. The killer blow would be postage. We would lose our exempt organization mailing rate, and we couldn't afford to mail out newsletters, even if we were allowed to keep the money that those newsletters represented. (you know, the ideas i suggested a month or so ago - what _is_ the corporation doing about proper accounting procedures? ties in directly with how much we'd owe. . . ) They left it to A.J. He created an audit group, but they formed in July, and who knows what they've had time to do since then... A fast start would be nice, but who can tell? A Branch Financial Handbook will be submitted for approval at this Board meeting. These things are good starts. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 13:47:15 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2532 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 13:19:07 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor's report on the SCA's Tax Status (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199510091605.MAA20340@abel.math.harvard.edu> from "Mark Schuldenfrei" at Oct 9, 95 12:05:11 pm Greetings from Tibor. Responding to Ben Tucker: The question here, though, is to what extent the financial arrangements of the corporation are involved in the social component. What makes you think they are severable? The organizational purpose as stated in the governing documents, both when the tax ruling was made, and now, specifically include "recreations, tournaments, feasts", etc. These activities were well described in the governing documents when the IRS made its ruling. The *organization's* contribution to the *financial* dimension of "our social component" over and above the costs of doing the above mentioned activities is negligible. Finnvarr (and others, in so many private and public bits of mail, that I can barely keep it straight) argue that the key to our social status, is that our educational approach requires the social intertwining that we do. By that, meaning that we embody a unique educational approach. I find that a winning (and winsome) argument, but don't find it something that I think will compel the IRS. You, on the other hand, find the social component severable, and incidental to our purpose (at least in terms of cost.) Well, as far as I've learned, the IRS don't care if it's free, if we have a social purpose, it's not tax exempt. They seem to concentrate on revenue, not our additional costs... differing priorities, I suspect. They want as few organizations to be tax exempt as possible, and those few that are to be as focussed on exempt purposes as exclusively as possible. I can see ways that we could fulfill our listed exempt purposes, that are actually tax exempt. But we don't do them, and to do those instead, would be a different SCA altogether. It would kill the organization. If we solely did demos for schools, or the public at large. If we advertized more. If we relaxed our garb requirement, so passer's by can participate. If we actually collected chattels, as we said. As a software engineer, I know that there is a world of difference between description and reality. As a homeowner who hires tradesmen to work on my house, I know that too. (:-) So too, does the IRS know the difference. The exempt purposes in the bylaws and articles of incorporation (and IRS Form 1023) are the promise: the reality is something else again. I'm having such a problem with an architect right now: the promise was good, the reality is not. It's illustrative. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 13:49:05 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1256 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 10:53:27 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor's letter To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: from "Nathan Clarenburg" at Oct 6, 95 06:59:18 pm Greetings from Tibor. Nathan wrote: I think the social character of the Society is NECESSARY for a lot of the education we do. [...] I submit that if the social character is in service to the educational purpose, we're kosher. You see, however, that is the sticking point. I believe that the IRS would judge us not on our impact, or success, but on whether we meet the trappings of an exempt organization with an educational bent. There are lots of good and worthy things in this world, that don't get a tax-exemption. For example, I have a particular fondness for the company that makes heart-catheters: those tools have helped save my life. They do good things, but they don't do them in a nonprofit way. Lots of people do wonderful, public interest things, but they don't do them to the peculiar standards that the IRS requires. I think the SCA is in that category. A do-gooder, that doesn't play be standard rules and categories. As Finvarr wrote in his rousing note, we are showing the fruits of a grand educational experiment, that seems to be working quite well. I quite agree. But does that grand experiment fit the bureaucratic cubbyholes that the IRS uses to file organizations as exempt? That's the part I doubt. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 14:05:40 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 13:38:23 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: A Few More from Morgan To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Morgan... -- Justin >Date: 08 Oct 95 20:03:06 EDT >From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <72672.2312@compuserve.com> >Subject: Re: A Few More from Morgan Justin asked me to edit out a few things from the original, we agreed on some and disagreed on others, and here is the result. A few days late because I posted it before disappearing into the convention, and just saw his request when I returned and was responding to others: In no particular order, I respond to several postings of the past day or so. I will state upfront that I am not at home but in California, at a conference, without a lot of my reference materials, and hampered by a three-way battle for the telephone lines. Justin, I was not really picking on you about not posting my previous message about corporate information. I also understand that people don't like outsiders to their discussion groups breaking in and saying "yo, folks, bit of realiity here," or "key difference of opinion/facts here." It's part of what got CSOS so upset with me. I used to be a university professor and still lecture frequently as a guest in courses and elsewhere. This makes me come off as a bit pedantic and haughty at times, which is unintended -- and those of you who know me personally would probably agree it's somewhat out of character. That's just the way I can come across online in these situations. Oh, yeah, this one will be long because I'm responding to a number of messages: > Magnus wrote: > I reiterate that there can and should be one SCA International Inc. Tibor replied: > Quibble question. Why Inc? Where Inc? I don't see the value in it, but > there might still be some. One that I can see is the D&O liability coverage which probably won't exist without a corporation. In Illinois, it is part of our statute, as it is in many other states. You could find people REALLY unwilling to assist in the umbrella entity if they are exposed. Magnus had noted also: > Just cuz someone files a peice of paer with a State doesn't make you a Corporation. > You have to act like one too. > You have to have Articles and By laws that allow and direct you how to act like a Corp. > You have to have an organisation that fits your needs. > > You don't get these from a book and you don't get this by having some company > file a sheet of paper in Delaware. Or anywhere. Very true. You can get form articles and bylaws, but the question is -- do you really want to trust a form that a bunch of bureaucrats drafted? (And no, I am not trying to get business for lawyers, just pointing out that sometimes laypersons can use help. Forms are great for plain vanilla local for-profit corporations, among many other situations. You get bigger, you get more complicated, you need more.) Oh, Tibor, it's $435 in Massachusetts annually? *sheesh* No wonder you so vehemently oppose incorporation. In Illinois, there is a low flat fee plus a fee based upon the number of shares a for-profit corporation issues. Not less than $100 total, but not necessarily more. The annual fee to verify your existence is similarly low. Tibor also said: > College based groups are, presumably, using college based funds. Those > funds, being cycled through a different exempt organization, can still be > used along with the tax id of the university or college, to waive sales tax. The problem is, the funds are to be used ONLY for approved activities, and all funds and the result thereof (as when we buy weapons) is university property. If we don't use the funds available in a given year, they may be reabsorbed by the university. And you cannot imagine some of the red tape we have to go through if we want to spend money on things that would benefit our group ina property, not a one-shot (lecturer, etc.) sense. We NEED the outside bank account so that we can buy rattan, fencing gear, rope, serving platters and bowls, tents, etc., for the group without having to justify this to the University, or share them with every other student organization. In his reply to Cariadoc's comments about his letter to the Board, Tibor said: > There may well be room for a 501(c)(3) corporation that provides educational > materials for re-enactors and re-creationists... but I suspect it would have > only cursory relationship with coordinating groups that are primarily > social. I can conceive of such a relationship, but my conception finds it > strained. Still, there are possibilities there. > > On the flip side, what would be the advantage of having such an exempt > organization? The "Kingdoms Inc" would still be primarily social > organizations. I agree wholeheartedly with Terras on this one. Maybe they do things REEEEEALLY differently in the East Kingdom where you live, Tibor. I have lived in Middle and An Tir, and spent extensive time in Atenveldt, The West, and Calontir, with occasional jaunts to Ansteorra, Caid and Atlantia. In NONE of these Kingdoms is the SCA primarily social. In EVERY one have I seen (and participated in) a lot of learning and teaching on both sides. Whether we are learnign to fight, dance, sew garb, cook period dishes, weave, illuminate, callig, build boats and yurts, dry period foods, or any of the other myriad things we do, we are teaching and learning. When an event is built on a theme, that is a learning experience. (Speaking from same.) When a ceremony or tourney occurs based on a period model. When we demo to schools and other organizations. When newsletters come out with informative articles on everything from "The Nine Worthies" to period leather tanning. I honestly do not see how you can say that the Kingdoms are "primarily social organizations." We are not putting on tea parties. And I speak from the experience of several years in a highly regarded Living History site BEFORE I joined the SCA. What we do in the SCA is very similar to what I did there, and let me tell you, that was not a social situation. Yes, it may have more learning than the average event, but that view is too narrow to be substantive. While we're on the subject, your entire Letter to the Board troubles me. Why did you not present this issue to GC for discussion before releaseing the letter, especially as it is clear the material has been in process for some time. I am also curious why you released the letter on some but not all Kingdom lists; it was given me by a friend who pulled it off Middlebridge with your name at the top. Or had you sent it to him directly? ---= Morgan |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 14:11:10 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2025 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 13:32:36 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor's letter To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9510062018.AA15325@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Oct 6, 95 04:18:56 pm Answering Kwellend-Njal Be careful, Justin. The social side is indeed there... as part of the Society. The question is, is it a major (the Minnisota ruling used an arbitrary 'more than half') part of the SCA, Inc. I think you are misinterpreting the issue of Minnesota Kingsmen Chess Association v. Commissioner. The point of the ruling was not that it was over half, but that it was substantial. I would hold that it the social component can be there, but irrelevant to the corporations function. And, indeed, the corporation, as far as I can tell, does nothing to support the social side of the Society; almost all of its function is in support of the educational side (publication of TI and CA, insurance that allows our research to be tested (quibble... :-)) Corporate funds are used to run events, which are substantially social in nature. Are you sure they do nothing? SCA volunteers (who are required to be paid members, may I add) frequently exercise much of their authority and responsibility at events. In fact, you may not even run one of these social convocations without a paid membership, and approval of the local vice president. And, did I mention the insurance? If you get a public site (or some private ones) you get a discount for exempt status under 501(c)(3), and if you purchase items, you don't have to pay sales tax, for similar reasons. That's a lot of nothing, Kwellend-Njal... (:-) So, lets look at this another way: What does the Corporation do that fosters the parts of the Society that would put us in violation? If the reform movements rhetoric was not just words, then that distinction, between the Corporation and the Society, should be a crutial factor for consideration. If the IRS would care to recognize any such separation, which one could easily doubt. And, as Lisa suggested to me and I covered earlier today, there is the potential specter of private inurement if we take that route of defense. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 14:19:34 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: Nathan Clarenburg Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 12:48:50 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Nathan Clarenburg Subject: Re: Tibor's report on the SCA's Tax Status (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199510091719.NAA04890@abel.math.harvard.edu> Good gentles. So far no one has said that they felt our position was rock-solid. We're just trying to make cases for our status being defensible. This is a waste of our time. I submit that we don't have the training to argue this issue any further for the US case, and have even less idea about our status or projected status in other countries. Isn't it enough to have identified a problem area as important and meriting further research? Let's make a recommendation for professional consultation, and move on to the next issue. We need answers on this issue for the US and abroad before settling on a corporate/non-corporate model for our bureaucracy. IMHO the corporate structure will mainly reflect legal necessities and may have little to do with the ultimate division of responsibilities and authority. Nathan, so many problems so little time nathan@cis.ksu.edu * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * "Nobody ever escaped punishment for unrighteous treatment of a cook." -- Menander's "Dyskelos" (ca. 300 BC) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 14:33:48 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 13:55:40 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Alfgar... -- Justin >Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 19:38:58 -0400 (EDT) >From: Will Linden >Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters About 15 years ago New York started a campaign of trying to lift tax exemptions from all sorts of institutions here; such as the major museums, arguing "They can't be educational, because they don't give classes", and so forth. That does not appear to have gotten anywhere. I suppose if the municipals had thought of it, they could have claimed that the Met et al have another purpose, viz., recreation facilities for New Yorkers. I also recall that about 1977 there was an attempt to sue the Society for giving a false description, the argument being precisely that it was social (at least, I assume so; the phrase given in the Minutes was "devoted to socialization", in a context which makes sense if the recorder thought that "socialization" meant "socializing") and not educational. We appear to still be here. Baron Alfgar the Sententious From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 14:34:51 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 13:56:40 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Esclarmonde... -- Justin >Date: Sat, 7 Oct 1995 08:54:12 -0400 (EDT) >From: Lisa Steele >Subject: Re: Who owns the SCA? Umbrella Corp? On Fri, 6 Oct 1995, Alban St. Albans wrote: > so, in a worst-case scenario, the irs takes away our not-for-profit Folks, please be careful with your terms. The IRS is only concerned with our _tax exempt_ status. The State of California controls our _non-profit_ status. One can be non profit and not tax-exempt, indeed I think that is what Tibor is proposing as an option. The language here are legal terms of art, PLEASE be careful with them. > status, and hits us for the past several years' worth of taxes, and > we have to start paying taxes in the future, at least until we get > the n-f-p status back. I suspect that if the IRS pulls the exemption it will be dang hard to get it back unless we fit precisely in the rules. > > my questions are: how much back taxes _would_ we owe? > and how much would we owe next year? Basics: 3-6 years at the usual corporate rate (35%?) plus interest (at a defined federal rate) plus possibliy negligence additions to tax. An accounatnt could likely work out the terms from the returns. --Esclarmonde From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 14:35:53 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 14:01:55 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Michael... -- Justin >Date: Mon 09 Oct 1995 12:33 CT >From: UDSD007@DSIBM.OKLADOT.STATE.OK.US (Mike.Andrews ) >Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters > Forwarded for Michael... > > (One general comment: folks, we're straying *dangerously* close to > the temper line here. These are emotional issues; if we're to > accomplish anything, let's do it with great and deliberate calm...) > > -- Justin > Who doesn't think we've crossed the line > yet, but doesn't want to see us do so.. Agreed with enthusiasm, and with full apologies to any and all who saw my note as confrontational; rereading it, I can see how it can be viewed as confrontational (and "in-your-face") without any stretch at all. Although my intent was to elicit response, rather than to inflame, it is possible that I accomplished the latter and not the former. That notwithstanding, this group is, in theory, the group from which ideas on reorganization of the Society are expected to flow. If (and I do mean _if_) Tibor and Esclarmonde are correct in their thesis, then the Society will need to be reorganized -- possibly out of existence. And it is because of this (possible, at least) need that I think it is utterly appropriate for Tibor to post his messages here w.r.t. the tax status of the Corporation. There are additional reasons why I think it is at best inappropriate to attempt to limit discussions by GC members in this forum, but others have stated them better than I can. -- udsd007@dsibm.okladot.state.ok.us Michael Fenwick of Fotheringhay, O.L. (Mike Andrews) Namron, Ansteorra Pray, I beseech you, for the repose of the soul of Kathleen Anna Young Lister, once known as Baroness Caitlin From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 14:37:55 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 19:05:39 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: vote; matter of confidence To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L > ...Here > we have someone who has so little confidence in SCAinc or in the broader > organization that he felt he must take it upon himself to study these > matters, to even protect confidentiality by paying out of his own pocket. > >I would have thought that, having read Lisa's note, you would have a better >understanding. As part of what I consider the charter of the GC, I wanted >to look at our tax status and our relationship with the US Government. It >seems quite up the alley of the Grand Council, and I wouldn't question it. "Confidence" ??? Like Tibor says, our job on the GC is to examine the worki= ngs=20 of the different aspects of SCAInc. We're here because we think that certai= n=20 things need fixing and that the SCA will gain by fixing them. This kind of= =20 analysis won't get done if our first premise is that the Inc is always righ= t=20 and that we have to have confidence in it.=20 The way I see it, we got appointed to the GC on grounds of varying backgrou= nd=20 and experience, so that different GC members would show interest in differe= nt=20 aspects of the Society and examine them critically. The aspect concerning t= he=20 SCAInc's legal status seems pretty fundamental to me, and Tibor is absolute= ly=20 right in bringing it up.=20 I just wish I could afford to do a similar thing and hire a lawyer e.g. to = look=20 into the matter of waivers in an international context, or the status of fo= reign=20 non-profits in the various countries of the European Union. So far, I've be= en in=20 touch with our Kingdom seneschal, to see if the Kingdom is willing/able to = pay=20 for the legal services involved. =20 > I particularly regret how Tibor's letter presents the United States > revenue service to those of you who are not US citizens. Huh? By analogy with the Swedish revenue authorities, I expect their US=20 equivalent to be a bureaucratic entity, solely concerned with individuals' = and=20 groups' compliance with specific legal requirements. Nothing in Tibor's=20 presentation has so far been in any way shocking or even surprising. - The = US=20 legal requirements in this matter look pretty messy and it's a great relief= not=20 having to worry about them closer to home, since a lot of "native" European= =20 groups are, by legal necessity, separately incorporated and have their own = bank=20 accounts independent of the SCAInc - but on the US level it certainly seems= to=20 need sorting out pretty urgently. Speaking of which, I second Nathan's proposal to make a recommendation for= =20 professional consultation. /Catrin Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 14:48:10 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 6791 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 14:21:23 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: A Few More from Morgan To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9510091738.AA11266@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Oct 9, 95 01:38:23 pm Greetings from Tibor. This may seem odd, but I appreciate the input from Morgan. While we seem to automagically gravitate to opposite sides of most issues, it's good to get another opinion. > Magnus wrote: > I reiterate that there can and should be one SCA International Inc. Tibor replied: > Quibble question. Why Inc? Where Inc? I don't see the value in it, but > there might still be some. One that I can see is the D&O liability coverage which probably won't exist without a corporation. In Illinois, it is part of our statute, as it is in many other states. You could find people REALLY unwilling to assist in the umbrella entity if they are exposed. This is a chicken and egg thing, isn't it? No corporate, no Directors and officers, no D&O insurance needed. Right? If you can help me understand how the Diet (or whatever) that is the SCA International is individually culpable in some less than nebulous way, even if they don't incorporate, then of course we need to take actions which reduce their individual exposure. At that point, it becomes necessity. But I wonder if a properly worded agreement [Gack, does he mean a real waiver? :-] wouldn't serve the same purpose, without incorporation. I also wonder if such a thing is really necessary either. Lacking such a need, (which may exist, I dunno) I don't see the need to incorporate. Yet. (And no, I am not trying to get business for lawyers, just pointing out that sometimes laypersons can use help. Forms are great for plain vanilla local for-profit corporations, among many other situations. You get bigger, you get more complicated, you need more.) You should see the Joint Development Agreement between my employer (a nonprofit) and the 6 partners for the product I am working on. Yeesh. Yea, sometimes you do need lawyers. Or dozens of them. Tibor also said: > College based groups are, presumably, using college based funds. Those > funds, being cycled through a different exempt organization, can still be > used along with the tax id of the university or college, to waive sales tax. The problem is, the funds are to be used ONLY for approved activities, and all funds and the result thereof (as when we buy weapons) is university property. If we don't use the funds available in a given year, they may be reabsorbed by the university. And you cannot imagine some of the red tape we have to go through if we want to spend money on things that would benefit our group ina property, not a one-shot (lecturer, etc.) sense. I don't see the problem with it, myself. Shouldn't the funds be used only legitimately for the group? Shouldn't University funds buy University property? That's what our local groups do: the sewing machine Southebanke has (Boston Univ.) is the property of BU, and not Fenmere (Brandeis Univ.). The tents that belong to Mitgaard (M.I.T.) do not belong to Felding (Wellesley College). We NEED the outside bank account so that we can buy rattan, fencing gear, rope, serving platters and bowls, tents, etc., for the group without having to justify this to the University, or share them with every other student organization. That may be true, for the student organizations and universities you have worked with. It doesn't seem to be necessary out here. Are you sure? I wrote, to Cariadoc: > There may well be room for a 501(c)(3) corporation that provides educational > materials for re-enactors and re-creationists... but I suspect it would have > only cursory relationship with coordinating groups that are primarily > social. I can conceive of such a relationship, but my conception finds it > strained. Still, there are possibilities there. > > On the flip side, what would be the advantage of having such an exempt > organization? The "Kingdoms Inc" would still be primarily social > organizations. Morgan answered: I agree wholeheartedly with Terras on this one. Maybe they do things REEEEEALLY differently in the East Kingdom where you live, Tibor. You misunderstand me, on several levels. 1. The SCA now, as it currently is constituted, ranges from having a substantial social portion, to an overwhelming one, depending upon place and time, and event. This social component is, in my opinion, larger than the IRS would accept, and more than insubstantial. 2. IF (hypothetical) we were to recognize this, and form new corporation/kingdoms or something, those resulting kingdoms would be still substantially social in nature. This despite the fact that our interaction would still be as educational as they are now. If we were to take maximal advantage of the additionally hypothetical educational exempt, I presume those kingdoms would move ALL their educational stuff to the exempt (where it's cheaper, and better justifies the exempts existence) and become primarily social in nature. No need to get into interkingdom anthro on this one. Then, the obligatory slap on the wrist. (Not a big deal: it's the kick in the pants that I'm objecting to at this time in my life.) While we're on the subject, your entire Letter to the Board troubles me. Why did you not present this issue to GC for discussion before releaseing the letter, especially as it is clear the material has been in process for some time. I am also curious why you released the letter on some but not all Kingdom lists; it was given me by a friend who pulled it off Middlebridge with your name at the top. Or had you sent it to him directly? I sent it to the Middlebridge list in an ill-considered fit of pique, in response to Lady Isabel Moonsdaghter. She made some rash accusations, I answered them, and then followed with the actual document I wrote. Might-a been silly of me. I had hoped to get the document in shape early enough that I could get it to the GC for commentary before the Board meeting. I began to run out of time, and couldn't do that. I had to choose to miss another cycle of Board meetings, and give it time to run through the loop, or to simply get it to the Board, and keep the GC informed. I chose the latter. The reason I chose the latter, was that I think the Board should have plenty of time to read, and act on the contents, and still have a meeting or two before the next IRS forms are due. They would be due May 15, 1996 for the fiscal year we are in now. This gives them October 95, Jan and April 96 before the forms are due, to get advice, think on it, meet, and act. As you can tell from people's responses, the darn thing is still a little rough: I wished for more time, and not less. But real life marches on, and sometimes over, me. It may not be the wisest course, but that's what I thought of, and did. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 14:50:39 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1795 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 11:08:06 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: GC Debate Comments: To: Lisa Steele To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: from "Lisa Steele" at Oct 7, 95 08:48:20 am Lisa (Esclarmonde) sent me some commentary, that she asked me to write up into a note. One of her points was: You may wish to point out that hobby clubs that teach like gem and mineral clubs and garden clubs are treated as (c)(7)s not (c)(3)s. This is a good point to bear in mind. Social clubs are allowed to teach. Educational exempts are not allowed to be social. Do note to folks that while the IRS may listen to a technical society does not equal corporation arguement, we have to prove that the argument flies and we are entitled to the exemption. The IRS need only make the challenge! It does have the virtue of not being tried in the reported materials. This means that the standard of proof is high for us. If challenged, we must prove the IRS wrong, not just leave it for a matter of debate. So, we would fight with one hand tied behind our backs. The last sentence refers to the lack of case material that shows it WOULD fail. Perhaps that sort of argument succeeds: perhaps it's merely never been tried. That sort of reminds me of the Star Trek movie where Kirk outfoxed the no-win scenario by reprogramming the simulator so there was a win option. "You cheated!" "It had the virtue of never having been tried." (:-) Lisa's last point was that if we do make the distinction between the SCA Inc and the local groups a legal one, the question of interpretation of money flow becomes an issue. The IRS is very vigilant in the question of money raised in the name of a (c)(3) being an asset that is supposed to be used solely for exempt purposes. If the money in the SCA's accounts is being used by local groups that are not part of the (c)(3), what would the IRS do or think? It deserves some thought, before that sort of defense is tried. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 15:45:26 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2016 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 14:34:42 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9510091755.AA11501@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Oct 9, 95 01:55:40 pm Alfgar wrote: About 15 years ago New York started a campaign of trying to lift tax exemptions from all sorts of institutions here; such as the major museums, arguing "They can't be educational, because they don't give classes", and so forth. That does not appear to have gotten anywhere. New York can lift state (or city, not clear from context) exemption for whatever they like, I guess. But they can't affect Federal status, and Federal status says that museums automatically are public charities, if they function like museums. Most New York museums practically DEFINE the term. If it was the city (as you imply in a deleted paragraph, by discussing municipals) then they would have quite the burden of showing that State law wasn't superior to the local. Quite an interesting legal case, I bet (since New York City has a tax it levies ON TOP of New York State taxes, for many things.) But not exemplary. Failure of this attempt, if it was even made, isn't all that relevant. Lisa and I didn't examine state issues in any detail. We were talking Federal status. Do you know of any cases where Federal exemption was lost, but state was kept? That would be neat... especially if it occurred in California. I also recall that about 1977 there was an attempt to sue the Society for giving a false description, the argument being precisely that it was social (at least, I assume so; the phrase given in the Minutes was "devoted to socialization", in a context which makes sense if the recorder thought that "socialization" meant "socializing") and not educational. We appear to still be here. The famous or infamous Woodford of Lorien. Didn't I mention anything relevant to that? Ah yes... The legal challenge in 1981, in Arizona is also not conclusive. Private citizens do not have the legal standing to question tax status, and the court which was filed in may not have been the appropriate one for the SCA's jurisdiction. I think that answers your point. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 15:48:08 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1495 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 14:48:53 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: various (read first) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <951005124047_37103370@emout04.mail.aol.com> from "Carole C. Roos" at Oct 5, 95 12:40:49 pm Responding to an old posting by Alysoun, What is the IKC doing? A brief but obvious point here. We complain that the Board is not responsive or accountable to us. How is the IKC more responsive or accountable? How is the discussion of the GC related to the broad membership? A lot of people don't have computer access, a good many do not get membership mailings--the way they are connected is through their local group. If any policy or rule-setting body is not in communication with the local group (two-way communication), how can it be responsive? Well, the GC is, by far, the most responsive and accessible Board Committee ever assembled. It is, in fact, state of the art for the SCA. However, when it comes to accountable, we are accountable to the Board, not it to us. The IKC is the same: accountable to the Board, not to us. On the "what if": judging from the number of people reading how-to books on incorporating, I would suspect that there is a lot of thought going on about what a new SCA would look like. Yes, I think there is a lot of blue sky, and what if going on. Honestly, I was hoping the GC would consider the issue of a graceful transition, if the IRS issue is accurate. That would be a great service to all. And, honestly, I suspect that some restructuring on the international level is inevitable to accomodate multiple corporations, even if the IRS thing is a bogus weed. I'd like to see some serious thought go into those issues. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 17:38:54 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 4745 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 17:08:56 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor's report on the SCA's Tax Status (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded message: From WMclean290@aol.com Mon Oct 9 16:36 EDT 1995 From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 16:35:45 -0400 Message-ID: <951009163544_40153723@mail02.mail.aol.com> To: schuldy@abel.math.harvard.edu cc: WMclean290@aol.com Subject: Re: Tibor's report on the SCA's Tax Status Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4240 Please forward this to the Grand Council. I gather that the procedure was for non-members of the council to send messages to councilors. If this has changed with the listserve system, let me know so I don't inconvenience you again. Tibor: I enterely agree that the board should have the tax questions you raised examined by a competent attorney. I strongly recommend that they choose one specializing in tax law as it applies to public charities and non-profit corporations. Tax law is a highly specialized field and an attorney knowledgable in one area of tax law may not be knowledgable in others. Speaking as a layman, (this is not legal advice) I do not believe that the case against the SCA's exempt status is as strong as you seem to, although I believe you are correct not to neglect any arguments that might be used against us. Although the IRS presumes that exempt organizations are private charities unless it receives timely notice, the presumption is not conclusive and may be rebutted. If we are any sort of 501(c)(3) at all, then I believe we would have no difficulty in meeting the public support test. I do not believe the private inurement question is a fatal one. Surely many charities have suffered loss from theft, and had that loss publicly known, without losing their tax-exempt status. If this was used to disallow our exemption, we could claim unequal application of the law. Likewise, many exempt organizations, such as hospitals, musems, and zoos, allow the sale of food or goods for the convenience of their visitors or staff without losing their exemption. The question of a mixture of educational and social purposes is, I believe, the most important one. We could point to museums, orchestras, zoos, and even non-commercial theatres, all of which may be classified as exempt educational organizations. They are not schools, noted professionals may not lecture, they may offer recreation to their users, but they still qualify as exempt organizations. IRS rulings on religious social retreats may also be relevant. In several cases the IRS ruled that the activity was exempt even though there was substantial recreational or social activity involved. It did rule against retreats where the exempt religious activity was "incidental". (For example, in Schoger Foundation v. Comr., a Ski Lodge that offered optional religious services was ruled not exempt.) If the attorney, after examining all the facts, believes we are in clear violation, then we have a duty to correct the matter. But he may believe that we have a strong case in our favor, but that the IRS might possibly rule against us. In that case I believe our obligation might be to correct our deficiencies before approaching the IRS for a binding ruling. Certainly we could do a better job in distinguishing between the things we do that are authentically medieval and those that are not. Nor do we do much to reward and recognize authenticity in dress and behavior. (The Laurel does not really perform this function: it recognizes a high level skill or knowledge in some medieval craft or field of knowledge; one may be authentically turned out without being a laurel, and vice versa.) These are things we should have been doing all along. They are entirely separate from the question of requiring greater authenticity from our participants. On the question of disbursing the mailing list: It would be appropriate and reasonable to maintain duplicate archives of our mailing lists in the custody of other organizations. But since the list has economic value, I think it would be inurement to transfer the right to use those lists (as opposed to their physical possesion) to other individuals or organizations without fair market payment. (The exception might be to a bona-fide educational public charity with stated goals similar to ours). Such lists start at $50 per thousand for a one time use. If an organization wanted to be able to reach our members after the hypothetical dissolution of the SCA, it would probably want to contract for the right to purchase the SCA list at a later date for an agreed price per name. The SCA should contact a list broker to make sure it is getting a fair price. Will McLean/Galleron de Cressy From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 18:32:26 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: david friedman Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 15:03:29 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: david friedman Subject: Re: vote; matter of confidence To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >Greetings from Alysoun >Tibor's letter is an example of the crisis in confidence that besets us. Here >we have someone who has so little confidence in SCAinc or in the broader >organization that he felt he must take it upon himself to study these >matters, to even protect confidentiality by paying out of his own pocket. He >did not feel that he could go to any officers or the Board with this concern >when he first encountered it; he did not trust these people to . . . what? >Listen to his concerns? Examine the matter thoroughly? Even now, he has not >trusted the rest of us to read and understand Lisa's opinion letter, giving >us only his report. This is the one part of Alysoun's post that I strongly disagree with. I think it is clear to anyone who has tried to deal with the Board that they are busy people, that the running of the upper level of the Corporation is not very organized, and that the suggestion "you should really look into X" is not very likely to result in action, even if accompanied by reasons. It is therefore sensible for someone like Tibor (or Bertram with outsourcing) who thinks he sees an important issue that is not being looked into to look into it himself. David/Cariadoc David Friedman School of Law Santa Clara University From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 19:16:30 1995 Return-Path: X-Sender: ddfr@best.com (Unverified) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: david friedman Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 15:45:52 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: david friedman Subject: Re: Full Report on SCA's Tax Status (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L David/Kwellend-Njal writes: > Your doubts are not well founded; I'll debate that point. I hold that while > some individuals in the organization may use it for a substantially social > purpose, that is not the organizations purpose, as substantiated by personal > experience from my earliest days in the organization 14 years ago. Since my > earliest days in the SCA (back when I was your typical stick-jock) the SCA as > an organization has functioned with an educational purpose. Note that the legal requirement is not merely an educational purpose but an *exclusively* educational purpose. I think defending that claim is a good deal harder. Tibor writes: Let's try this from another tactic. If the SCA were to become only about teaching, lecturing, and demonstrations of period culture, and was almost solely involved with public demonstrations, classes and academic standards, how many people would still "Play our Game", or "Live in the Dream"? Would you? Chances are, I wouldn't. Surely one could use that tactic in defense of our claim to be purely educational. The apparently non-educational elements are simply the sweetener necessary to get our audience to swallow education (which as everybody in modern America knows, tastely simply awful). So they are legitimate, just as expenditures in publicizing an educational lecture would be legitimate. Kwellend-Njal writes: "So, lets look at this another way: What does the Corporation do that fosters the parts of the Society that would put us in violation? If the reform movements rhetoric was not just words, then that distinction, between the Corporation and the Society, should be a crutial factor for consideration." The newsletters advertise events (murder mystery events, for example) that are obviously almost entirely entertainment and almost zero education. But there is a more serious problem here. Under our present organizational structure, all income of local groups is corporate income.So anything done with local group money is done by the corporation for IRS purposes. If a group has a medieval christmas party which is essentially a theme costume party, involving no education, that is a "corporate" activity from the standpoint of the IRS> David/Cariadoc David Friedman School of Law Santa Clara University From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 21:25:47 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 20:46:00 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Proposals To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I agree with Nathan. "Let's make a recommendation for professional consultation" Could you frame this as a proposal and call for a vote? I second Arthur's motion: "I motion that *THE* topic on the floor of the Grand Council From November 1 to December 31 1995 be grand council procedure, organizations, etc." Is there discussion? David/Cariadoc writes: "This is the one part of Alysoun's post (Re: vote; matter of confidence] that I strongly disagree with. I think it is clear to anyone who has tried to deal with the Board that they are busy people, that the running of the upper level of the Corporation is not very organized, and that the suggestion 'you should really look into X' is not very likely to result in action, even if accompanied by reasons. It is therefore sensible for someone like Tibor (or Bertram with outsourcing) who thinks he sees an important issue that is not being looked into to look" What I take this to mean is that there are no proper channels to input matters vital to the well-being of the organization. This is just crazy! What if the individual member (Tibor, Bertram, whoever) did not have the time to devote to looking into the matter? What if it required a substantial cost? Not to mention that many members do not have handy all the relevant records, etc. Clearly this situation needs to be remedied. I propose that the Board form a standing committee to receive and examine matters pertaining to corporate concerns. The idea is to establish a proper channel to cover matters like this, possibly including public relations concerns as well as legal and corporate management concerns. Since this would be the only task of the committee, it should not be "too busy" to overlook such critical matters as Tibor's. It should be sufficiently funded and staffed to allow enough "looking into" that it can determine what matters to refer to the Board for action. Should this proposal also recommend forming such committees within each kingdom to facilitate the examination of such matters relevant to the corporation in a particular region (such as national and state laws, etc.)? These committees would bring the process closer to the people as well as to the region and expedite matters deemed relevant back to the center. (For example, if someone pointed out to me a problem with Indiana law, a kingdom-level committee would be in a better position to investigate it than the corporate-level one would, would be better able to consult with the kingdom seneschal, and if it needed to be referred for Board action, the recommendation of the kingdom-level to the corporate-level should carry more weight than if I wrote to them myself.) I would appreciate discussion. Alysoun From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Mon Oct 9 23:06:58 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approved-By: arthur dent Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 22:32:44 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: arthur dent Subject: MOTION HAS BEEN SECONDED RE: GC PROCEDURE/ORGANIZATION To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: On the theory that counting votes on your own proposal is probably tacky and at least bad policy, I would like a volunteer to accept and tally votes at their individual e-mail address and to then publish the tally with names/ballots as a GC list document. WHEN/IF a volunteer pops up I'd suggest votes consist of an e-mail message that looks as much like: ----------------------------------------------------------- To: From: arthur@cnj.digex.net Subject: ARTHURS GC PROCEDURE MOTION: YES Message: Arthur the dented AKA Scott Keyes arthur@cnj.digex.net" ----------------------------------------------------------- As you are willing to do. In any case put the name of the motion and your vot in the subject line ( to make it easier to count) and your SCAdian and Mundane names in the body of the message to make it easier to verify who voted what. If we have a NORMAL procedure for this I'd rather do that, but as I recall all our votes so far have been on an ad-hoc basis with specific volunteers for each. Below is a the text of the motion, unless a volunteers springs up immediately there should be time for objections and proposed ammendments before the voting starts... On Sun, 8 Oct 1995, arthur dent wrote: > I motion that *THE* topic on the floor of the Grand Council From November 1 > to December 31 1995 be grand council procedure, organizations, etc. To > include a discrete procedures for > > 1) placing a topic on the floor of the GC and both focusing discussion > upon it and limiting the length of that discussion > > 2) closing an item of discussion with an official GC position > > 3) determining the necessity for an 'officer' (Secretary, facilitator > etc) and a means of Filling and vacating that office, as well as > determining its scope of responsibility > > > Arthur > who is very rarely heard as > a voice for order and > homogeneous progress.... > I'm actually rather fond of consensus as a meeting protocol (that and fighting being my only two masochistic tendencies...) but I cant see us building any kind of meaningful consensus without a little more structure. If they havent already, the populous and the board are SOON going to write us off as a semi-productive alternative to alt.rec.sca, and they'll be right. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 01:43:33 1995 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: IN%"SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 01:10:47 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: Tibor's letter To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L i hate, really hate what i'm going to say, but . . . the arguments over tibor's letter over the last few days, both for and against, *all* seem to come down to arguing what the irs might or might not do to us, and/or what they might or might not consider us to be. this strikes me as being similar to religious arguments dealing with what certain statements in the *really* mean. the only way to know is to ask the author directly. we can argue endlessly over whether we're a social club with educational glosses, or an educational group that's very social, or a proper 501(c)(3) group, or a bunch of history fans that party a lot - (i personally see us as a primarily educational group that teaches about history under the guise of a lot of social interaction) BUT the only way, the *only* way, to settle the argument is to do as tibor suggests, and submit the whole schmear to the irs. attitudes are fine, arguments are fine - but the only way we're going to fine out how the irs should treat us is, well, have the irs investigate us. alban, who hates, loathes, and despises bureaucracies, especially the irs. . . From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 09:55:27 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 445 Approved-By: Joseph Heck Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 08:26:02 -0500 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Joseph Heck Subject: Nominations for a "leader"? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L With a vote now underway (re: Arthur Dent's post earlier), it's also time to get the ball rolling and nominate some people for leading the GC. In those lines, I nominate Tibor. Terras -- joe (314) 882-5000 ccjoe@showme.missouri.edu University of Missouri - Columbia "with a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!" -- Calvin ccjoe From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 10:30:25 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 15:03:46 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Nominations for a "leader"? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >With a vote now underway (re: Arthur Dent's post earlier), it's=20 >also time to get the ball rolling and nominate some people for=20 >leading the GC. > >In those lines, I nominate Tibor. > >Terras I second you - with some doubts, as chairing this thing will=20 necessarily take time from all the other extremely valuable=20 work he does.=20 Also, I'm willing to tally votes, although I hope other=20 volunteers will materialize - I can't promise not to put=20 forward any proposals in the foreseeable future.=20 (A practical detail, I'm out of town October 16-19.) /Catrin =20 Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 11:04:32 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 10:34:30 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: From Morgan, Monday Evening To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Morgan... -- Justin >Date: 09 Oct 95 20:50:33 EDT >From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <72672.2312@compuserve.com> >Subject: From Morgan, Monday Evening With thanks to the ever-tolerant and ever-vigilant Justin: Tibor referred to the 1981 Arizona ruling on SCA tax status which according to the summary he has given us indicated that private citizens cannot call status to question, and there is the issue whether it is filed int he appropriate venue. Do you have a citation, or can you upload a copy? Privately would be just fine. I agree with Will McLean/Galleron de Cressy, and Nathan and Caitlin, that "that the board should have the tax questions you raised examined by a competent attorney. I strongly recommend that they choose one specializing in tax law as it applies to public charities and non-profit corporations. Tax law is a highly specialized field and an attorney knowledgable in one area of tax law may not be knowledgable in others." I am home now without my Red Book, but I can make suggestions based upon that if requested. [The Red Book is the American Bar Association's list of Section and Committee officers, as well as Board members and other important persons, and is distributed only to those included.] Tibor has some good points (in his response to Kwelland-Njal) about the benefits to groups from the umbrella corporation and tax-exempt status. Some, I argue, are based more upon the corporate existence (insurance, hall rental ability, etc.) than tax-exempt status (lack of sales tax on food and suplies). Not sure about the use of corporate funds for Events, as the rule I have always had as autocrat (and enforce now as Exchequer) is that Events are to run in the black. Admission fees and supper charges are to cover costs of same. So far, it works; even with our recent free Event, we ended heavily in the black. I do have copies of the two cases mentioned by Tibor, in ASCII format, if anyone wants to look at them. Please be advised they are not only in legalese but tax-legalese, which is eveto the list, but I do intend to clean off some of the leading and ending material that my online service sends (like a page that says THE END in ten-line-high letters). >> This may seem odd, but I appreciate the input from Morgan. While we seem to >> automagically gravitate to opposite sides of most issues, it's good to get >> another opinion. Thanks, Tibor. I do try not to be automatically antagonistic, and I do try to analyze your arguments from your point of view before shifting to the other side of the glass. >> But I wonder if a properly worded agreement [Gack, does he mean a real >> waiver? :-] wouldn't serve the same purpose, without incorporation. I also >> wonder if such a thing is really necessary either. ROFL! about the waiver. Assume instead of a corporation there is a partnership. The partners can agree among themselves about liability, but the law has some very different ideas and will punch through the partnership to find the partners individually liable. I guess the problem is I don't understand how you think a non-corporation can run an international umbrella organization. You explain, and I'll see if it works from my standpoint. However, I think that a number of the issues cannot be covered except by a corporate existence. If nothing else, it is a great protection to whose who do the work of the corporation. What if something were to go wrong at 3YC? Would you want your house etc. on the line, assuming you are a partner of this non-corporation? The problem about college groups may be one that depends upon the University. Here, if the SCA-Student branch goes under for some reason (we got tenuous a few years ago, due to a heavy graduation schedule and a burned-out seneschale) they can decide that everything we have purchased with University funds is University property. I am not talking about grey Gargoyles property -- I am talking about University of Chicago property. There is no question that on the SCA side it belongs to GG instead of TGS or Vanished Woods or Greyhope or Rokkehealdan to Raven's Lake (naming other local groups). But if the students were to disappear, and the University dissolve the student group, they could seize anything we have purchased with University funds. That's why we need the outside funds. University funding is used to rent Event sites oncampus, publish the newsletter, and pay expenses for major speakers and teachers we bring in (allowing students to attend, of course). But any property needs to be bought >from non-University funds, just to be on the safe side. It's not clear from what you said, Tibor, whether the University would retain possession of the sewing machine or tent if the student group were to disappear. I think we'll never agree on the educational/social proportions -- agree to disagree, and save bandwidth all around? Tibor you admitted that your letter to the Board "is still a little rough: I wished for more time, and not less. But real life marches on, and sometimes over, me." Are you going to provide a more polished and corrected copy to the Board? and would you accept a joint request (GC/Board) to have an independent person review the situation, as Galleron, Nathan, and Caitlin have suggested? (Which I, um, fourth, even without standing to vote.) ---= Morgan (home again, temporarily) |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 11:10:44 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 10:40:46 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Morgan Catches Up from the Weekend To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Morgan... -- Justin >Date: 09 Oct 95 20:50:00 EDT >From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <72672.2312@compuserve.com> >Subject: Morgan Catches Up from the Weekend Hello, All. Back (more or less, still in California) from the conference, so a message responding to a number of items from this list: Myrdin said: > I do not think that it was appropriate to broadcast post Tibor's opinions. > That is one large disadvantage to going to a listserv-based mailing list > that is not moderated. To which Angharad replied: > First, it was my impression that the GC was created precisely to discuss > controversial issues. The suggestion that something should not be posted > because it is controversial is, therefore, disturbing. Hossein stated something relatively similar in his posting earlier, and I may give some people heart failure by agreeing with them -- which I do. However, if the GC is the place for free and open discussion, then it should occur HERE without vetting or review. HOWEVER, both Angharad and Hossein ignore a key flaw in their arguments: Tibor did NOT post his letter here for discussion by the GC. Despite its flaws, it was posted to the Board members and to at least one other, Kingdom list (Midrealm) WITHOUT any review or commetnary by anyone else on the GC. I have not seen any explanation why, but should Tibor not have raised the issue here first for discussion? Forgive my ignorance of the way the GC is supposed to run; I know that other message threads are trying to sort that out. Fiacha noted: >> Regardless of reconstruction, as long as branches use corporate bank >> accounts, it is appropriate for the IRS to check on how the money is used. >> In my experience, the majority of branch funds are spent on arranging events. Add "buying equipment," whether it be armor, foils, other fighting and fencing stuff, serving items, rope for the eric, etc.etc.etc. And I agree with the observation about weddings and Christmas parties. Justin observed: >> Events are at least as much social as educational (I would say that the >> majority of serious education I see tends to be at practices and such >> instead), and the majority of the Corporation's efforts are towards supporting events. I don't know where you live Kingdom-wise, but most of the Events I have attended lately (including Midrealm, Calontir, and An Tir; I skipped The West this weekend due to a heavy conference schedule) have included classes of various sorts. And I know few fighters who would support the argument that being in a tourney is not a learning experience. Of course, there are a number of Events (RUM, RUSH, Ithra, St. Hildegard's) which are purely educational and the social aspect is token if at all. Kwellend-Njal offered this concept: >> So, lets look at this another way: What does the Corporation do that fosters >> the parts of the Society that would put us in violation? If the reform >> movements rhetoric was not just words, then that distinction, between the >> Corporation and the Society, should be a crutial factor for consideration. Good points. Do you think a University loses its status just because it sponsors various film societies, dances, concerts, and other parties? Nah. They key is what the organization does as its primary business. The social aspect is going ot happen when you get a bunch of people together no matter what. When I go to a business conference, we have receptions and luncheons and dinners and other almost purely social activities, and nobody fusses about the fact that the organization is allowing us an hour and a half without any educational or business component, and providing the liquor and soda pop besides. Justin also had some good points: >> The question is, how serious is the IRS about the notion that the club >> must have *only* an educational purpose? Tibor believes that this is a >> dead-serious issue. I'd like a second opinion, from an uninvolved >> outside tax expert. Tibor's analysis is based in large part upon two cases one thumping SF clubs, which have an incredibly tenuous contact with "educational," and the other going after a chess club which pretty much only hosted tournaments. [I am familiar with the former case but not the latter, and if the summaries are not generated by Lisa, I take them with a grain of salt. The publishers are notoriously off-base in their summaries.] Been there, done that, both in SF and in chess, and those are groups who are primarily social, with sometimes a bit of the capitalistic tossed in if the group also sponsors a convention or tourney and prices for supportive revenue. I think that it is harder to apply the analysis to Living History groups; I've done LH for years, and the Civil War etc. folk are just as social as we, yet educational also. That's a better comparison than SF and chess clubs, IMHO. >> The other issue is, do we have to rat on ourselves? Interesting issue. As I recall, the IRS offers bounty if you report a tax cheat. Before the SCA takes any steps, I agree, they should get the advice of an independent tax attorney, and possibly of an appropriatly-trained corporate attorney. The answer may be quite different than that provided by Tibor et al.; I know that my interpretation of the cases (and I was clerk for an appellate court judge, so I know how to do research briefs) is rather different from theirs, although I have never seen Lisa's entire report. Tibor asked: >> How and why would an international organizing and coordination body be >> providing the services required to own property, run an event or attend >> a feast? I've worked with a number of national or international organizations, on the inside as well as a volunteer/member. Very often these umbrella organizations have some kind of presence which flows through the regional leaders, and therefore assist in these activities. Change the last two to: "sponsor a conference" and "attend a dinner," and it makes a lot of sense. If the head body wants to throw a major meeting, not just a regional one (for us, 3YC comes to mind), then it would need the ability to offer these services. I won't comment on the examples offered to Flieg, as this is getting to be far too long already. But I think that a number of them -- newspapers, textbook publishers -- are seriously flawed when applied to our situation. Tibor said to Terras: >> Let's try this from another tactic. If the SCA were to become only about >> teaching, lecturing, and demonstrations of period culture, and was almost >> solely involved with public demonstrations, classes and academic standards, >> how many people would still "Play our Game", or "Live in the Dream"? Would >> you? Chances are, I wouldn't. [PERSONAL OPINION FOLLOWS.] It depends upon how you see the SCA now and what you intend to get out of it. I see it as a vehicle for continuing an education. Whether discussing cooking with Nathan or Cariadoc, learning a new needleart, tasting the latest trial recipe, or trying to dance, it is all learning. I cannot teach, lecture, or demonstrate without the background of research and practice that is a lot of what we do in the SCA. Yes, we may go out afterwards for coffee, or dinner. We have Events to which the public is allowed or invited, in addition to pure demos. Many "events" in the summer are tied to Ren Faires and the like. In our group, because fighter practice and dance practice take place publicly, they have a strong element of demo and teching-to-the-public. The question is how much of the SCA you see as the social, and how much as the educational. I see more of the latter, because that is what interests me and that is why I play. Every person may answer this question differently. [PERSONAL OPINION ENDS HERE.] Kwelland-Njal had the same trouble with Tibor's analysis of the thefts that I do. I really don't think that anybody is going to say that because someone stole from us we are not an NFP. This would make the corporation responsible for someone else's criminal activity against it. And yes, corporations are allowed to pay for the expenses of officers and directors, to a certain point and even to pay them salaries and other benefits. In Illinois, it's in the statutes: Business Corporation Act of 1983, Section 3.10(f),(k),(o) and General Not For Profit Corporation Act of 1986, Section 103.10(f),(k),(o). ---= Morgan |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 11:11:18 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 10:43:59 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Re: Proposals (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L A message from vnend@aol.net (David W. James), forwarded. On Oct 9, 8:46pm, Carole C. Roos wrote: > What I take this to mean is that there are no proper channels to input > matters vital to the well-being of the organization. This is just crazy! What > if the individual member (Tibor, Bertram, whoever) did not have the time to > devote to looking into the matter? What if it required a substantial cost? > Not to mention that many members do not have handy all the relevant records, > etc. Clearly this situation needs to be remedied. > I propose that the Board form a standing committee to receive and examine > matters pertaining to corporate concerns. In theory, one already exists. It's called the Board of Directors. David From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 11:43:42 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 11:10:40 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Alfgar... -- Justin >Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 23:41:33 -0400 (EDT) >From: Will Linden >Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters On Mon, 9 Oct 1995, Mark Schuldenfrei wrote: > > I also recall that about 1977 there was an attempt to sue the Society > for giving a false description, the argument being precisely that it was > social (at least, I assume so; the phrase given in the Minutes was > "devoted to socialization", in a context which makes sense if the > recorder thought that "socialization" meant "socializing") and not > educational. We appear to still be here. > > The famous or infamous Woodford of Lorien. Didn't I mention anything > relevant to that? Ah yes... No, Faye in California. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 11:44:24 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 11:11:53 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: NFP Postage Issue To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Morgan... -- Justin >Date: 09 Oct 95 20:50:07 EDT >From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <72672.2312@compuserve.com> >Subject: NFP Postage Issue Tibor pointed out that: >> The killer blow would be postage. We would lose our exempt organization >> mailing rate, and we couldn't afford to mail out newsletters, even if we >> were allowed to keep the money that those newsletters represented. Didn't somebody note that the USPS has already announced they are terminating this benefit? Does anyone have any solid information on this? If it is true, that pretty much negates this benefit. The answer will be to up the subscription costs, just as now people pay extra for first-class versus third-class delivery. (Or non-dlivery, if your mail is affected by Chicago or Toronto Post Offices.) ---= Morgan |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 11:46:50 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 11:14:14 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Esclarmonde... -- Justin >Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 23:39:46 -0400 (EDT) >From: Lisa Steele >Subject: Re: Tibor's post and listserv matters On Mon, 9 Oct 1995, Mark Waks wrote: > for giving a false description, the argument being precisely that it was > social (at least, I assume so; the phrase given in the Minutes was > "devoted to socialization", in a context which makes sense if the > recorder thought that "socialization" meant "socializing") and not > educational. We appear to still be here. My report should be up by Friday, assuming mundane life doesn't intervene. The Arizona lititgation is a red herring--a private person does not have standing (or at least has consistently not be held to have standing, Yaakov has made some interesting sugggestions) to challenge a tax exemption. That is the IRS's job alone. Whatever was decided by a court at that point has _no_ effect on the current discussion. --Lisa From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 11:52:35 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 11:13:22 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: vote; matter of confidence To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Esclarmonde... -- Justin >Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 23:31:23 -0400 (EDT) >From: Lisa Steele >Subject: Re: vote; matter of confidence On Mon, 9 Oct 1995, Mark Schuldenfrei wrote: > > FYI, Lisa wrote the report in a word processor that doesn't convert to ASCII > very easily. She is in the process of putting it together, and it will be > posted. It should be ready by this Friday assuming mundane life does not interfere. > Starting and Managing a Nonprofit Organization", 2nd edition (Hopkins, Bruce > R.) I'll second the recommendation of Hopkins. Other good general sources include the RIA (Research Inst. of America, I think) and CCH (Commerce Clearinghouse) overviews of the Internal Revenue Code. These should be available in any law library and some larger public libraries. >on their taxes, and have never been caught. > Remember that less than one half of one percent of all exempt organizations > are audited each year, and generally they reserve that process for larger > groups. In a great number of cases, I suspect that the group is trying its best to obey the law, confusing and technical as this area of it may be. It is not an enforcement priority with IRS--state revenue agencies may be more alert. If you have a question about a (c)(3), federal law makes most of their tax records avialable to the public. Ask them, or ask the IRS for copies. --Lisa From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 12:14:44 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 909 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 11:48:51 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Proposals To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <951009204558_40377753@mail02.mail.aol.com> from "Carole C. Roos" at Oct 9, 95 08:46:00 pm Greetings from Tibor. Alysoun wrote: I propose that the Board form a standing committee to receive and examine matters pertaining to corporate concerns. Gosh! From the charter of the Grand Council: PURPOSE The Grand Council will examine the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc.'s corporate and organizational structure, incorporating discussions from throughout the Society and make recommendations for changes necessary to carry out the Society's mission as a global organization. This Grand Council is empowered by the Board of Directors to independently conduct this examination and to make the most appropriate recommendations. Recommendations will be made no later than the Winter (January) 1997 meeting of the Board of Directors. At least until our charter expires (a little more than one year from now) it is the standing committee for that purpose. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 13:02:53 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 12:21:23 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Morgan Catches Up from the Weekend To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Esclarmonde... -- Justin >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 11:21:20 -0400 (EDT) >From: Lisa Steele >Subject: Re: Morgan Catches Up from the Weekend On Tue, 10 Oct 1995, Mark Waks wrote: > of people together no matter what. When I go to a business > conference, we have receptions and luncheons and dinners and other > almost purely social activities, and nobody fusses about the fact that > the organization is allowing us an hour and a half without any > educational or business component, and providing the liquor and soda > pop besides. > Ah, but is the conference organizer a (c)(3) and, if so, what else does it do. If FREX it spends 50 weeks per year doing (c)(3) educational stuff and hold a one weekend conference with a social hour that is likely not a signficiant part of its activities. > and if the summaries are not generated by Lisa, I take them with a > grain of salt. The publishers are notoriously off-base in their > summaries.] Been there, done that, both in SF and in chess, and those I'd have to look at the summaries. I think Tibor used the headnotes to the case. Note: some of the headnotes are generated by the tax court judges and, though not citeable authority themselves, they are part of the judge's reasoning. Others are generated by the publishers of the compilation of texts. Without the physical page in front of me, I couldn't tell which is which. > because someone stole from us we are not an NFP. This would make the > corporation responsible for someone else's criminal activity against > it. The IRS' theory and I CANNOT GET INTO DETAILS is. Sec. 501(c)(3) forbids _any part_ of the net income of an exempt-organization to go to those having a private interest in it, esp. those with decision making authority and their families. The courts have consistently held that "no part" means not a bloody penny. The legislative history, such that exists, backs this up. For corporations, the remedy for theft and embezzelment losses is sec. 165. To the best of my knowledge sec. 165 has never been applied by analogy to exempt organizations, tho. sec. 162 (businesse expenses) has been. This is a very technical arguement and the issue was raised in a case pending before the Tax Court. --Lisa From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 13:08:34 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 12:22:16 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: tax deductions To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Ian... -- Justin >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 95 11:43:24 EDT >From: "LTjg, USN 3-8401 ext 167 Bldg 8 Rm 207" >Subject: tax deductions On Friday, October 6, 1995 at 1:18:47 pm EDT, Mark Waks wrote: >Consider: basic SCA membership is tax-deductible. Ballpark >calculations: we have around 25K members, at $20 per head membership. >That's about half a million dollars a year. Guess an average tax rate >of about 20% -- that means that we are getting an indirect government >subsidy, in the form of deducted taxes, of about $100,000 per >year. That's a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it's probably >correct to within a factor of two. And that *doesn't* figure in >deductions for donations to local branches, and writeoffs for officer >expenses, which are probably not trivial. (I'm ignoring the postal >rate thing, since Bertram says that it will be going away -- I'm more >concerned with the future than the past here.) > > -- Justin Greetings Most Noble and Busy Lord, I know you are very busy, so I'll keep this short. I know that most people in the two areas I have been active in the SCA do not claim the deductions because it is not worthwhile. Many of us just don't have enough deductions to claim. I looked into it several different times and found that the tax return was as good or better on a 1040a without the exemptions. I am no tax expert, but neither are most other members in the sca, and I think that if you investigate, you will find that the factor of two you stated should be of a much larger scale. Possibly as large as an order of magnitude (i.e. 20 or more). Thank you, Ian O'Donnell/Chris Turner Chris D. Turner Ian O'Donnell Charleston S.C. Barony of Hidden Mountain, Atlantia Work: cturner@smtp.cnsy-ian.navy.mil (803) 743-8401 x167 Home: cturner@awod.com (803) 572-8803 From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 14:09:41 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Chronique@AOL.COM Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 13:37:14 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Brian R. Price" Subject: Re: MOTION: GC PROCEDURE/ORGA... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I most heartily and passionately second this motion! Brian From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 14:32:41 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 14:07:04 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: apology To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Tibor has given me to understand that my posting "vote; matter of confidence" was "inaccurate, inappropriate, and insulting innuendo." I apologize for that effect, it was not intended. I have explained to him that I am not a snide or sneering person. (I do make bad metaphors about jello.) I was concerned about the lack of confidence before he posted his report and continue to be so. In discussing this with him I have learned that part of our communication problem is due to having different editions of Publication 557. Mine is (Rev. Jan 95), I had ordered it in response to Dani's posting some time ago. In an effort to defend against inaccuracy, I will quote more fully the section in question. Chapter 3 is entitled "Section 501(c)(3) Organizations (Charitable, Religious, Educational, Scientific, Etc.)" The revelant subsection is "Private Foundations and Public Charities." Under the subsubsection "Section 509(a)(2) Organizations" is a section "Gifts and contributions distinguished >from gross receipts." The example is: "P is a local agricultural club and is an organization described in section 501(c)(3). It makes awards at its annual fair for outstanding specimens of produce and livestock to encourage interest and proficiency by young people in farming and raising livestock." This type of organization is very common in the Midwest. They share many attributes with the SCA. There would be differences as well. My whole point in bringing up the example is to allay the fear that the SCA is judged solely against formal education. This is not to say that there is no problem, but to broaden the context. I am very sorry that Tibor took my posting so personally. Alysoun From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 14:39:03 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 285 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 11:50:23 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Arthur's motion on procedure To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I like Arthur's motion, with one caveat. Edward may have plans for such an action as part of the agenda for the October 1995 Board Meeting. Arthur, why not check with him, first, and then we can go ahead with the motion if it still seems wise? Tibor (reach him at gendy@panix.com) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 14:44:33 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 909 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 11:48:51 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Proposals To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <951009204558_40377753@mail02.mail.aol.com> from "Carole C. Roos" at Oct 9, 95 08:46:00 pm Greetings from Tibor. Alysoun wrote: I propose that the Board form a standing committee to receive and examine matters pertaining to corporate concerns. Gosh! From the charter of the Grand Council: PURPOSE The Grand Council will examine the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc.'s corporate and organizational structure, incorporating discussions from throughout the Society and make recommendations for changes necessary to carry out the Society's mission as a global organization. This Grand Council is empowered by the Board of Directors to independently conduct this examination and to make the most appropriate recommendations. Recommendations will be made no later than the Winter (January) 1997 meeting of the Board of Directors. At least until our charter expires (a little more than one year from now) it is the standing committee for that purpose. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 14:55:37 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Greg Rose Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 14:16:05 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Greg Rose Subject: Re: Morgan Catches Up from the Weekend To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Morgan writes: >Myrdin said: > >> I do not think that it was appropriate to broadcast post Tibor's opinions. >> That is one large disadvantage to going to a listserv-based mailing list >> that is not moderated. > >To which Angharad replied: > >> First, it was my impression that the GC was created precisely to discuss >> controversial issues. The suggestion that something should not be posted >> because it is controversial is, therefore, disturbing. > >Hossein stated something relatively similar in his posting earlier, >and I may give some people heart failure by agreeing with them -- >which I do. However, if the GC is the place for free and open >discussion, then it should occur HERE without vetting or review. > >HOWEVER, both Angharad and Hossein ignore a key flaw in their >arguments: Tibor did NOT post his letter here for discussion by the >GC. Despite its flaws, it was posted to the Board members and to at >least one other, Kingdom list (Midrealm) WITHOUT any review or >commetnary by anyone else on the GC. I have not seen any explanation >why, but should Tibor not have raised the issue here first for >discussion? Forgive my ignorance of the way the GC is supposed to >run; I know that other message threads are trying to sort that out. I think that Morgan has mistaken my argument. It is irrelevant whether Tibor sent his missive to the Board, a kingdom mailing list, or the first hundred names in the Boston phone book. His opinions are his to broadcast to whatever venue he sees fit. Tibor never presented his remarks as an official statement of the GC; he presented them to the GC, as he presented them to other venues, for discussion, since, I presume, he wanted feedback from a number of sources and regarded the matter as appropriate for GC consideration. My point was that any member of the GC is free to submit for consideration anything whatsoever -- it is part of our brief >from the Board. Therefore, criticism of a member of the Council for submitting a matter for discussion is inappropriate and tends to chill the free exchange of ideas. Indeed, I would personally go one step further and argue that any participant in the SCA has a right to be heard in this venue and that is why I offer to post here as a GC member any comments anyone chooses to ask me to post. Yea, even if Morgan (with whom I have historically disagreed about so many things that I find it difficult to enumerate them all) were to send me a message for the GC, I would forward it forthwith for GC review. My point was about the absolute right of a GC member to submit anything whatsoever which that member thinks relevant to our discussion. Hossein/Greg (whose heart is untroubled by Morgan agreeing with good principles) From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 15:02:53 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1674 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 11:42:42 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Tibor's report on the SCA's Tax Status (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Galleron, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From WMclean290@aol.com Tue Oct 10 11:18 EDT 1995 From: WMclean290@aol.com Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 11:17:38 -0400 Message-ID: <951010111733_72635027@mail06.mail.aol.com> To: schuldy@abel.math.harvard.edu Subject: Re: Tibor's report on the SCA's Tax Status Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1250 Please forward to Grand Council: Suggested questions to be examined by Attorney reviewing SCA's tax status How strong is the SCA's claim to a tax exemption as a 501(c)(3)? Is it so weak that the Board has a positive duty to approach the IRS for a binding ruling? If our claim is reasonably justifiable, but it is possible the IRS might dispute our exemption, what changes in our operations or structure would be necessary or desirable to strengthen our claim to an exemption? Is it permissable for the SCA, Inc. to devote resources to setting up a separate corporation devoted exclusively to unquestionably educational purposes? If so, which of our current activities would be appropriate purposes for such a corporation? I assume publishing the Compleate Anachronist would qualify, but what others? Do circumstances justify or require the SCA accumulating a reserve against potential tax liability? Finally, the GC should consider whether we shoud look for an attorney skilled in tax law as it applies to public charities and non-profit organizations among our own membership. An outside attorney might be less biased in his judgements, but a member would have a clearer understanding of our actual activities. Will Mclean/Galleron de Cressy From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 15:26:27 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 14:49:04 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: other information sources To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Morgan... -- Justin >Date: 10 Oct 95 14:35:23 EDT >From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <72672.2312@compuserve.com> >Subject: Re: other information sources Esclarmonde said: ? > Starting and Managing a Nonprofit Organization", 2nd edition ? > (Hopkins, Bruce R.) E: I'll second the recommendation of Hopkins. Other good general sources E: include the RIA (Research Inst. of America, I think) and CCH (Commerce E: Clearinghouse) overviews of the Internal Revenue Code. These should be E: available in any law library and some larger public libraries. There is also a nice book called, I think (can't find my copy quickly and I have to be in court in fifteen minutes) "DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS OF NOT-FOR-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS." Came out a couple years ago from the American Bar Association, 750 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611 - (312) 988-5000. I can't remember how much is tax information, but it's a useful overview for anybody taking on the responsibilities. ---= Morgan |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 16:19:06 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 3703 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 15:43:22 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: From Morgan, Monday Evening To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9510101434.AA26708@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Oct 10, 95 10:34:30 am Greetings from Tibor. Administrivia note... Justin gets all the overflow mail that is sent to the GC list. If people want things posted to the list, you might consider sending them to almost anyone else. During East Coast work hours, I can be relied upon. (And many evenings...) Tibor referred to the 1981 Arizona ruling on SCA tax status which according to the summary he has given us indicated that private citizens cannot call status to question, and there is the issue whether it is filed int he appropriate venue. Do you have a citation, or can you upload a copy? Privately would be just fine. In case people care, I am manually retyping from Lisa's report. "The Courts have long held that taxpayers do not generally have standing to challenge the tax-exempt status of any organization. Allen v. Wright. 468 U.S. 737, 751 (1984); see also Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U.S. 163, 166 (1972). A holding by any court resolving a taxpayer suit against SCA, Inc., or the IRS on this point does not resolve the question of whether SCA Inc., is entitled to tax-exempt status. Thus, the litigation brought in Arizona in the 1980s is not determinative of SCA, Inc.'s tax-exempt status." I agree with Will McLean/Galleron de Cressy, and Nathan and Caitlin, that "that the board should have the tax questions you raised examined by a competent attorney. Which is also what I recommended. I guess the problem is I don't understand how you think a non-corporation can run an international umbrella organization. You explain, and I'll see if it works from my standpoint. However, I think that a number of the issues cannot be covered except by a corporate existence. If nothing else, it is a great protection to whose who do the work of the corporation. What if something were to go wrong at 3YC? Would you want your house etc. on the line, assuming you are a partner of this non-corporation? Let's take this to a separate thread: I'll make you go first. But I think the real question that predecesses this one, is "What would be the role of a central coordinating organization in a distributed international environment?" I think of it as a place to mutually determine the Landmarks of the Society, and to work out differences. A mutual recognition treaty. In that format, I don't see a need for a corporation. Now, if you see it more as, say, a franchise grantor licensing events and identity, well, then perhaps your idea of a corporation is more necessary. But until we get better granularity of the scope and role of the central organizing group, the choice of legal organ is subsidiary. It's not clear from what you said, Tibor, whether the University would retain possession of the sewing machine or tent if the student group were to disappear. University funds, university possession. Wouldn't anything else be conversion? Tibor you admitted that your letter to the Board "is still a little rough: I wished for more time, and not less. But real life marches on, and sometimes over, me." Are you going to provide a more polished and corrected copy to the Board? and would you accept a joint request (GC/Board) to have an independent person review the situation, as Galleron, Nathan, and Caitlin have suggested? (Which I, um, fourth, even without standing to vote.) I'd love such a GC recommendation. I intend to draft a more polished, less emotional version tonight. I think I'll ask Justin to place it on the Web page, and let folks download it. Unless people want another 12 page document posted... Along those lines, I can't begin to thank people enough for their advice, input and comments. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 16:28:47 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 995 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 15:49:45 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: NFP Postage Issue To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9510101511.AA27002@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Oct 10, 95 11:11:53 am Responding to my comments: The killer blow would be postage. We would lose our exempt organization mailing rate, and we couldn't afford to mail out newsletters, even if we were allowed to keep the money that those newsletters represented. Morgan wrote: Didn't somebody note that the USPS has already announced they are terminating this benefit? Does anyone have any solid information on this? If it is true, that pretty much negates this benefit. The answer will be to up the subscription costs, just as now people pay extra for first-class versus third-class delivery. I was discussing the hypothetical situation of the SCA's subscription liability, if it "survived" losing it's exempt status. It would still have subscription liability, and it would have to pay full rates. The difference in price would be a killer. Didn't Bertram state that he got the information on a 2 year phaseout from the USPS? I just checked the archive, and that is what he claimed. Tibor From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Tue Oct 10 16:56:31 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1017 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 15:26:55 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: other information sources To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9510101849.AA29715@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Oct 10, 95 02:49:04 pm Greetings from Tibor. Morgan recommends: There is also a nice book called, I think (can't find my copy quickly and I have to be in court in fifteen minutes) "DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS OF NOT-FOR-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS." Came out a couple years ago from the American Bar Association, 750 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611 - (312) 988-5000. I can't remember how much is tax information, but it's a useful overview for anybody taking on the responsibilities. Seconded. My memory tells me it's "Handbook for Directors and Officers of Not For Profit Organizations." Written by the appropriate sub-group of the American Bar Association, it is written BY Lawyers and FOR laypeople with no previous background. It's never gonna get a Pulitzer for style, but it ain't fiction either. It barely touches on tax law. I can put out ordering information if people want it, send me private mail. (schuldy@math.harvard.edu) Tibor (Does this man read EVERYTHING?) From owner-scagc-l@listserv.aol.com Wed Oct 11 02:46:48 1995 Return-Path: X-Vms-To: IN%"SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: ALBAN@DELPHI.COM Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 01:30:30 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Alban St. Albans" Subject: Re: other information sources To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L just out of curiosity, tibor? lisa? you've had recent experience in this. how much time would a competent tax-type attorney spend on our case? and how much money owuld the board have to spend? alban From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 09:32:04 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 3426 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 08:54:50 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Value of tax exemption (was: Tibor's report...) (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded by Tibor. Forwarding request removed. Forwarded message: From dani@telerama.lm.com Tue Oct 10 15:56 EDT 1995 From: dani@telerama.lm.com Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 15:55:22 +0400 (EDT) Sender: dani@telerama.lm.com Reply-To: dani@telerama.lm.com Subject: Value of tax exemption (was: Tibor's report...) To: Mark Schuldenfrei In-Reply-To: <199510092108.RAA04513@abel.math.harvard.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Length: 2922 [Request to forward removed. -- Tibor] =================================== If our tax-exempt status is in doubt, two questions arise: How much trouble are we in, and how much would the loss of the status hurt us? I'd like to focus on the second question, and suggest that the answer is "not much". Suppose we get medium-lucky on the first question: Suppose that we lose our exempt status, but do not suffer any crippling penalties. Suppose we reorganize ourselves as a 501 (c) 7 non-profit social organization. What do we lose? The general answer is that, for most of us, it becomes marginally more expensive to be a member of the SCA, and that's all. - The cheaper bulk mail rates are nice to have, but we're talking about $1/year per sustaining member. (Our bulk mail rates are about eight cents cheaper than regular ones per newsletter issue. TI doesn't go out by bulk mail.) This introduces the general pattern: Our tax-exempt status is a nice thing to have, and without it, things will be a bit costlier. - Donations will no longer be tax-deductible. Just about the only donation income the corporation gets is the $20 per member that can be deducted if the member chooses to itemize. I'm guessing here, but my guess is that most members do not itemize, and that most of those who do are in high enough income brackets that they're not going to stop being members because they can no longer deduct the $20. The cost of membership, then, again, would go up a bit for some people. - Some of our events would cost more. Some sites would charge us more. Some supplies would cost more by 7% or 8% or whatever the local and state taxes happen to be. Some groups might lose access to some of their cheaper sites. In my neck of the woods, few of these factors tend to apply, but I gather that it may be different in other areas. - If I understand correctly, we would have to pay taxes on our 'profits' (using the term loosely). That would be - what? - another half dollar per member at current budget levels? (Not that we wouldn't budget differently under changed circumstances.) Suppose the value of the assorted subsidies is as high as $5 per sustaining member per year. That's a nice subsidy to have, but we wouldn't be in desperate straits without it. (There are also marked benefits in terms of internal paperwork reduction.) What I've written does not address the more immediate problem of what will happen if the IRS decides that we shouldn't be tax-exempt. What I am saying, though, is that (aside from the value of not being penalized by the IRS for having the wrong status) the status isn't that important to us. It's nice to have, but we wouldn't be seriously hurt if we lost it. YiS Dani of the Seven Wells dani@telerama.lm.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 09:43:18 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 09:05:57 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: NFP Postage Issue (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded by Tibor. Forwarded message: From Monica.Cellio@NL.CS.CMU.EDU Tue Oct 10 16:37 EDT 1995 From: Monica.Cellio@NL.CS.CMU.EDU Date: 10 Oct 1995 16:24-EST Subject: Re: NFP Postage Issue To: Mark Schuldenfrei Message-Id: <813356661/mjc@NL.CS.CMU.EDU> In-Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list's message of Tue, 10 Oct 1995 154945 -0400 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1601 [Please forward] This is a niggling detail, but it's one I've seen mentioned several times so I'd like to offer a correction. >I was discussing the hypothetical situation of the SCA's subscription >liability, if it "survived" losing it's exempt status. >It would still have subscription liability, and it would have to pay full >rates. The difference in price would be a killer. Compared to the costs of the audit and/or litigation, the postage would be noise. Anyone can walk in off the street and (for a $75 application fee and $75/year to maintain it) get a permit to send bulk mail at approximately 20 cents per piece. (Disclaimer: my data is 2 years old; the exact numbers may have changed, but the ballpark is right.) The current rate for non-profit groups is 12 cents per piece. So if we lost our special status, our additional cost per sustaining member would be on the order of $1.50 (that's counting 12 issues of a kingdom newsletter, 4 TIs, and a membership renewal form). And that's assuming we do *nothing* to lower the rates; additional pre-sorting, use of bar codes, and so on can cut these rates even more. Either way, this is still *much* cheaper than mailing at first-class rates. And given that the corporation skims a very healthy profit from first-class subscriptions (about $1.75 per, currently), the money is probably there to survive this. (That is, it would be if they did proper accounting and spent newsletter income only on newsletter outgo. They don't do this, of course.) First-class postage is not the only alternative to non-profit bulk rate. Ellisif From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 12:10:24 1995 Return-Path: Priority: normal X-Mailer: ExpressNet/SMTP v1.1.5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Roy Gathercoal Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 02:04:09 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Roy Gathercoal Organization: George Fox College Subject: Corporations and members To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >From October 1, Solveig writes: > Add to this the historical development of who is a "member" of SCA, Inc. At one point, anyone who attended an event was (according to Corpora) a "member" of SCA, Inc. Now, it appears that even people who buy membership cards may not be "members". That was part of the position taken by corporate council (according to accounts posted by the CSOS) during the mandamus hearings. What the mandamus suit was really about was forcing the corporation to treat members like insiders instead of like outsiders. I don't see it like this at all. The history of the board as I see it is a slow movement toward greater involvement of the people in the society. It hasn't been so very long ago that most of the board members came from one kingdom, and all board meetings were held in Milpitas. I recall (in the supposed good ole days) a board that was imperious in its attitude towards the people. I see the mandamus (misnamed, except for the intimidation factor) stuff as an action against me and my organization--an action which strategically came at a very vulnerable time in the organization's development. Some reforms had been put into place already, and action against a former officer accused of embezzlement had just been/was just being resolved. As a result of a number of things, including the mandamus action, many of these reforms have been trashcanned. The action has delayed, not improved potential for real reform. > First of all, there can be no single corporation for an international society. Corporations are dejure (legal) persons. These are creatures of local jurisdictions. This is a specius argument. Most corporations function quite nicely across international borders without splitting up. Small businesses do business in multiple countries every moment. There are cases in which it is advantageous to form subsidiary corporations for one reason or another, and we could certainly do this/have done this. But to say this is legally necessary is misleading. > Well, it means that in many places, the SCA actually operates either as an unincorporated association or as an illegally operating foreign corporation. Which of these is the case depends upon whether or not the local jurisdiction actually recognizes the existence of SCA, Inc. on its soil or not. Which is the case with virtually every corporation in existence today, including corps such as Pepsi and GM. Fact is, many local jurisdictions don't know what their policy is towards foreign corporations, and so most don't even have procedures in place to effectively deal with such questions. The SCA has had people designated as legal agents, primarily to serve and receive papers, in all places where our legal counsel thought necessary. In every case in which a jurisdiction was sensitive to such matters, or if some request for action was received, we moved to comply. The bias (rightly or wrongly) was towards keeping the organization as small and as simple as was possible. I for one have no interest in a society which is run by the lawyers, people who commit themselves to hunting down each jot and tittle because they think the exercise is fun. -- From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 12:11:24 1995 Return-Path: Priority: normal X-Mailer: ExpressNet/SMTP v1.1.5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Roy Gathercoal Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 02:04:15 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Roy Gathercoal Organization: George Fox College Subject: Growing closer To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In digest of October 1, Solveig wrote: >Currently, if you call Milpitas on a Friday, you will get an answering machine refering to itself as "Customer Service" for the society. This bespeaks an attitude of separation, of lesser involvement, even a sense that members are outsiders. This is one of the things which bothers many members in places like Carolingia. Agreed. But this feeling of separation will become much greater if someone should call with a question about membership and be answered with "which organization are you calling about? " Many of the worst examples of corporate abuse in the last few years have been a result of attempts at reform--and they highlight the complexities and dangers of trying to implement simple solutions to complex problems. A sense of belonging is going to come from contact. Period. If you don't have contact with other people who you identify as being part of the larger group, you will not feel close to the larger group. Therefore, even though each branch officer is a deputy of the kingdom officer, who is a deputy of the society officer, you don't feel close to the society by having contact with your local officer. However, if you start interacting (not just reading what someone has written, but engaging in some sort of inter-action) with someone who you identify as being from the larger whole, you will start to feel closer to the whole. This is why I argue for a unified center. If we split up into separate little groups which are tied together by contract (a federacy) it will be much more difficult to get these larger group contacts. Not impossible, but more difficult. We can still have flexibility in adapting to our various regional requirements and traditions and strengthen this core, if we put the board to work on forging consensus about the really important things, the things that truly keep us together--the values that are important to us. This is currently not being addressed in any sort of focused manner--the board never has time to get to it. If we simply say that they should do this too, then we will simply be adding to the board load problem and more bad decisions will result. Gareth -- From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 12:11:40 1995 Return-Path: Priority: normal X-Mailer: ExpressNet/SMTP v1.1.5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Roy Gathercoal Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 02:04:25 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Roy Gathercoal Organization: George Fox College Subject: education in the SCA To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I agree whole heartedly with Finnvarr's conclusions about education. Further, there is academic support for the idea that significant cultural learning cannot effectively occur within a classroom setting. This is, of course, what cultural anthropologists have been saying for years. To claim that education can only occur within formal classroom settings is an error. The SCA is educational, to its core. To argue that because there is a social component, it is no longer educational is to construct two things out of one. All effective learning about culture is social, and most of all sorts of learning is social. Many instructors in traditional classrooms spend hours agonizing over how to make learning more social, in order to increase its effectiveness. (I think it was Teaching Professor that recently featured an article called something like "Confessions of a reformed lectureholic") So if we are to define education to exclude social, we define education to exclude effective learning. Gareth -- From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 13:12:40 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 17:31:17 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: Corporations and members To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >> First of all, there can be >no single corporation for an international society. Corporations are >dejure (legal) persons. These are creatures of local jurisdictions. > >This is a specius argument. Most corporations function quite nicely across >international borders without splitting up. Small businesses do business = in >multiple countries every moment. There are cases in which it is advantage= ous >to form subsidiary corporations for one reason or another, and we could >certainly do this/have done this. But to say this is legally necessary is >misleading. > >> Well, it means that in many places, the SCA actually >operates either as an unincorporated association or as an illegally operat= ing >foreign corporation. Which of these is the case depends upon whether or n= ot >the local jurisdiction actually recognizes the existence of SCA, Inc. on i= ts >soil or not. > >Which is the case with virtually every corporation in existence today, >including corps such as Pepsi and GM. ... A couple of distinctions I'd recommend keeping in mind:=20 1) Distinguish between what an American corp can do and what can be done in= a=20 specific country. I.e. that an American corp can legally function outside t= he=20 US doesn't necessarily entail that it can have a legal existence in, say,= =20 Finland - that would depend on what kinds of legal entities Finnish law=20 recognizes. (A while back someone claimed on this forum that there was no n= eed=20 for the SCA to recognize separate corps in other countries, since it could = very=20 well function abroad - with no concern for what the law would say in the=20 country where the SCA is supposed to function.) 2) Distinguish between for-profits and non-profits. Of course, in all Europ= ean=20 countries we have our share of international and multinational companies, s= uch=20 as Pepsi, Nestle, IBM and whatnot, and they very much exist, de facto *and*= =20 legally. - Non-profits are something totally different. Even huge internati= onal=20 non-profits, such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and most sports= =20 associations, are, at least in Sweden, organized as a network of locally=20 incorporated groups, forming a national organization that is connected to a= n=20 international federation to ensure that everybody plays by the same rules w= hen=20 it comes to the non-profit's *contents*.=20 We do this, not because of some perverted pleasure of creating little local= =20 corporations and playing at BoD, but because it's the normal way of running= =20 non-profits here, recognized by law and custom. That's what a bank expects = and=20 asks in order to open an account for a non-profit group, and a city, a scou= t=20 association or a private owner, in order to rent us a site.=20 /Catrin =20 =20 Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 13:41:36 1995 Return-Path: Encoding: 104 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Approved-By: "Potter, Michael" Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 08:03:00 PDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Potter, Michael" Subject: Tibor's letter and responses to my post To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings all. I find several of the replies to my post to be much stronger than what I wrote or slightly off of the meaning contained in the words I used and my intent. 1. I never said that Tibor's report should not have been posted at all. I said that by consulting with a few members beforehand the message could have been improved. This consultation process (if used by others) may result in some posts being held back. However, this would only happen if the originator was convinced that the original post was not appropriate. In the old format, there was at least a chance that Justin could send an e-mail saying "do you really want to say that". Also, I hold to the opinion that some items are not appropriate for public discussion, especially where the results of the discussion could be damaging. If the items were to be publicly discussed, great care would have to be taken with the language used. I also believe that a moderated listserv could keep our efforts more focused on the topics at hand. 2. There were a series of references to legal opinions and the legal profession in response to my post. Please note that I said in my experience as a _public accountant_ (I'm a Chartered Accountant from Canada) and in my dealings with lawyers, I understand where the "worst case" position could come from. In general, I have a great deal of respect for lawyers and for the legal system. I also have a great deal of respect for the IRS and other government agencies based on my dealing with their professional staff. Even the "cursory" (Tibor's words) review that an IRS agent performs can lead to further investigation due to the experience and professionalism of the agent. If it did not in our case, it probably meant that no alarm bells went off and that the agent felt we were within the boundaries of the regulations. 3. I think that the strongest words I used were "over wrought". Currently, I am employed as an internal auditor for a large US-multinational. As a regular part of my job, I write reports to management about weaknesses and areas that need improvement. There is a style and way to present these types of issues that informs, states the risks, but does not threaten. Tibor inserted a paragraph that stated: "This letter and the accompanying legal opinion letter are notice enough. You cannot fail to act, in some way. At best, you should seek a binding opinion (letter ruling) from the IRS that the SCA is still a valid exempt organization." - Tibor's words Generally speaking, putting a gun to someone's head in a volunteer organization is not the best way to get them to act in a well reasoned manner. In Tibor's case, this is especially true because of his past history with the board. Note that according to his post, he had not yet sent a copy to the Board and I find that his public posting to be somewhat impolite considering that he has not given them a chance to respond to him. Perhaps (probably not, but perhaps) the tax exempt status was already being investigated and Tibor's post may focus undue public attention when it is not appropriate. I also find that Tibor's time argument suspect. He wanted to get the information to the Board in time for their meeting which is unrelated to publically publishing his letter. Maybe it's just my upbringing (broad generalizations are dangerous), but I tend towards the stereotypical Canadian in that I find confrontation distasteful and only usefull when all other avenues have been exhausted. 4. "Yet, when Tibor presented the opinions of legal scholars on a point of tax law relevant to the corporation's continued existence, some immediately suggested how intemperate he was to publish such a thing. That bespeaks a desire to silence a viewpoint for political reasons. That I will not abide, regardless of whose viewpoint it may be." Hossein/Greg's words. I guess my political reasons would be to present the facts and the risks in a manner that would make it more acceptable and more likely to be acted upon. Otherwise, I'm not sure what political agenda I was following as I only really know one Board member (but not that well) and barely know anyone on the GC. I didn't say that Tibor was intemperate to publish a concern (with some legal investigation and background), I said that the manner that it was presented in was poor. I think that presenting the "opinion of legal scholars" is putting a positive spin on the post considering the intermixing of personal opinion in the letter. 5. For those who strongly disagreed with my opinion, I find it strange that my opinion seems to be OK to be muzzled and the general argument used to support this is that opinions should not be muzzled. What do I think that Tibor should have done? I think that he should have raised the issue, made the opinion letter available, and called for a vote on a recommendation that the Board seek legal advice on the matter. He should have used more neutral wording and clearly separated the law from his interpretations and opinion. In the end, the Grand Council would have presented our recommendation. As it is, because of the tone, some of the words used, and the public nature of this medium, he has (in my opinion) taken far too much upon himself. If anything, this is what makes me angry, because I agree with him that the SCA's tax-exempt status is a risk, but he presented in a way that it will make it more difficult to present our case. I apologize for the time it took me to write this reply, but I'm currently working in Europe and do not have easy access to my e-mail. regards, Michael G. Potter Sir Myrdin the Just From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 13:51:57 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: CAROL L SMITH Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 10:13:07 CST Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: CAROL L SMITH Subject: October GC Report to the Board Comments: To: gendy@panix.com To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Greetings from Caroline. Below is the report sent last week to Milpitas for the Board meeting. Thanks to those of you who sent in your reports to me for inclusion in this report. Please let me know if you have any questions. The SocSen asked each officer/chair to provide information for the Board minutes; it is at the end of the report. Caroline Date: 2 October 1995 To: Board of Directors, SCA, Inc. From: Carol L. Smith/Caroline Forbes of Oxfordshire Subject: Grand Council Report to the Board for July - October 1995 This report covers the period from 22 July 1995 to 21 October 1995. ACTIONS REQUIRED BY THE BOARD None this quarter. ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE GRAND COUNCIL THIS QUARTER Change to the Format of the Grand Council Chronicle The format of the Grand Council Chronicle has changed from a weekly email digest to an interactive mailing list (like the kingdom lists and many professional lists). This change will enable the GC to communicate more frequently and hopefully complete our charter on time. Anyone can read the list but only GC members and Board members can post directly. We realize that this change will decrease the effectiveness of the non-email members of the Grand Council. These members, however, are not active on the Council, and we are following up with them to see if they wish to remain members of the Council. The email address for the Chronicle has also changed. It is now scagc-l@listserv.aol.com. Board members are encouraged to be active in the discussions on the list. Membership Working Group Continues Discussion The membership working group has nearly finished its discussion on who is a member of the SCA, what that means, and what rights it conveys. They will be sharing this discussion and commentary with the rest of the Grand Council shortly. No Information from the Outsourcing Group I received no information on the progress of the outsourcing group. I hope that you will cover this topic under Old Business at the meeting. Work on Describing Functions of the Corporations Begun Gerald O'Leary (Gyrth Oldcastle) has formed a group to map the functions of the corporation, including a list of what functions the Board does, the corporate office does, and anything else they deem appropriate. It will also include what these groups might provide and could provide which are not happening now. This work will not include in this phase any evaluation of the functions. Meeting at Pennsic Facilitated Discussion Approximately 9 members of the Grand Council met at Pennsic to discuss a variety of topics. Out of that meeting came the proposal to change the format of the Chronicle, a discussion on the formation of committees, and a few other action items. Most attendees felt that the meeting was productive. Thanks to the Board members who attended! Nordmark Survey Underway One GC member in Nordmark has surveyed the groups in that area to begin to understand if they have had conflicts with the corporate workings of the SCA or with the medieval recreation part of the SCA. The responses to this survey are still being tabulated and will be shared when complete. Please contact me as soon as possible if you have any questions on this report or the workings of the Grand Council. I will be unavailable from 18 October - 6 November. Thank you. Lady Caroline Forbes of Oxfordshire Carol L. Smith 14713 Mill Spring Drive Chesterfield, MO 63017-5654 314-694-4655 (days) 314-530-1836 (evenings) 314-693-4655 (fax) clsmit@ccmail.monsanto.com ----------------------------------------------- SUMMARY PARAGRAPHS FOR THE BOARD MINUTES The format for the Grand Council Chronicle has changed to an interactive mailing list to facilitate discussion. Anyone may read the list, but only Grand Council members and Board members may directly post to the list. The address for the Chronicle is now scagc-l@listserv.aol.com. A number of committees, including the membership working group, the description of functions group, and the outsourcing group, have continued to work on their respective issues. These issues will continue to be discussed over the next quarter. If you'd like more information on these or other issues, please contact your local Grand Council member. Each kingdom has at least one representative. Please contact Carol L. Smith (Caroline Forbes of Oxfordshire) at 14713 Mill Spring Drive, Chesterfield, MO 63017-5654; clsmit@ccmail.monsanto.com; 314-530-1836 (evenings before 10 pm Central) if you have any questions about the Grand Council. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 14:34:44 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 14:07:07 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Morgan's Tuesday Night Missive To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Morgan... -- Justin >Date: 10 Oct 95 22:10:47 EDT >From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <72672.2312@compuserve.com> >Subject: Morgan's Tuesday Night Missive [A bit directly to me elided. -- Justin] Tibor is correct about the title of the ABA's Handbook; thanks. Also about the content. But nobody ever said that lawyers were great literaty lights, Scott Turow and Louis Nizer notwithstanding. Alysoun said: >> I was concerned about the lack of confidence before >> he posted his report and continue to be so. Alysoun, I hope you understand that Tibor is not the only person who has spent thousands from his own pocket to obtain legal advice concerning the SCA and its activities over the last couple of years. I don't think that should be a determining factor. What about the many members who are unhappy but can't afford to hire lawyers? Hossein said: >> I think that Morgan has mistaken my argument. I think that Hossein may have mistaken mine, too. >> It is irrelevant whether Tibor sent his missive to the Board, >> a kingdom mailing list, or the first hundred names in the >> Boston phone book. His opinions are his to broadcast to >> whatever venue he sees fit. That may be, but what Tibor broadcast did not appear to be an opinion from one person; it appeared to be the summary of a legal opinion letter with directives for action. >> Tibor never presented his remarks as an official statement >> of the GC; he presented them to the GC, as he presented them >> to other venues, for discussion, since, I presume, he wanted >> feedback from a number of sources and regarded the matter >> as appropriate for GC consideration. Tibor did not indicate that he was soliciting feedback on the letter, unless I missed that in going to the meaty bits. It appeared to be a statement, a warning, and a demand for action. >> My point was that any member of the GC is free to submit >> for consideration anything whatsoever -- it is part of our >> brief from the Board. Therefore, criticism of a member of >> the Council for submitting a matter for discussion is >> inappropriate and tends to chill the free exchange of ideas. I do not disagree one bit. However, Tibor was not submitting his brief for consideration and review by the GC; he clearly indicated that he had already submitted it to Board members for action. This is not the same. I don't think it was me who criticized anybody for submitting something for discussion. What I criticized was the release of a raw and imperfect document which had not been reviewed and polished. Tibor said (new thread will be started re: structure): Me: It's not clear from what you said, Tibor, whether the University would Me: retain possession of the sewing machine or tent if the student group Me: were to disappear. >> University funds, university possession. Wouldn't anything else be >> conversion? Exactly my point. What if the student group were disbanded but the SCA group survived -- as when our group consisted of a token student or two and mostly non-students, so that the University was within its right to shut the student arm down. [They didn't, diety bless, and we did some fast recruiting that took root a couple tenuous years later.] Had the student arm vanished, everything we owned, from swords and eric ropes to serving trays and beverly shears, or in your case tents and sewing machines, would have fallen into University hands. At least if we use SCA-group funds, should the student group vanish the items would remain in our hands (basements, and closets). As for the more polished version of the summary, I would like to see it, and can you email it as I sometimes have trouble downloading from a Web site? Mostly, it's the time factor; that's not an automatic on this system (that I can find, anyway) and downloading email is. ---= Morgan |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 15:00:59 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 14:25:04 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Corporations and members To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Solveig... -- Justin >From: Solveig Throndardottir >Subject: Re: Corporations and members >Date: Wed, 11 Oct 95 13:04:35 EDT >In-Reply-To: <655201.ensmtp@foxmail.gfc.edu>; from "Roy Gathercoal" at Oct 11, > 95 2:04 am Master Justin! I'm afraid I have to ask that a short response be published for a recent GC posting. Noble Cousins! I wish to post a few comments directed toward a rebutal of an earlier posting of mine. > foreign corporation. Which of these is the case depends upon whether or not > the local jurisdiction actually recognizes the existence of SCA, Inc. on its > soil or not. > > Which is the case with virtually every corporation in existence today, > including corps such as Pepsi and GM. Actually, the cases which you cite are international conglomerates which do have local corporations in the areas that they operate and these local corporations are actually frequently joint ventures and not whoely owned subsidiaries. > action was received, we moved to comply. The bias (rightly or wrongly) was > towards keeping the organization as small and as simple as was possible. I > for one have no interest in a society which is run by the lawyers, people who > commit themselves to hunting down each jot and tittle because they think the > exercise is fun. The Society for Creative Anachronism is restrained from engaging in a number of activities in the Province of Ontario because it is not a registered corporation in Ontario and consequently does not exist. This was investigated a while back by Lady Ursula (then seneschal of Skeldergate.) As for the Mandamus action. The plaintiffs were asking the corporation for information which it had legally obligated itself to provide. The corporation (as I recall) lost both the original case and the appeal. What I was citing though was an attitude by the corporation toward the membership as expressed by corporate council. The corporation was essentially claiming that members were not members in any substantive sense. The corporation equated members with subscribers. The past autocratic behavior of the imperium or the board of directors is not at all what I was talking about. Rather, it was their claims about membership. Your Humble servant Solveig Throndardottir Amateur Scholar From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 15:04:48 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 14:36:21 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Corporation or Other Format? To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Morgan... -- Justin >Date: 10 Oct 95 22:11:06 EDT >From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <72672.2312@compuserve.com> >Subject: Re: Corporation or Other Format? Since Tibor tossed this into my lap for the first message, I begin. he believes that corporate existence is unnecessary for the international umbrella organization; I believe that it is. BACKGROUND: This model supposes a future SCA consisting of many individual local corporations, at least one per Kingdom, with an umbrella organization of some sort for the whole. This would allow, more-or-less, each country's laws to apply where necessary (Lochac, Drachenwald, Ealdomere, etc.). TIBOR'S POSITION: Umbrella need not be a corporation. (I'll leave it to him to explain why.) MORGAN'S POSITION: Umbrella should be a corporation. I am used to work ing with groups such as Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts which have a similar organization. (Also other groups, but these are good examples.) They have an international umbrella and the locals are incorporated, sometimes with each Council being a separate corporation. (Been there, done the paperwork.) The advantage in this case of the umbrella organization being a corporation is that it does have the power to in essence "franchise" the situation and to ensure some continuity among the groups. A partnership or some other non-corporate organization would not. Another advantage a corporation has over a partnership is that any partner can dissolve a partnership, where the corporate existence keeps going ad infinitum (unless dissolved or abandoned). For those who do the work of the corporation, they get protection from lawsuits which a partnership cannot offer. I used the example of: 'What if something were to go wrong at 3YC? Would you want your house etc. on the line, assuming you are a partner of this non-corporation?' This potential liability could make it very hard to get anyone to sit on the board of or work for the umbrella corporation Tibor says that the key question is "What would be the role of a central coordinating organization in a distributed international environment?" In addition to vetting potential changes on the local level which could have farreaching repercussions (like use of fiberglass spears, or a new weapons style or armor standard which could affect inter-Kingdom, therefore inter-corporate, fighting events), it can act as a central distribution site for information as the SCA now distributes TI and CA. The former is similar to Tibor's "I think of it as a place to mutually determine the Landmarks of the Society, and to work out differences. A mutual recognition treaty." However, what if a treaty re: new armor standard results in injury? One guess whose deep pockets will be sought. Also, this umbrella corporation would be the official sponsor or co-sponsor for all-Worlde events such as 3YC and the various Office meetings. Scope etc. can be determined and outlined in the Bylaws and Articles. ---= Morgan |\ THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 8+%%%%%%%%I=================================================--- |/ Morgan Cely Cain * 72672.2312@compuserve.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 15:21:56 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1791 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 14:56:42 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: Morgan's Tuesday Night Missive To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <9510111807.AA16077@dsd.camb.inmet.com> from "Mark Waks" at Oct 11, 95 02:07:07 pm Greetings from Tibor. With respect, I would urge people to not make me, or my report, an issue any longer, but instead focus on whatever factual content there may be within it. Morgan wrote: That may be, but what Tibor broadcast did not appear to be an opinion from one person; it appeared to be the summary of a legal opinion letter with directives for action. I wrote it: it's mine. It was informed by other people's comments, but it's still mine, and I get to hang or hail for it. I do not disagree one bit. However, Tibor was not submitting his brief for consideration and review by the GC; he clearly indicated that he had already submitted it to Board members for action. This is not the same. I had thought posting it here was an obvious call for feedback. Sorry if that wasn't apparent. I had written: University funds, university possession. Wouldn't anything else be conversion? Morgan answered: Exactly my point. What if the student group were disbanded but the SCA group survived -- as when our group consisted of a token student or two and mostly non-students, so that the University was within its right to shut the student arm down. [They didn't, diety bless, and we did some fast recruiting that took root a couple tenuous years later.] Had the student arm vanished, everything we owned, from swords and eric ropes to serving trays and beverly shears, or in your case tents and sewing machines, would have fallen into University hands. So? The University group buys what it should have, and the SCA group buys what it should have, and so it goes. Where is the problem? The scheme I first mentioned allows both sorts of accounts to exist, and encourages appropriate purchases in both of them. What's the beef? Tibor From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 17:24:24 1995 Return-Path: Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 17:23:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Lisa Steele To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Cc: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Subject: Re: other information sources In-Reply-To: <01HWAOD2CL0W94K4VC@delphi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This message was originally submitted by lsteele@MHC.MTHOLYOKE.EDU to the SCAGC-L list at LISTSERV.AOL.COM. If you simply forward it back to the list, using a mail command that generates "Resent-" fields (ask your local user support or consult the documentation of your mail program if in doubt), it will be distributed and the explanations you are now reading will be removed automatically. If on the other hand you edit the contributions you receive into a digest, you will have to remove this paragraph manually. Finally, you should be able to contact the author of this message by using the normal "reply" function of your mail program. ----------------- Message requiring your approval (18 lines) ------------------ On Wed, 11 Oct 1995, Alban St. Albans wrote: > > just out of curiosity, tibor? lisa? you've had recent experience in this. > how much time would a competent tax-type attorney spend on our > case? and how much money owuld the board have to spend? > I gave up keeping track of the hours. If already familiar with SCA and provided with all relevant documents including my report, perhaps 20 hours. If not familiar with SCA, add in a fair amount of time to read up the corporate documents, perhaps attend a meeting or two, etc., double or triple that. Price--varies. My normal rate is $90/hour. (Tibor got a deal.) My partner charges $120/hour. A big firm partner can easily cost $250-$300/hour. You are looking at a couple thousand dollars at a guess. --Lisa From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Wed Oct 11 18:49:04 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: david friedman Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 15:11:02 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: david friedman Subject: Re: Corporations and members To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Roy writes: >I don't see it like this at all. The history of the board as I see it is a >slow movement toward greater involvement of the people in the society. It >hasn't been so very long ago that most of the board members came from one >kingdom, and all board meetings were held in Milpitas. I recall (in the >supposed good ole days) a board that was imperious in its attitude towards the >people. So do I--I was king of the East when the Board transferred the south-eastern states from the East to Meridies without even telling us they were going to do it (or that they had done it--I found out from a mention in a letter on another subject), let alone asking our opinion or consent. But I think I disagree on the direction of movement. The problem is that although the Board members probably became more reasonable over time, the organization also became bigger, which leads to less involvement--the Board is busier and the individual members correctly believe they have less influence. The change that disturbs me is not a shift towards a less responsive board but an increasing attempt to run things from the top--to require more reports and more top-down authority at every level. Connected with that (and with the Board's long term tendency to try to make membership required for more and more things) is an increasing tendency to think of the SCA as an organization, with a chain of command et. al., rather than as a network of people playing a game, with the official organization existing only to take care of a few details that cannot be handled at the local level. Let me offer one incident that I found suggestive, although perhaps I am reading too much into it. During the membership controversy, I was talking on the phone with a Board member I did not know. In the course of the conversation, she expressed her surprise at the fact that some of the letters she was receiving with regard to the controversy were by people whose english was better than hers (this is not a quote, but my summary of the sense of what she said). Think about it. I do not know what her mundane education and job were, but, given the nature of things, she could easily have no more than a B.A. and be a secretary, or the owner of a small business, or ... . I am a Professer with two books in print and lots of scholarly articles--and there is no reason why other members who have written her should not have a similar background. Yet her unthinking assumption was that she was in some general sense the superior of the members who wrote her--that (I presume) was why she was surprised that some of them wrote better than she did. I think (perhaps mistakenly) that that reflected the attitude of a Board that felt as though it is (or should be) the top of the hierarchy, and that the rest of us fit in as something between employees, customers, and electorate (despite the lack of elections). I suggest that Roy reread the Board letter that went out in defense of the compulsory membership decision, and see if it sounds as though its authors favored "greater involvement of the people in the society"--other than the sort of "involvement" that the readers of advertisements have in the goods being advertised. As to the Mandamus petition ... . Roy does not make it clear whether he believes that the Board's actions in that controversy were indefensible but the petitioners should not have taken legal action anyway (A position I think defensible, although not one I hold) or whether he believes the Board acted correctly in refusing to obey its own bylaws and forcing members who wished to exercise the rights provided in those bylaws to spend quite a lot of their own money in order to do so (a position I think indefensible). But I suggest that the attitude expressed in his comments seems to be "we were doing the right thing--what business did they have jogging our elbows"--which again takes it for granted that it is up to the Board to decide what the Society will be like, and the rest of us ought to limit ourselves to whatever role in the process they assign to us. David/Cariadoc David Friedman School of Law Santa Clara University From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 12 07:40:45 1995 Return-Path: Priority: normal X-Mailer: ExpressNet/SMTP v1.1.5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved-By: Roy Gathercoal Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 04:10:50 -0800 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Roy Gathercoal Organization: George Fox College Subject: Fwd: Re: Corporations and members To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L >From Gareth. This came to my mailbox. I do not think I have met the author (David James), but since it is critical of my post, I think the best thing to do is to post it without further comment. So here goes: ----------------------------------received post--------------------------- Please read and post the following to the SCAGC-L list. Thank you. On Oct 11, 2:04am, Roy Gathercoal wrote: > Subject: Corporations and members > >From October 1, Solveig writes: > > > Add to this the historical development of who is a "member" of SCA, Inc. > >At one point, anyone who attended an event was (according to Corpora) a > >"member" of SCA, Inc. Now, it appears that even people who buy membership > >cards may not be "members". That was part of the position taken by corporate > >council (according to accounts posted by the CSOS) during the mandamus > >hearings. What the mandamus suit was really about was forcing the > >corporation to treat members like insiders instead of like outsiders. > I don't see it like this at all. The history of the board as I see it is a > slow movement toward greater involvement of the people in the society. It > hasn't been so very long ago that most of the board members came from one > kingdom, and all board meetings were held in Milpitas. They've traded uniformity of location for uniformity in mindset. Not an improvement. > I recall (in the > supposed good ole days) a board that was imperious in its attitude towards the > people. Violating the corporations by-laws multiple times; invoking emergency measures and then not explaining what the emergency was; implimenting changes explicitly opposed by a vast majority of the membership... These are not imperious??? This is what the Board of the winter of '93 did. Given this statement and the one above it, are we talking about the same corporation? > I see the mandamus (misnamed, except for the intimidation factor) > stuff as an action against me and my organization--an action which > strategically came at a very vulnerable time in the organization's > development. Some reforms had been put into place already, and action against > a former officer accused of embezzlement had just been/was just being > resolved. As a result of a number of things, including the mandamus action, > many of these reforms have been trashcanned. The action has delayed, not > improved potential for real reform. Then I'm afraid that you are speaking from ignorance. That is not an insult, it is simply a statement that you do not have the knowledge you need to understand the situation, and so are basing it solely on rumor and emotion. I suggest you get those facts (they are a matter of public record) and educate yourself before continue to state things exactly backwards to the way they were and are. Specifically, your statements exhibit a lack of understanding of the mandamus action; the events that preceded it and that resulted from it, it exhibits a lack of awareness of the timing of the events you refer to and how they interacted with the crisis in the corporation in early '93 (the embezzlement proceding, for example, was already resolved, and had nothing to do with the boards claimed monitary crisis nor the mandamus action). Last, there was nothing I would call a reform in progress, unless you consider the previous years decision to require membership to fight a 'reform'. David -- From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 12 10:25:32 1995 Return-Path: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 11539 Approved-By: Mark Schuldenfrei Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 09:45:36 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Forwarded mail... To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Angharad, by Tibor. Forwarded message: From jtn@eng2.uconn.edu Wed Oct 11 22:48 EDT 1995 Date: Wed, 11 Oct 95 22:49:23 EDT From: jtn@eng2.uconn.edu (Terry Nutter) Message-Id: <9510120249.AA07898@lurch> To: schuldy@abel.math.harvard.edu Content-Type: text Content-Length: 10881 [Forwarding request deleted by Tibor] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Greetings to the Grand Council from Angharad ver' Rhuawn. I'd let all this go, except that I think that one thing the GC should be thinking about is whether we _want_ to be the kind of organization that the criteria for a 501(c)(3) corporation describe. I don't think we do, and I think the reasons are fundamentally different from those that have been mentioned to date. Ray Gathercoal wrote: > To claim that education can only occur within formal classroom settings is an > error. The SCA is educational, to its core. To argue that because there is a > social component, it is no longer educational is to construct two things out > of one. All effective learning about culture is social, and most of all sorts > of learning is social. Many instructors in traditional classrooms spend hours > agonizing over how to make learning more social, in order to increase its > effectiveness. (I think it was Teaching Professor that recently featured an > article called something like "Confessions of a reformed lectureholic") Recently, arguments in favor of the SCA's legitimacy as a 501(c)(3) have centered on the notion that "taking education out of the classroom" is legitimate. I'm not sure anyone believes otherwise; the problem is, I think that's the wrong question. What bothers me has two parts. First, is "taking education out of the classroom" really what we're doing? Second, is the social aspect of the SCA really in service to a primary educational function, or is it an end in itself (and in many ways, a more important one than the educational goal)? Tibor has been addressing the second, I think. What I'd like to do here is address the first. The essential reason the SCA does not look to me like an organization whose primary goal is education is that we don't seem to care whether what people learn at our events is so. Quality control must be central to education; but it is so far from central to what we do as an organization that it seems, at times, almost antithetical. Note: I am neither claiming that no learning takes place in SCAdian settings, nor that I would like to transform the SCA into something different in this particular regard. Simply, it seems to me that it is far more important to us to show people a good time, and to make them feel good, than that anyone learn anything about the real middle ages. This preference runs so deep, that when there is any chance that correction of a misapprehension might make anyone feel bad, we tend to militate pretty strongly against that correction. And we certainly don't require people to show that they have something accurate and well documented to teach before we invite them to use our events as a forum to teach it. To try to make my point clearer, let me describe what I think _would_ be an educational organization that did what our articles of incorporation said we do. Again, I am not saying that I think the SCA should do this, or that I think the SCA would be better if it did, or anything else. What I am describing, is what I think a legitimate 501(c)(3) with our articles of incorporation would be doing -- and I don't think it is us, and I don't think it could be. The local group of this organization wants to hold an event, the purpose of which is to educate and to provide a forum for various members to demonstrate the results of research. They want to make it fun, so that people will learn better. So first, the person in charge decides what kind of thing s/he wants people to learn about. S/he decides that he wants to give people a better sense of what a real 15th C tournament accompanied by a fair was like. The first step, since there is far too much here for any one person to handle alone, is to delegate the subtasks. Accordingly, s/he finds someone into research on period tournament styles to handle the tournament, someone into research into period heraldic practice at tournaments to handle that side of it, and someone into fairs to handle that. They sit down together and settle on a compatible tournament form, set of heraldic practices, and fair structure. They find people to agree to produce the more significant necessary props -- tournament stands, fair structures, etc. Together, the team puts in a bid to the group, describing the details of what they plan, how it is educational, what the sources of their information are, and what it will all cost (and how it will all get done). Because the purpose of the group is not just education, but accurate education, they send out the bid to people in the larger area with expertise in the various subjects that the bid covers. These people send in reviews, that say whether this meets normal standards, and may also include suggestions for improvement. The local group decides whether to go ahead. If they do, the organizers take care of all the usual details. They also put together a booklet, describing all the stuff that went into designing the event, where they got their information, what they punted on, what is accurate and what is compromise, and where to learn more. (This should not be too hard, since a lot of this information was in the bid. There is probably a member of the event team whose job is just putting this together.) These booklets may come with the entry fee, or they may be sold. But beyond just the organizers: the merchants must agree to sell wares appropriate to the setting; to display them in an appropriate way; to use an appropriate booth; and so on. Some of this can be provided for them by the event organizers, by previous arrangement. Merchants not meeting the standards of the event will not be permitted to sell. Likewise, people coming will be required to meet a general "from ten feet" rule on appearance, or use loaner outfits available (possibly at a small fee) at sign-in. They will also be required to make a serious attempt, while on the tournament and fair grounds, to behave in a manner that does not disrupt the atmosphere. People participating in the tournament will, of course, abide by its rules, including any restrictions on styles based on the selection of the kind of tournament. That is what a tournament might look like. One might, alternatively, hold a day of revelry, including a feast. If one were doing this, one would similarly examine the eating habits of the time and place (which includes for instance that the main meal would probably be midday) and the dance of the time. Serious attempts would be made to dance the dances as they were done at the time -- not as full contact sports, or as sharking opportunities (unless the practice is documentable) or playground romps, but with style, verve, and grace. (Which of course includes flirting, but again, with style.) The booklet would explain the structure of the feast -- what is authentic and what is compromise; why the particular dishes were chosen, and where they came from; why they were served in the particular order they were, and at the particular time; what would have been different in a real medieval feast; and likewise for dance. One might, alternatively, provide a reproduction of a day at a large noble house, showing the forms of passtime that hospitality provided. Or one might reproduce an evening at a tavern; or a day at court (real court; not the schtik we do, but court as it was at some time and place); or, in a less time-bound framework, a day of musical entertainment from across several centuries, or a day of comparing food methods, or early versus late tournament patterns. Or a day of classes. All of these things sound, at some very superficial level of description, like what we do. The difference -- what makes it all not-SCA -- is the constant emphasis on the historical middle ages, and on quality control in education. That control need not mean credentials, but it must mean care taken to see that what is taught is true. It need not mean that people starting out have to be knowledgeable; but it does mean that we must not let ignorance _masquerade_ as knowledge. It means that "reasonable effort" must mean _real effort_, and that we must be prepared to stand by that. It mean that elves simply don't belong. One might play a mummer playing an elf -- but that would be explicit, and one would have to mumm, in an appropriate sort of way. It means that "The Dream" would not justify ahistoricity. It means a final ajudication against fantasy. It would probably mean a very strong trend toward narrow focus events, for the simple reason that it is very difficult to educate accurately about most things in any other setting. But in that case, it will wind up, I fear, forcing people into "persona for the week" or greatly limiting some people's access to events (or condemn them to always borrowing/renting kit). It means an unflinching readiness to distinguish historical fact from historical conjecture from ungrounded flights of well-they-coulda fantasy. It means being willing not only to give, but to accept, criticism explicitly for lack of historical accuracy. It means tightening our criteria for teaching and for publication _tremendously_. It means, for instance, sending out submitted _CA_ monographs for review to people who know something serious about the area. It means similarly vetting class proposals for events ranging from Collegia to Pennsic (at present, the way you get to teach a class at Pennsic is by saying you want to; and nobody ever checks whether what is being taught is fact, fiction, or fantasy; same for most collegia, etc., that I have been in any way involved with). And it almost certainly means far fewer events, and a heck of a lot more work going into each. And probably, less purely social activity, at least in the main portion of the organized event. There are a few isolated corners of the SCA (Carolingia comes to mind) where an occasional event may meet some of these standards. I think it is clear, though, not only that the overwhelming majority of events in the overwhelming majority of areas do not, but that most SCAdians would resist moving in the general direction of doing so: because _this is not what we are about._ This -- not any arguments about "wierdness", or any concerns about educational venue, but the difference between what our events are like versus what it would be like to _teach real history through_ events -- is why I think our claim to 501(c)(3) status is false. That doesn't mean that we do not teaching. It also doesn't mean that I don't like what we do. I just don't believe that education is, ever was, or ever will be the _sole significant purpose_ of what we do. And that's the IRS's criterion. -- Angharad/Terry From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 12 10:34:54 1995 Return-Path: Apparently-To: SCAGC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 10:04:03 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L for the agenda for November and December. Am I correct that Janna is counting votes on this or just votes for leader? On leadership, we have a nomination of Tibor by Terras. We have a message >from Caroline that she will have something to say on this. Tibor has indicated that something relevant to this will be discussed at the Board Meeting. Should we continue nominations or wait? In the meanwhile, can we have a temporary agreement on how to post? I would find it helpful if people would put their name in the subject section and number their response on a particular thread (my next post on this subject would be Alysoun: Procedure-2). This will help us know which procedure message someone is responding to and should also save having to copy so much of a previous message. Thus: in Fred: Procedure-1, Fred can say "In response to Alysoun: Procedure-1, keep nominations going" and if Diane disagrees, in Diane: Procedure-1, she can make it clear that she is disagreeing with Fred and not Alysoun, without having to copy Fred's message which copied my message. If someone can suggest a better way to track the discussion, please present it. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 12 10:47:38 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 15:13:46 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: Re: landmarks Comments: To: Rooscc@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Lady Alysoun has asked me about the Landmarks discussion. I think that the= =20 GC should be aware of the concept and the discussion, but the matter isn't= =20 directly relevant to what we're supposed to do here, so I urge you to refra= in=20 >from continuing the Landmarks discussion on this forum at the present time.= =20 =20 >Several times the Landmarks discussion has been mentioned. Can you tell me >more about it? Just briefly, as I've got Mundania knocking *very hard* at my office door.= =20 The Landmarks discussion was conducted last Spring on Internet by an ad-hoc= =20 group, in response to the need for an explicit formulation of the *contents= *=20 of what the SCA does, as differing from its form, the SCAInc, if we should = use=20 contents as the element that keeps the Society together.=20 The Landmarks are intended to be *descriptive*, not normative. Ideally, the= y=20 should be the result of maximal consensus among a substantial part of the=20 membership, but what the ad-hoc group wanted to do was to provide a proposa= l=20 for various parts of the membership to react to.=20 The Landmarks should serve to determine what it is that distinguishes the S= CA=20 >from other similar organizations - reenactment societies, medieval recreati= on =20 groups, Renessaisance fair organizations, live steel groups, early dance=20 groups etc. etc. etc.=20 The Landmarks should be the smallest common denominator for SCA groups:=20 a group can do lots of things that the Landmarks don't mention, but if it d= oes=20 things that go expressly against the Landmarks, then it's a "foreign" group= ,=20 not SCA. For example, *if* we determine that using rattan combat to select rulers is= =20 a landmark, a group using a championship system (having a champion fight in= =20 a Crown tourney for a non-fighting couple), could still be SCA; a group=20 choosing kings by general election wouldn't be considered SCA. (Incidentall= y,=20 I happen to believe that this actually is one of the Landmarks.) Ideally, the Landmarks would serve as guidelines for an international umbre= lla=20 organization having as its task to keep us all "playing the same game", und= er=20 a system where groups would be free to handle the modern-administrative=20 aspects of their activities in ways best suited to the legal reality of the= =20 country or state where they are situated.=20 Thus the Landmarks concept provides a way of being a federalist on the mode= rn=20 level, without being a secessionist on the medieval level. To me personally= ,=20 this would be the optimal solution to the problems the Society is facing in= =20 an international context. =20 =20 >You can e-mail me direct if it isn't relevant to the Council or if most of >the others already know it. Some Council members were part of the ad-hoc group, most were not.=20 At present, I'm trying to get the coordinator from last spring to let me ha= ve=20 a copy of the complete Landmarks files, as I haven't saved everything. Unle= ss=20 I can get it within a reasonable time, I'll use the incomplete files I've g= ot=20 to try to formulate a Landmarks proposal to present to the GC and, more=20 important because I think it's their business, to the IKC. After a period of comments from members of these two bodies, a new proposal= =20 should be made and presented to the general membership through the Kingdom= =20 newsletters and TI. I don't really think that the Landmarks are GC business, other than=20 indirectly. So: I invite any Landmarks-groupers out there to make additions= =20 and clarifications to the way I've presented the project, but please addres= s=20 other Landmarks comments, such as "is X a landmark?" "I think X should be a= =20 landmark because...", "what's the latest Landmarks proposal?" directly to m= e=20 by private e-mail. As I said initially, I don't think that we shouldn't hav= e=20 a Landmarks discussion on the GC at this moment. =20 /Catrin Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 12 10:53:10 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Approved-By: Janna.Spanne@KANSLI.LTH.SE Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 15:12:00 +0100 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Janna Spanne Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Ok=E4nt_=E4mne?= To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L (Did Alysoun's message start like this, or did the real beginning disappear= =20 in Cyberspace?) >for the agenda for November and December. Am I correct that >Janna is counting votes on this or just votes for leader? I'm willing to count votes on anything that we agree to vote on, unless the= =20 proposal is mine.=20 >On leadership, we have a nomination of Tibor by Terras. We have a message >from Caroline that she will have something to say on this. Tibor has >indicated that something relevant to this will be discussed at the Board >Meeting. Should we continue nominations or wait? Sounds like we should wait until after the Board meeting.=20 (By the way, any of you who get my messages stuffed with "=3D" and "=3D20",= =20 this happens because your e-mail program can't process MIME standard.=20 Try changing to a newer version, it should be able to handle MIME and=20 remove the weird signs before the message reaches you.) /Catrin =20 Janna.Spanne@Kansli.LTH.se From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 12 11:52:21 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 11:20:04 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun: Agenda-1 To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Pause and consider who we are and what discussion is relevant. The future holds one of several different possibilities. The first is that SCAinc will remain essentially as is with possible changes in the by-laws. The second is that SCAinc will be dissolved and different governance systems will need to be developed. The third is that SCAinc will substantively change (umbrella organization, etc). Which of these possibilities occurs will not be based on our discussion because it depends on factors external to the GC (IRS rulings, board decisions, etc.) However, our discussion can have effect in each possible world if we will approach the topic in an orderly and practical fashion. If we will discuss how the Board can be made more responsive in SCAinc, there is the chance that the Board will adopt our recommendations. If SCAinc dissolves, that same discussion can be useful for those developing new systems. If that discussion provides a sufficient rationale, the Board may move closer to an umbrella or other model. It is counterproductive to ignore matters which will be relevant no matter what the future holds. Getting rid of corporation membership does not solve the problem of membership. The same problem will exist in the branches if they are incorporated or if they function in an umbrella organization. The problem of top-down decision making and an isolated and unreponsive governing body will exist in the branches or in an umbrella organization. If we can find ways to address these problems for SCAinc, those ways will also serve for the other possible models. There are other factors which have not been given much space which will have deep repercussions for the game regardless of our system of organization. We have increasing visibility in the US and Canada. We have increasing participation outside North America. We have increasing participation (number of people playing). We have an increasing number of families with children in a game that was developed by singles. We have an increasing number of people aged 50 and above in a game which was developed by people under 30. The impact of these factors may be far greater than changes in the organizational structure. Many of the GC members have a definite preference for a particular future model. There is no need to debate these preferences. We have plenty of things in common to discuss and we can come to agreement on a range of solutions that will be useful for all the models. From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 12 12:08:31 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Rooscc@AOL.COM Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 11:29:15 -0400 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: "Carole C. Roos" Subject: Alysoun, Procedure-2 To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Okay, so much for the subject format I just suggested. What the heck is wrong with it? The colon? Alysoun From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 12 13:04:41 1995 Return-Path: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Approved-By: David Friedman Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 09:31:01 -0700 Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: David Friedman Subject: Proposal to Restructure the SCA as an Association To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L I sent the following out but have not received it, so I suspect the old address I sent it to no longer works. I am therefore sending it again. ---- Apologies for my temporary absence from these discussions. I have now more or less recovered from moving across the country and taking a new job, and gotten morstly up to date on the Council's doings (aside from some things that seem to have missed me during the move). The following is a proposal (and arguments in defense of the proposal) for dealing with what I think is the most important defect in the present structure of the SCA. I would appreciate comment--both criticism and suggestions--after which I will offer a revised version for a vote. --- Beginning of the Proposal --- I. The SCA Inc. is presently organized on a unitary model; every local group is considered a sub-sub unit of a single international organization, every penny received or spent by the smallest shire is income or expenditure of that organization and must be kept track of and reported accordingly. We ought instead to shift to the association model typical of many other hobbies. Under a pure form of that model, the SCA Inc. is an association whose members are (legally independent) kingdoms; each kingdom is a regional association whose members are (legally independent) local groups. For reasons to be discussed below, we would want to make use of a somewhat less pure form of the model. II. The reasons to make the change are: A. The association structure corresponds more closely to the way the SCA works. Kingdoms and local groups are not run by an appointed hierarchy running down from the Board of Directors and the Steward; they are run more nearly as separate organizations, controlled by their membership with some input from above. B. The shift would drastically reduce the administrative and accounting problems presently facing the central organization. At present, the SCA Inc. is legally responsible for keeping track of millions of dollars of expenditure made by thousands of amateurs all over the world-and tries to do it with a handful of employees and volunteers at the center of the organization. The result is an organization that cannot, with the best efforts its volunteers and employees can offer, keep track of all the relevant information, and ends up two years behind on its tax reports and with no very clear idea of its own financial situation. This situation will get worse as the organization gets larger. Under the association model, most of that problem goes away. The SCA Inc. is responsible only for income to and expenditure by the national organization. It need neither know nor care about the financial affairs of the Barony of Carolingia or the College of the Grey Gargoyles. C. The shift would reduce the potential liability problems of the organization. At present, every local officer is, theoretically, an appointee of the SCA Inc., many of them are legal representatives of the SCA Inc., and every official event is a function of the SCA Inc. That makes the whole organization liable for a tort committed by any local group-despite the fact that the central organization has, in practice, very limited control over the acts of local groups. Under the association model, legal risks are mostly confined to the groups that create them. In order for a plaintiff to collect damages from the regional or central organization he must show that the injury resulted >from acts or omissions of that organization-not merely that it resulted >from acts or omissions by someone in a group that is a member of that organization. This has two advantages. The first is that I no longer have to worry about my local group being liable for the acts of people on the other side of the country, and they no longer have to worry about liability for our acts. Each of us is responsible for what is under his control. The second advantage is that the risk of legal action against any of us is greatly reduced. A local group with twenty members and a few hundred dollars in its treasury is a much less attractive target for a lawsuit than a corporation with hundred of thousands of dollars of assets and millions of dollars of (reported) income. III. The Transition: The change should be made in a way that does not impose unreasonable burdens on local and regional groups. The easiest way to arrange this is local option. A kingdom that wishes to retain its present relationship with the central organization will be permitted to do so, at least in the short run and perhaps permanently, and similarly with groups that wish to remain subgroups, rather than members, of their kingdoms. The result will be a mixed model, in which the central organization has both group members (kingdoms) and individual members (members of kingdoms that have not chosen to become legally independent), and similarly for the regional organizations. Hopefully, over time, more and more kingdoms will choose to take charge of their own affairs, moving the SCA closer to the federation model and producing more of the benefits discussed above. IV. Who decides: In order to implement this proposal, each kingdom must decide whether it wishes to become legally independent and, if it does, how to organize itself. This raises an obvious question: who decides? My suggestion is that proposals be put together in whatever fashion each kingdom currently makes decisions, and that the SCA Inc. then poll the paid membership within each kingdom on whether to accept the resulting proposal. . V. Conditions for group membership: In an association model, the central organization's control over the regional organizations takes the form of the conditions that it imposes for membership. Thus, for example, the Corporation might require, in order that a kingdom be permitted to be a member of the Corporation, that the kingdom agree to retain a system of sovereigns elected by combat, or agree to recognize peerages of other member kingdoms, or some other set of common standards. My own view is that we should aim at a fairly minimal set of requirements, so as to maintain a common game while permitting a good deal of experimentation and diversity, but that is another issue that should be discussed. VI. Role of the central organization: Under the association model, the central organization offers the regionals services that it thinks can better be provided on a larger scale. That might include insurance, subscription to a Society-wide publication, arbitration of disputes within or between regionals, and the like. In most cases, regionals that believe they can provide (say) insurance better on their own are free to do so, although there might be some services whose acceptance is one of the conditions of membership. For instance, the rule might be that every kingdom must require every local group to have one member with a subscription to the Society-wide publication, in order to maintain at least a minimal element of society-wide communication. --- End Of The Proposal --- After writing out the proposal, I came across the following quote from GC #30. I think it nicely illustrates the problem. Gareth is correctly describing what our organizational structure purports to be but not, in my experience, what it is. "...with the kingdom officers as deputies of the society officers, and branch officers as deputies of the kingdom officers, and all officers as charged with the welfare of all of the members everywhere ..." On another issue, Gareth writes: "The alternatives to having a self-selecting vocal minority "speaking" for the majority are not, of course, limited to having a self-selcting silent majority "speaking" for the populace. This is why I have proposed that the board take as its main function the active promotion of discussion among the entire populace about the really important governance questions, then engage with the people on a regular basis over these issues. " But that still ends up with a self-selected vocal minority--the ones who attend the meetings where the board engages with the people and speak up--speaking for everyone. Most people in the Society, as in most large organizations, are not interested in "the really important governance questions." They joined the SCA either because they were interested in history or because they thought it would be fun, not in order to spend their time discussing how the group should be run. I think some of the bad feelings remaining from the recent unpleasantness are due to people on both sides feeling as though they were representing the mass of the membership and the other was a small elite on a power play. The truth, so far as I can tell, was that a considerable fraction of the membership had no idea anything was going on, a considerable fraction of the rest had only the vaguest idea what was happening, and many of the rest did not care. The active people on both sides were a small minority. This brings me back to one of the reasons I support the Association model. Many people are interested in, and knowledgable about, the affairs of their local group. Fewer are interested in and knowledgable about the affairs of their kingdom, and still fewer about the affairs of the whole Society. The way to get people involved with, and in control of, governmance is by moving as much as possible of the governance down to where the people are. Finally, let me comment, very briefly, on the "are we an educational organization" issue: 1. What IRS rules require is not merely that we produce education, which I think we obviously do, but that almost all of our resources go to producing education. On the face of it, we fail that test, since a large fraction of our resources seems to be devoted to social purposes. 2. The best counter-argument I can think of is that the social purposes are necessary for the educational purposes. We cannot force people to attend classes and any degrees we provide are of very little use in the job market, so the only way to get people to learn about the Middle Ages is to make doing so fun. 3. I do not know whether or not the IRS would buy that argument. David/Cariadoc David Friedman ddfr@best.com From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 12 14:05:50 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 13:25:37 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: landmarks To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <951012.151346.16410@macpost.lu.se> (message from Janna Spanne on Thu, 12 Oct 1995 15:13:46 +0100) Catrin writes: >I invite any Landmarks-groupers out there to make additions >and clarifications to the way I've presented the project Just a quick comment on this subject: as the person who started the Landmarks discussion in the first place (well, Master Steffan and I have alternated starting it in various times and places over the past several years), I'd say that Catrin's summary of the thing is pretty accurate... -- Justin Who will note that the term is directly lifted from Masonic usage; this is how the numerous Masonic Grand Lodges stay in synch... Random Quote du Jour: "Seeing a few posts on Picts reminds me of something on of my House members has told me, regarding the question of what became of the Picts. Consider: 1) They were short. Even the Romans (a not very statuesque people) thought them so. 2) They used woad a lot, and hence were blue. Some few would even bleach their hair white. 3) They were considered a bit magical. hmmmmm..... Picts are ancestral Smurfs." -- Eirik From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 12 14:15:27 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 13:50:21 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: Proposal to Restructure the SCA as an Association To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: (message from David Friedman on Thu, 12 Oct 1995 09:31:01 -0700) A couple of comments on Cariadoc's proposal note: First, a meta-point: >I sent the following out but have not received it, so I suspect the old >address I sent it to no longer works. I am therefore sending it again. Yes, at this point I believe "scagc-l@listproc.princeton.edu" to be *very* dead. I don't think even I am getting messages from it any more. Everyone, please remember to switch your aliases over to AOL instead... Now, on to the meat: The proposal is interesting. My gut rebels a little against the bit-by-bit nature of it, but that's the nature of a compromise: it doesn't wholly satisfy anyone. It *does* mean that, eg, I would be able to argue for separate incorporation of the East, without disturbing more conservative Kingdoms significantly. The counter-argument will undoubtedly be made that this will mean that the SCA will be somewhat less homogeneous, which is probably true. On the other hand, I don't count that as a weakness, and I might well count it as a strength. It *does* presume that the central body has some control over the game, so things wouldn't wander too far. I think that, in practical terms, it requires a codification of SCA Landmarks (to serve as a guideline for the center with regard to what really *is* within the scope of the SCA); however, I think that that project would be useful in any case. It does not solve every problem, by any stretch of the imagination. It still leaves open most of the questions about how the SCA, Inc should be structured with respect to the groups that do stay wholly owned by it. It also doesn't deal with how much control the associated regions have over the center, which will be a very important issue. But not every proposal needs to deal with everything. Overall, it's not bad. I suspect it's a compromise that everyone could live with, although it would spark some furious debates within some Kingdoms about what they should then do. (I am *quite* sure that the East is not of one mind on this. I'd suggest a possible amendment allowing local groups the local option if their Kingdoms don't go for it wholesale; however, this *does* complicate things a bit.) I'd vote for it, I think... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: As Alfred E. Newman once said: "Life is like golf - You strive for the green and end up in the hole". From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 12 14:20:30 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 13:51:09 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks Subject: Re: landmarks To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L Forwarded for Solveig... -- Justin >From: Solveig Throndardottir >Subject: Re: landmarks >Date: Thu, 12 Oct 95 11:19:25 EDT Noble Cousins! I have the collected Landmarks discussion and (last I heard) am responsible for editing a landmarks report. The accumulated landmarks discussion occupies approximately 800kb of disk space and anyone who wants a copy of it can have it via ftp. Please send me email if you really want this stuff. I have promissed an edited version of the thing and one will be produced. (But, doesn't this sound a bit like the morass of the financial analysis of the stuff recovered from the mandamus suit only in tiny miniature?) Your Humble Servant Solveig Throndardottir Amateur Scholar nostrand@mathstat.yorku.ca From owner-scagc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Thu Oct 12 14:25:02 1995 Return-Path: Approved-By: Mark Waks Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 13:57:25 EDT Reply-To: SCA Grand Council Discussion list Sender: SCA Grand Council Discussion list From: Mark Waks To: Multiple recipients of list SCAGC-L In-Reply-To: <199510121404.KAA10506@emout05.mail.aol.com> (Rooscc@AOL.COM) Alysoun writes: >On leadership, we have a nomination of Tibor by Terras. We have a message >from Caroline that she will have something to say on this. Tibor has >indicated that something relevant to this will be discussed at the Board >Meeting. Should we continue nominations or wait? When is the Board meeting? The 21st, or 28th? I don't mind waiting a little, but I don't want us to spin our wheels for *too* long... >In the meanwhile, can we have a temporary agreement on how to post? I would >find it helpful if people would put their name in the subject section and >number their response on a particular thread (my next post on this subject >would be Alysoun: Procedure-2). This will help us know which procedure >message someone is responding to and should also save having to copy so much >of a previous message. Thus: in Fred: Procedure-1, Fred can say "In response >to Alysoun: Procedure-1, keep nominations going" and if Diane disagrees, in >Diane: Procedure-1, she can make it clear that she is disagreeing with Fred >and not Alysoun, without having to copy Fred's message which copied my >message. I can't see it working. I have a lot of experience with mailing lists and newsgroups, and I've seen *many* experiments that tried to use subject line formats. None have ever worked better than weakly, except for cases where the messages and subject lines were controlled by a moderator. People just don't think to change their Subject: lines when they are replying to a message. Some people might actually follow this, but I can't see it being more than a small minority. It just doesn't match the realities of email. I would say that the right way to handle it is the usual way: use judicious quotes when they seem to be appropriate, in order to set the context. Yes, this eats a shade more bandwidth. But it's the way the rest of the Net works. We're busy enough trying to reform the SCA here, without trying to reform the Internet... -- Justin Random Quote du Jour: "U.S. Out of North America" -- Kevin Carothers