======================= Grand Council Chronicle ======================= Issue #1 -- February 3, 1995 This is the Grand Council Chronicle, the proceedings of the Grand Council of the Known World, a body chartered to examine the structure of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc., and make recommendations of changes. The contents represent the opinions of the contributing authors, and do not necessarily represent the official policies of the SCA, Inc. ---------------------------------------- Letter from the Grand Council Coordinator Greetings from Carol L. Smith (Lady Caroline Forbes of Oxfordshire), Grand Council Coordinator! This letter is to welcome you to the Grand Council. In it I explain the purpose for the Grand Council, present my expectations for Grand Council members, and start us going on our work. I'll also cover some administrivia. I hope this letter won't be too long, but it might. You've been warned. WELCOME Welcome to the Grand Council! Thank you all for volunteering to participate. We have a lot of work cut out for us over the next two years, and I appreciate you being here. Although the idea of a Grand Council has been around almost a year, we were finally chartered by the Board of Directors at their meeting on January 14, 1995. The charter is elsewhere in this mailing. Please read it carefully. PURPOSE OF THE GRAND COUNCIL The charter states our purpose and scope as: 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. SCOPE Broadly, the GC scope is to examine all facets of the SCA, Inc., from the Bylaws to waivers to the level of centralization. Narrowing this focus will enable the GC to provide the best possible recommendations to the Board. The GC will initially focus on the areas below. Focus Areas * Mutual relationships between branches and the Corporation * Mutual relationships between participants and the Corporation * Goals of the Corporation (strategy) * Methods of the Corporation (tactics) This means that we, the Grand Council, can look at any part of the modern running of the Society we choose, with the support of the Board, and make recommendations for how to change it to make us more able to meet the needs of the participants. The scope helps us narrow down that broad purpose into areas we should tackle first. If you'd like to take a stab at starting a discussion on any of those areas, go right ahead. EXPECTATIONS AND THINGS TO REMEMBER Our role in the Society is unique. We have been asked to look at parts of the organization which have never been examined, just created to handle the needs of the moment. But we're not part of the medieval structure of the organization; we hold no precedence at events. So we can focus on how the corporation should work within this global Society. For you there are 3 roles. One is to think about what is written in these mailings carefully and with an open mind. The second is to discuss these topics we will cover as widely as possible -- at events and meetings, at postrevels, on your kingdom's email list, and wherever else makes sense. Finally, write what you've learned for the rest of the Council to consider. Make suggestions, offer thoughts, present new topics to cover. Without all three, we will not be able to understand how Lochac's views differ from Drachenwald's and how Trimaris is similar to AnTir -- and we will not make fully informed recommendations. There are a couple more things to remember. We are a large and diverse group of people, many of whom have not and will not meet each other in person during our time on the Council. We will be communicating via letter or email, which is different from talking in person or on the phone. Comments may be taken out of context very easily. Please think carefully before you write. TO DO LIST First, introductions. I "know" many of you, either in person or from reading your applications. But you don't know each other. We should introduce ourselves briefly to get started. I'll begin. Lady Caroline Forbes of Oxfordshire is a 14th Century lady from England now living in Calontir. She has also lived in Trimaris, Atlantia, and the East, and has been to events in 9 of the Laurel Kingdoms. Caroline served as Seneschal of Atlantia and has done a bunch of other administrative work. Carol L. Smith is a Process Improvement Manager for Monsanto in St. Louis, Missouri. She has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and an BA in Economics from Duke University. Carol has also done work for a number of non profit organizations. Next, we need to begin on the topics at hand. If you have ideas on any of those listed in the scope, please send them in. I'd like to get a discussion going with a bunch of thoughts to start with. Finally, we also need to figure out how to determine if a proposal is ready to go to the Board. Do we vote on it? Do we get a consensus over a period of time? I'd like to get that determined before we have something almost ready to go. ADMINISTRIVIA Some of you may be wondering how we're choosing the remaining members of the Grand Council. I have received about 100 applications for the remaining 20 spaces. Myself, Lord Tibor of Rock Valley, and Baron Corwyn da Costa are reviewing these applications to find the remaining members. If you'd like a list of who has applied, or if you know that someone has applied and would like to comment on that gentle, please send me a note or email. The review process is an open one, so your comments should not be anything you wouldn't want that person to hear. We hope to have the list narrowed down by Estrella. As you may know, Master Justin du Coeur is handling the communications portion of this Council. See his missive for his policies, and contact him if you'd like to help. Donations to cover postage are always welcome! Do you want names and addresses of all the other members? If you think this information would be helpful, let me or Justin know. If you've read all this and have decided you don't want to be on the Grand Council, that's fine. Please call me or send me a note (email is fine) letting me know. That's it for now! Again, welcome and thank you for agreeing to help in this challenging endeavor. I remain, ever in Service, Carol/Caroline 1 February 1995 ---------------------------------------- Unto the members of the Grand Council does Justin du Coeur send Greetings! I have been appointed Secretary to the Grand Council. (Well, I was actually appointed Chairman of the Communications Committee, but the Laurel in me rebels at the painfully mundane name; please forgive the conceit of the self-chosen title.) As such, my job is to deal with the day-to-day issues of keeping the Council in touch and communicating. The Council is too big and too spread-out to meet in person on any regular basis; indeed, it isn't clear whether we will ever have any all-Council face-to-face meetings. (Frankly, I'd be astonished if it were ever possible to get everyone in the same place at the same time.) Therefore, we need mechanisms that allow us to hash out the Big Issues that we are supposed to be talking about, without actually getting together in person. This letter describes my proposals for how we go about doing that. Please forgive the great length; I have to admit some rueful amusement at the fact that Caroline was worried that *her* intro was long, when mine is several times the length. Please note -- nothing in here is final. I've talked with a bunch of people in a bunch of places, who have expressed their concerns about how the Council should run. What I describe here is my best attempt to put together a compromise that deals with the major issues. It isn't perfect, but I believe it should work adequately for the task at hand. However, the Council as a whole is the final arbiter of how business should be conducted. I'm prepared to be over-ruled on most of the decisions herein (there are one or two basic philosophical points, such as having the proceedings open to the public, that I am pretty set on). Indeed, there are a few issues where I haven't even decided where *I* stand; the pros and cons of those issues get discussed in some detail below, and I am actively seeking opinions on them. These policies will be in effect for the time being, while we get started. If the Council decides to change things, we will change them as we go; I don't promise instant response (some things might take a while to set up), but I'll try to be as responsive as possible. Now, with those caveats out of the way, on to the meat of the policies: ----------------------------------------------------- Proposed Policies for GC Communications -- Short Form ----------------------------------------------------- The following is a brief rundown of the policies I'm proposing. Below, I've got all the gory details on *why* I'm suggesting them, but this is a concise precis of the whole thing. -- Board Members will be able to post to the GC Chronicle just as GC members do. We might want to have top-level Corporate Officers do so also. -- GC Members will receive the Chronicle by email if they have it, and by postal mail if they do not. -- Non-GC members will have full access to the Chronicle, via mailing list, FTP, Gopher, WWW, and postal subscription, insofar as is feasible. -- The Chronicle will take the form of a once-a-week digest of all messages sent by members of the GC. -- The discussion may be slightly edited; I am looking for opinions here. The likeliest form of editing would allow the editor to "reality-check" messages with flames, flamebait, or redundancy, but would *not* give him final power to reject articles. If there is demand, we might have the editor organize the letters into more coherent "threads". The editor should not "kibitz" articles. -- We will allow people to produce summaries of the doings of the GC, but with a few caveats. -- Non-GC members will not be able to post to the Chronicle directly, but members of the GC will be encouraged to pass on any and all useful and relevant messages. -- I would like to post any and all contact data for Council Members in an upcoming issue, so people can find you. Please send me the information that you are willing to have released publically. -- The GC should, insofar as possible, be self-supporting; *everyone*, but particularly members of the Council, is urged to do a little fundraising to make this happen. I reiterate that none of this is final. However, if you want to debate one of the topics, please make sure that you've read the full discussion of the topic (below) first, so we don't hash out ground I've already covered. Note that I would like to settle these details soon; in some cases, they really affect operations, so I'd like to deal with them in the next month or so. Please, think about it now, and if you have objections to any of these policies, send them soon. ---------------------------------------------------- Proposed Policies for GC Communications -- Long Form ---------------------------------------------------- This section will outline not only what the proposals are, but why I'm proposing them. It's pretty detailed; I've attempted to collect several months' worth of debate and thinking here. The conclusions are presented in the summary above -- this is all the reasoning that underlies them. -- Grand Council "Members" Throughout this, I will be referring to "Members". If it's ever unclear, this has *nothing* to do with having a paid membership of the Corporation; rather, it refers to Members of the Grand Council, a body of some 20-40 people who have been appointed to work out the Society's structural problems. For the moment, I am working under the theory that Board members, and probably top-level Corporate Officers, are sort of ex-officio members of the Council; if they have anything to say, I think it is probably worthwhile for us to take that into account. For the moment, I will be passing messages from them on as if they were from appointed Council Members; the Council should consider whether to keep that policy. -- GC Member Access to Discussion There has been a lot of debate about this topic among the people working on setting up the Council. There are at least a few people who feel pretty ardently that *all* GC members should have access to the Net, and that we should be arranging access for any members who do not have it. There is a strong case to be made here. One lesson of the past year is that the Net does have its advantages; in particular, it allows a discussion to proceed *very* quickly. Indeed, one major cause of the frictions we've been seeing is a difference in timescale. The Corporation (Board and Officers) tend to operate through phones, letters, and personal meetings; the result is that things happen over a period of weeks and months, even (sometimes) years. The Net facilitates extremely quick, and sometimes very thorough, discussion. Within a few days of last January's Board meeting, an enormous volume of discussion had already occurred, with many useful (and some less useful) proposals put forth, and some people were already prepared for active work on those proposals. That *did* prove that Net has some striking advantages. In particular, I would suspect that an entirely Net-based, interactive GC would conduct its discussion significantly faster than we could do otherwise. But there are also some very real counter-arguments. One, which I don't think is overwhelming but is a matter of some concern, is that the Net *does* seem to breed a particular political slant. For reasons that have never been adequately explained, people on the Net tend to have a rather more "libertarian" viewpoint than the general populace; this is the case for both SCA and mundane politics. It's by no means universal, but it's *very* striking statistically. And unless we can be sure that this isn't cause-and-effect, we risk putting some very real skews into our deliberately broad-based makeup. (Especially because, even today, most people in the Society are *not* on the Net.) Another is expense. As I will discuss below, I would like to see the GC be self-supporting, as an example that we do *not* have to lavish large sums of money in order to function. Paying for hookups for every member of the GC could well be prohibitively expensive; in sections of the country that don't have a local high-tech industry or university, it can still cost very real money. Working through the postal mail is a bit less convenient, but much cheaper in some cases. Finally, there are simply people who just don't like the Net. Even in Carolingia, one of the most hooked-up places in the world, there is a non-trivial minority of people who aren't on the Net in large part because they don't care for the mechanism. I would prefer that we not skew our membership to exclude such people; every opinion is valuable, no matter what mechanism gets used for their input. Therefore, we will be trying to conduct a sort of hybrid mailing list. Mailings will go out over email to anyone who can receive them that way; this will cost us considerably less. Any member of the Council who does *not* have email will get the Council Chronicle via postal mail. We will attempt to keep these more-or-less in synch with each other, as discussed more below. Any member of the Council who does not have Net access, but wants to get it, should contact Nathan Adelaar (listed below under the volunteers), who will try to help you out. We can't promise to provide financial support for this, but you are welcome to do any fundraising you see appropriate to help out. (The postal mail digest will initially be handled by paper; if anyone wants it, there is some benefit in trading floppies instead (this would involve less, and more predictable, weight), so please speak up if you think you'd like to use or run such a thing.) -- Non-GC Member Access to Discussion One point on which I am *quite* set is that the Grand Council should conduct its business as out-in-the-open as is feasible. The main discussions will be publically available, in a number of forms. For those on the Net, they will be available as a mailing list, and will be archived and available via FTP, gopher, and WWW. For those not on the Net, we are attempting to set up a couple of "subscription services" so that people can keep track of what's going on; more details are available below. I firmly believe that the GC will succeed in its mission of devising strong and durable structures for the Society only if the general populace stays informed and involved in the process. While I am open to suggestions and tweaks to the process, this is probably the one principle described herein that I am *not* willing to back down on unless someone gives me a damned good reason. -- Format of Discussion: Weekly Digests This is an issue I've thought long and hard about. Should the discussion happen in the interactive, free-form way that is natural to the Net, or should it be a bit more structured? I've come to the opinion that the best mode is probably regular digests, for a number of reasons. (When I say "free-form", I mean a simple Internet mailing list, where all messages immediately get transmitted to all other members of the list, or possibly a newsgroup like rec.org.sca. By "digest", I mean a collection of all messages sent to a central point, which get collated together and sent out as one unit on a regular basis.) One obvious reason is the non-Netted GC members. If the discussion happens in a free-form way, they will clearly be disenfranchised. The speedy nature of Net discussions means that, by the time they received a collection of messages in the mail, and responded, the rest of the group would probably be long since on to other topics. This sort of discussion will really only work if all members of the Council are on the Net. Another reason is to keep the tone under control, and improve the message quality. Over the years, I've observed that people tend to put more care into messages if they know that they will *not* be received immediately. If you have a deadline of, say, next Tuesday, you're more likely to think about the subject for a day or two, and maybe rewrite your message a bit, instead of dashing off an instant reply. Not everyone will do this, but many will, and every little bit helps. This *should* result in a discussion that is a little cooler, with better-thought-through messages on average. Another is to keep a more even throttle on the volume. Interactive discussions tend to be very boom-and-bust. They are quiet for a while, until someone proposes an interesting topic, at which point they can explode, with people sending literally hundreds of messages per day. (I mean these numbers seriously -- these are provocative topics we will be discussing, and that level of volume has been common on the reform mailing lists at times over the past year.) Everyone argues about the topic for a time, until everyone is sick of it, at which point volume drops precipitously for a while, and the cycle starts anew. In the meantime, any other, less visceral topics tend to get lost in the verbiage. A weekly list is likely to see less of these cycles -- digests tend to have rather more predictable volume. For many of us, who are trying to balance the GC with a number of other responsibilities, I believe that that sort of reliability would be a boon, and enable us to contribute more regularly. Finally, interactive lists are almost always heavily dominated by those who have email at work, and fast Net connections, because those people tend to respond to every message quickly, before most others have read it. (I've been *very* guilty of this one over the years.) A digest would greatly reduce this tendency, and hopefully encourage everyone to contribute more evenly. -- Discussion: Edited or Not? This is an unusually difficult subject, one which I haven't even developed a firm opinion on, so I *am* looking for opinions and guidance from the Council at large. The question is, should the GC Chronicle be at all edited? Note that I am *not* talking about "heavy" editing here; I wouldn't even contemplate giving the Editor the ability to arbitrarily pick and choose among articles. Rather, the question is, should the articles be at all massaged to make the whole more readable? I see three possibly useful modes of editing: 1) Flamage elimination. As I've mentioned before, the topics we're discussing are ones which people care about deeply, and about which they have strong opinions. I hope that a digest will reduce the amount of flaming on these subjects, since people will have less tendency to post on the spur of the moment; however, it is a fact that some flames (and even more "flamebait" -- messages that someone is bound to take offense at) will be sent from time to time. Should the editor have the power to say, "No, that's just too offensive; rewrite it."? The result would probably be a signifiantly calmer debate, overall. (For those not up on Net lingo: a "flame" is some form of personal attack. There are many varieties; in general, they tend to arise when messages start flying quickly and people read in personal accusations. More often than not, they lead to counter-flames, and often to "flame wars", where the actual topic gets mired in the heat of the argument.) 2) Redundancy elimination. All discussions of this sort tend to have high levels of redundancy, where multiple people will say the same thing at more-or-less the same time. The result will be more bulk in the digests, that doesn't carry any new and useful information. Should the editor be allowed to trim such redundant sections, producing a slimmer (and probably easier-to-follow) digest? 3) Organization. We are inevitably going to find ourselves discussing several things at any given time -- the nature of the subject matter is *extremely* conducive to tangents. It may be easier to follow the discussion if these various subjects are grouped together, if the editor can subdivide letters into logical sections, and put those sections together with other similar letters. The main counter-argument is simple: any of these, unfettered, could put a dangerous amount of power in the hands of the editor. Even with the best of intentions, it's not clear that *anyone* is sufficiently unbiased to trust with that much control over the debate. I have a lot of faith in my own ability to set aside my biases when appropriate, but I'm not sure I would even trust myself with this. Compromises may be possible. Several people have proposed roughly the same middle-ground policy on flaming. In this, the editor wouldn't have an absolute right of editing or rejection; rather, he or she would have the power to ask, "Are you sure you want to do this?", and briefly delay the article if needed. In other words, if someone submitted an article that looked like probable flamebait, the editor could say (for instance), "I'm almost sure that Sir Foobar will hit the roof when he reads that. Can you reword it?" If the submittor says, "No, I want it exactly the way I said it", then it goes in as written. This is probably a reasonable compromise for the flamage problem -- it won't eliminate it, but it should greatly reduce the number of spur-of-the-moment flames that get in. A similar policy could work for redundancy, although I would be inclined to work it a little differently. When multiple messages said essentially the same thing, the editor would choose one that made the point well, and note after it that specific other Council members made the same point. If any members object (for whatever reason), then their version would run in the following digest. (I suggest the less interactive way of handling this mainly because I expect it to arise *much* more often than the flame problem.) The editor should err on the side of caution here, and print multiple versions if there appears to be *any* significant difference in viewpoint. As for the third topic, grouping of subjects, I think this one is more a matter of taste. I'm not at all desperate to see it implemented; as the likely first editor, I can see that this would result in a moderate increase in my work on each issue. But if people think it would be sufficiently useful, we can probably do it. One more suggestion here: the editor shouldn't "kibitz". Some edited newsletters tend to have the editor responding to articles immediately, with little postscripts all over the place. This gives the editor considerable power over the discussion. While it has its place, I think that it is inappropriate for this forum -- allowing the editor to have the last word all the time gives them rather too much influence, I believe. Therefore (assuming the editor is a member of the GC), he should make a particular effort to write up his own contributions to each issue *before* editing the rest. I am willing to serve as the editor if we need one, at least for the time being. If anyone objects, please speak up; I'm not wedded to the job. And we should have at least one deputy editor -- the fact that this first issue is a couple of days late, due to personal illness on my part, illustrates that vividly. So think about whether you'd want to play backup editor; I will need someone, if we decide to have editing. For the time being (the first few weeks), I will be doing no editing at all; it seems inappropriate to do so while we're deciding whether it is a good idea. If no one major objections have been raised after that time, I will probably start editing along the lines of the compromises suggested above. -- Summaries of the Chronicle A related topic is what I think of as "subediting". Some of the people who have volunteered to run the subscription services for non-GC members have expressed an interest in producing a "summary" version of the doings -- perhaps a twenty-page article each month, outlining all of the major points being made. My initial reaction to this was a bit negative, since I don't like the possibility (maybe inevitability) that these summaries will be at least a little biased. Upon some thinking, though, it's become clear to me that there are some good reasons for allowing it. First, some people aren't going to be up to slogging through the entire GC chronicle, but might be interested in reading five or ten pages a month -- if this leads to more people being involved in the process, then it's probably a good. Second, there isn't much we can do to control it -- if people want to summarize the doings of the GC, we can't stop them. Better to acknowledge that, and help them do it well, than rail against the practice. So, I'd say that we give an overall okay for people to produce and distribute summaries of the GC minutes, but with three caveats: 1) We should ask those producing these things to be as fair as possible, and to acknowledge their biases honestly in advance, so people can assess what they are saying with an informed eye. 2) We ask people producing these things to acknowledge explicitly that these are only summaries, and provide pointers for those who want to read the complete minutes. 3) We declare that it is the responsibility of GC members to follow the full discussion, not the summaries, so that they get the fairest and fullest view of the discussion possible. -- Non-GC Member Postings The initial policy, as stated above, is that only GC members can post directly to the list. This is mainly to provide a check on the level of volume (the last thing we need is for the GC to turn into another Rialto), and to insure that the people posting are the ones who have been charged with following and thinking about the subject particularly carefully. However, we must recognize that non-GC members will often have useful insights into this process; even a committee as large as the Grand Council won't think of everything. Therefore, I propose that members of the GC have the right to repost anything that they think contributes to the discussion (with permission of the author, of course). Such postings would be subject to the same rules as postings written by GC members (whatever those evolve to be). GC members would be expected not to abuse this right; if someone starts reposting everything sent to him, no matter how incoherent or irrelevant, then we may have to reconsider. Overall, though, I think that this would be a good policy for helping everyone have a voice, both those on the Council and those not. And it will strengthen the process as well, helping us avoid the sort of groupthink that has often caused the Board such problems. Indeed, I would go even further, and say that GC members have the *responsibility* to pass on messages that are relevant, rational, and not redundant. To this end, I would like to post the addresses of the members of the GC here sometime soon, so that people can get in touch with you if they have something on their mind. (Either a message to pass on, or simply thoughts they would like to share.) Therefore, I would appreciate it if all members of the GC *please* tell me, over the next two weeks, what addresses (if any) you are willing to have published. Email, postal address, phone number, and/or home group might all be useful in helping someone find a Council member to talk to. -- Funding As I mentioned earlier, I would personally like to see the GC run as cheaply as possible; my ideal would be that we do not need to ask the Board for any money at all. To that end, I would like to suggest to people that they start thinking about ways to raise a little money. We don't need tons; I expect that we'll wind up using only about $500 a year, but that will depend on a lot of factors. Please, anyone who can help out, let's demonstrate that fiscal responsibility is *not* difficult, if we think about it from the beginning. (This isn't really a policy, but it seemed the right place to put it.) ----------------- Practical Details ----------------- -- How to Post For the time being, until we decide the edited/non-edited issue, I'm just going to assemble the issues by hand. Therefore, for the moment, all postings for the GC Chronicle should be sent to me at: Mark Waks (Justin du Coeur) 82 Montclair Avenue Waltham, MA 02154 justin@inmet.com 617-891-3057 before 10pm EST Electronic (email or PC disk) submissions are preferred when possible (less retyping), but I'll cope if you have to send hardcopy. Please allow an extra day for typing, if you send hardcopy. If necessary, I'm willing to consider accepting submissions by FAX, but it isn't trivial, so I'm not encouraging it except in cases where a response needs to get in quickly. Contact me if you think FAX is the way to go. Remember that only members of the GC can post directly; GC messages from other people *will* be dropped on the floor. (I only have so many hours in the day.) My current plan is that I will put issues to bed and assemble them sometime Tuesday; they will then go out into both email and postal mail on Wednesday. Take this into account when budgeting your time for replies. -- How to subscribe electronically As mentioned before, anyone can subscribe to the GC mailing list; this will get you the GC digests as soon as they come out. To subscribe, send a message to: listproc@lists.princeton.edu The body of the message should be just: SUBSCRIBE SCAGC-L Substitute your real name (SCA or modern) for . GC members should already be on the mailing list, if you have sent us your email address. The mailing list is administered by Lord Kwellend, who also runs the SCA Heralds mailing list. If you have *technical* difficulties that can't be resolved by the listproc program, contact him at: vnend%nudity@Princeton.EDU -- How to subscribe by postal mail GC members who do not have email will automatically receive the Chronicle by postal mail; Brother Crimthann, in the Outlands, has volunteered to deal with that. If you are not a member of the Council, and want to receive the Chronicle by postal mail, we have a few volunteers who have offered to help. They (and their policies) are: -- Lord Dani of the Seven Wells has offered to handle the Chronicle sort of how an APA (Amateur Press Association) runs. People who want it should send him a check. Each month, he will print out and mail the month's worth of Chronicles, and deduct the cost from your "account". When you get near zero, he will send a reminder. He suggests sending at least $20 to start. (We're not sure about how big the issues will be; he suspects they will be large.) Dani would also like to offer a monthly summary of the GC discussions that have gone on; he believes that many people would prefer to read a more concise summary than the full debate. Note that this is still subject to full GC approval; I hope to have this settled within the first month. This summary would be intended to stay under 20 pages, and people could subscribe simply by sending 55-cent SASEs to him. (He is willing to eat the copying costs, so long as not *too* many people are subscribing, but reserves the right to ask for a little money to cover copying if the amount proves significant.) His address is: Dani Zweig 7634 Westmoreland Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15218 dani@telerama.lm.com -- Philippa de Ecosse is offering to run a service similar to the complete-Chronicle one that Dani is offering. Again, people should send her checks periodically; she would put out a collection of Chronicles once a month, and deduct the cost. She is willing to accept stamps as well as checks. She will be using professional typesetting equipment, and hopes to keep the text reasonably compressed, so her costs may be a bit lower than Dani's; she suggests sending $5 initially, and will see how far that goes. To subscribe, send complete name and address information (legibly) plus the check or stamps to the following address: Phyllis Gilmore P.O. Box 13042 Torrance, CA 90503-0042 gilmore@rand.org -- Catrin of Nordmark has volunteered to provide subscriptions for people in Drachenwald. Exact details will, of course, depend on what country you are located in. To contact her, write or call: Janna G Spanne Nyckelkroken 50, S-226 47 Lund Sweden Phone +46 (country) (0)46 (area) 109750 office +46 (0)46 129985 home, no later than 9 pm local time fax +46 (0)46 104531. If other people would like to provide subscriptions to the GC Chronicle, I am always looking for volunteers here. I am leaving the exact format and details largely up to the volunteers, and ask only that a complete and fair view of the doings of the Council be given. Talk to me for more details. -- How to obtain back issues of the Chronicle Exact details are still being settled. Suffice it to say, gopher, FTP, and WWW sites have been established, and we are working on the precise addresses where they will be found. More information in the next couple of weeks. -- Help for GC members getting on the Net If you are on the Council, and would like to get access to the Net (which provides faster and sometimes cheaper access to the Chronicle), contact Sir Nathan Adelaar, who has offered to at least try and help people out with this. He can be contacted at: Nathan Clarenburg (aka Nathan Adelaar) 1536 Harry Road Manhattan, Kansas 66502 (913) 537-4222 voice days & eves till 11:00 PM CST (same number for fax if alerted beforehand) nathan@depot.cis.ksu.edu And *that*, I believe, is everything I need to say this time. Thank you for your patience, my apologies for the verbosity, and I hope to debate productively with you all in the coming months... -- Justin du Coeur Secretary ---------------------------------------- Grand Council Charter Approved by the Board of Directors, SCA, Inc. 3 January 1995 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. SCOPE Broadly, the GC scope is to examine all facets of the SCA, Inc., from the Bylaws to waivers to the level of centralization. Narrowing this focus will enable the GC to provide the best possible recommendations to the Board. The GC will initially focus on the areas below. Focus Areas * Mutual relationships between branches and the Corporation * Mutual relationships between participants and the Corporation * Goals of the Corporation (strategy) * Methods of the Corporation (tactics) The GC is charged with managing discussions and providing recommendations on these focus areas to have them completed by the Winter (January) 1997 Board meeting. The project schedule to achieve this timetable will be presented at the April 1995 Board meeting. Completing the projects before the Winter (January) 1997 meeting, if possible, is encouraged. Additional projects may be added to these focus areas by the GC, or may be requested by the Board, but each project must be managed so that the GC can appropriately discuss and make recommendations on all it has been asked to consider. This scope, and the role of the GC in general, will be re-examined at the Winter (January) 1997 Board meeting. At that time, the Board will agree to continue the work of the GC, disband the GC, and/or create another council to discuss specific issues. RELATION TO BOARD OF DIRECTORS The GC is an advisory committee to the Board of Directors and has no power to enforce the recommendations it makes. However, given that the GC is made up of Society participants from a large cross section of the populace, its recommendations should be considered with respect to this diversity of membership. The Board will therefore consider the proposals and recommendations of the Grand Council at open meetings. BOARD RESPONSIBILITIES The Board of Directors has the following responsibilities for the Grand Council: * Actively support the mission of the Grand Council * Appoint a Board Member to serve as Ombudsman for the GC * Be available to discuss the current situations and possible proposals or recommendations with GC members * Appoint an appropriate officer as liaison to answer day to day questions of the GC * Agree to place the proposals and recommendations of the GC on the agenda, in New Business, for the next quarterly open meeting of the Board GRAND COUNCIL MEMBERSHIP There will be no fewer than 16 and no more than 40 members on the Grand Council. Membership will last for 2 years, or until the Winter (January) 1997 meeting of the Board of Directors. Members can re-join the GC should it continue after the Winter (January) 1997 meeting. Paid membership in the SCA, Inc. is not required for membership on the GC. If a member resigns from the GC by notifying the Coordinator in writing or by email, another will be appointed by the GC and confirmed by the Board, keeping in mind the then-current needs of and for diversity within the GC. This appointee will join as soon as appointed and will be noted in the next report to the Board for confirmation. Should a member not participate in GC discussions for a period of two consecutive months, the member will be reminded of his or her non- participation by the communications coordinator. At that time, the member will be given the option to resign from the Council. Two such periods of non-communication will result in replacement. GRAND COUNCIL MEMBER RESPONSIBILITIES Members of the GC have the following responsibilities: * Actively participate in GC discussions and decisions via Internet email or letter, as appropriate * Frequently discuss the issues facing the GC with Society participants in whatever forum(s) are appropriate (Kingdom email lists, events, the Rialto, local meetings, etc.) * Consider all sides of discussions and options presented and provide recommendations based on those discussions * Attend GC meetings if at an event where a meeting is held. Meetings could be held at Pennsic, Estrella, etc. STRUCTURE OF GRAND COUNCIL The GC is charged will developing an organizational structure which will enable it to accomplish its objectives. This structure will be presented to the Board at the April 1995 meeting. The following structure is proposed, given the current types of projects and communication methods. One member be will appointed the Communications Manager. This role is to be the conduit between the Internet list and the paper mail, posting paper mail messages and mailing the Internet postings weekly. This person would also prepare the cohesive project update to the Board for each meeting. Justin du Coeur (Mark Waks) has volunteered for this position. A project manager will be appointed for each project. These people would be responsible for running each project, including creating the schedule, managing discussions and proposals, communicating with the other project managers on joint issues, and creating the presentations to the Board. Internet email access is strongly encouraged for these positions. These people will be appointed before the April 1995 Board meeting. One member be the overall Grand Council Coordinator. Caroline Forbes of Oxfordshire (Carol L. Smith) has volunteered for this position. The exact role of this coordinator will be determined by the GC, but might include ensuring that all projects remain on track and acting as the main liaison with the Board. PROPOSALS TO THE BOARD Recommendations and proposals will be made to the Board when the GC feels the recommendation or proposal is ready. Final determination of readiness will be at the discretion of the Coordinator with the assistance of the GC Board Ombudsman. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS The GC will report to the Board at each of the Board's quarterly meetings. Reports, proposals, and recommendations may be presented at any of these meetings. Interim reports will be presented to the appointed liaison and the GC Ombudsman at appropriate intervals. Proposals and recommendations will contain both majority and minority opinions of the GC, if applicable, and recommendations for implementation. Summaries of proposals and recommendations made to the Board will be placed in the next available issue of Tournaments Illuminated. AMENDMENTS TO CHARTER This document will be made available to all who request it and will be published as widely as possible. This document may be amended at any time by the GC and presented at the next quarterly Board meeting for confirmation/approval. Amendments will be included in the Society Seneschal's notes on that Board meeting. RELATIONSHIP TO IAC The GC will not handle issues better suited to the IAC. Communication with IAC members is crucial to ensure that projects do not overlap. ---------------------------------------- From: CLSMIT@ccmail.monsanto.com Subject: GC TOPIC: Gathering at Estrella ============================================= Grand Council Gathering at Estrella There will be a gathering of Grand Council members at Estrella on Saturday the 18th. Time and location to be determined. If you will be at Estrella, please try to come. We will primarily be getting to know each other -- to put faces with names. Hope to see you there! Caroline ========================================== ----------------------------------------