======================= Grand Council Chronicle ======================= Issue #11 -- April 12, 1995 Contents of this issue: Nathan: Many Topics, including Delphi notes Modius: Thoughts and Comments Alban: answers to 2 questions Magnus: Intro Alysoun: No Haste; Heavy Stuff; Mission Caroline: Business as Usual After the Board Meeting Tibor: Items from 4/95 BoD Meeting News of Great Importance 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. ---------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 15:29:57 -0500 (CDT) From: Nathan Clarenburg Subject: GC - Chronicle letter TOPICS: Grand Council structural changes: Delphi Group Voting and Polling mechanism Progress Reports Request for information Mission Statement SCA,Inc. distinct from Society Services provided by umbrella organization Need for centralized authority Territoriality International needs Specific Proposals Greetings from Nathan Adelaar! Lots of comments - I'll be as concise as possible and will list specific proposals for action at the end of this letter. GC STRUCTURAL CHANGES In my opinion, there are two critical problems with current GC structure; these are an inability to vote on issues and a lack of focus to our discussions. We lack the ability to vote on issues for two reasons: 1) We have no established procedures for voting; and more basically 2) We have no individual(s) empowered to identify and write up the issues we should vote on. How can we achieve a consensus or submit a proposal when we have forty different ideas about exactly which issue we're discussing? Our lack of focus is in large part due to our email-inspired format of brainstorming in print. Brainstorming has some very important strengths, but tends to be ineffective at producing focused results - especially when the subject matter is very broad, when there is a need to achieve consensus, and when there is a time/generation limit on commentary. I'm not saying the GC is incapable of fulfilling its goals, but merely that it seems unlikely given its current structure. DELPHI GROUP When Liz Johnson originally proposed the GC, she spoke of using the model of Delphi groups. My understanding is that this is an orchestrated form of brainstorming that works something like this: Based on the commentary to date a coordinating group crystallizes the discussion into a series of questions/threads which they send out to the group. The GC comments on these threads in its usual free-form fashion until the central group refines the threads and sends them out again. In this way there is a process of successive approximation which allows us all to give input into both the substance and the wording of the ideas and proposals we craft. 3-6 of these cycles are often sufficient to work out proposals from raw, brainstormed ideas. Discussion should not be limited to these threads, but the coordinating group should probably prioritize and try to focus our work. VOTING AND POLLING Who calls for a vote? I've seen several proposals related to GC functioning made so far, and no actions taken towards taking a "vote". If a group of members "called" for a vote it would take weeks for the rest of us to be sure it was actually happening. I don't have confidence in this system. I suggest empowering some central group of individuals to commence a vote when any issues have been sufficiently crystallized in their opinion. Actual ballots (email or posted) should be due within 25 days of the call for voting, and the results published in the next available Chronicle. This would give us a lag time of about one month - slow enough to give thought to issues and deference to poor postal systems, and fast enough to enable us to vote multiple times if necessary on a given issue within our council's lifetime. PROGRESS REPORTS Modius pointed out the requirement that we give quarterly reports of our progress. I believe our progress would be easier to judge and more accurately represented by the results of the Delphi process outlined above. It also helps to focus the "loyal opposition's" points. NEED FOR REAL INFO - A wish list. I would like to see current reports from the Insurance Committee and Waiver Committee. I'd also like to know the results of any official legal advice the Society has paid for or solicited regarding insurance, liability, the chirurgeonate, 501(c) status, and international law (especially regarding incorporation and taxes). I also believe Bertram has made a strong enough hypothetical case for outsourcing that we should request that the Board officially solicit more detailed information about it specific to the SCA. I am not convinced that outsourcing is our Grail, but I am convinced that this is data we should have on hand when we are considering our options. MISSION STATEMENT The ideal would be a succinct statement that states the umbrella organization's purpose without imposing form on how it accomplishes that purpose. I believe that Tibor's proposed mission statement does this. We have privately discussed whether the word "organize" should be a part of this statement; I believe it should be included because I see the two primary roles of the umbrella organization as organization and facilitation (details below). SCA, Inc. DISTINCT FROM THE SOCIETY The umbrella organization is NOT the Society. It helps the Society to function, provides some oversight and conflict resolution, helps it to interact with the "real" world, and tries to bring economies of scale and professionalism to some of the Society's necessary services. I'm in strong agreement with those who say we should not re-make the Society. We don't have the right, and in my opinion that's WAY beyond our duty. I believe we need to re-make only the umbrella organization, as much as possible. SERVICES PROVIDED BY UMBRELLA ORGANIZATION Alban suggested that we consider if the umbrella organization might provide services that it doesn't currently. I agree. For example there is a substantial amount of money in local and Kingdom accounts (land funds, endowment funds, etc.) that could benefit from centralized investment advice. There is additional coordination and publication that could benefit recruitment and A&S. The Board may or may not be the proper place for these functions, but I think we can have a fruitful discussion by brainstorming about what centralized services could be useful or economical. NEED FOR CENTRALIZED AUTHORITY I see a need to centralize some of the rules the Society plays by. Otherwise I fear that we'll Balkanize (agree with Eichling). Cariadoc suggests that there is no need for a central authority to impose homogenaeity on our organization. To paraphrase him, we are fairly homogenous because of 1) Parallel evolution; 2) We want to play together; and 3) There is contact between neighboring kingdoms and people who move between kingdoms. I agree that all these factors exist, but disagree that they are sufficient to hold the Society together. Parallel evolution suggests that there should be only one medieval recreation organization - a fact that'll disappoint many in Marklanders, Acre, and several hundred European medieval recreation organizations (many of whom have their own standards for armor, costume, and combat which are incompatible with ours). Wanting to play together is sufficient to make us negotiate for compromise rules of combat during major wars, but not sufficient to make our rules alike. In fact we tend to derogate other Kingdoms whose rules are different from our own. I suggest that this is a force which would help to break us apart in the absence of a common Marshallate. The people who move between Kingdoms usually assimilate the culture they move into, instead of changing their new Kingdom to be more like their old one. Most recent imports who too loudly sing the praises of their old Kingdom don't make friends easily and rarely prosper in their new groups. TERRITORIALITY If it ain't broke, why fix it? Households, guilds and special interest groups prosper under the current rules. Why change the rules? The main rationale for changing these rules seems to be to enable more widespread incorporation at a local level, a proposal I'm extremely uncomfortable with due to the problems we're ALREADY facing in relying on local volunteers to process local checking accounts and financial records. Enacting a proposal that gives these groups even more lattitude and less oversight would seem to be invite more financial trouble and problematic audits. When I brought up the issue of non-territorial and overlapping groups at a recent Calontir Althing in front of 150-200 of our current officers, they strongly rejected it. Among other objections they thought it would destabilize local groups, make recruitment and local contacts more problematic, and be a pain to oversee and support. Moreover, this seems more like an effort to remake the Society itself instead of the umbrella corporation's structure. I'd strongly prefer a proposal less likely to impact the way we play the game itself. INTERNATIONAL NEEDS The recent posting on Canadian needs spoke eloquently and specifically about problems with our current system. As a stopgap let's propose that the Board actively attempt to comply with Canadian tax law and find out what we owe. If UNICEF pays taxes in Canada it's likely that we should, too. If we determine a way to restructure that legally avoids future tax liability, that'll be ducky. What's our tax liability in other countries? Are foreign tax laws mainly concerned with subscriptions, donations, feast and site fees, sending money to foreign corporations, or all of the above? SPECIFIC PROPOSALS The following are concrete proposals I'd like to see discussed and acted upon: 1. That we identify four separate GC Coordination roles: a) Liaison with Board b) Oversight of committees and progress c) Administrating Votes and Polls d) Facilitation of Chronicle commentary towards making proposals 2. That we adopt the organization of a Delphi Group. The current position of "GC Coordinator" should encompass the first three roles. A 3-person committee should be selected to coordinate and faciliate the Group (4th role) as described in my commentary above. The Coordinator and this committee should set and constantly re-evaluate a dynamic agenda for GC discussions based on their perception of GC priorities, Board priorities, and their own common sense. 3. That voting procedures should be established. The Coordinator will publish in a Chronicle an explicit statement of the issues we're voting on. Votes will be expected to be RECEIVED within 25 days of that publication. Results will than be published in the next Chronicle. 4. That only GC Members may vote. 5. Request that the Board furnish us with the following information: a) Current report from Insurance Committee b) Current report from the Waiver Committee c) Results of any legal advice officially solicited or paid for regarding Insurance, Liability, the Chirurgeonate, 501(c) status, Incorporation, Tax Liability, and International Law. 6. Request that the Board solicit detailed information from Outsourcing providers. This may include soliciting a couple of concrete bids. 7. Request that the Board actively attempt to comply with Canadian tax law and find out what we owe. 8. Request that the Board solicit competent advice concerning our current tax liabilities in other countries in which we "do business". Nathan Adelaar Calontir GC Rep ---------------------------------------- From: modius@dobharchu.org (Erik Langhans) Date: 04 Apr 95 09:34:44 -0600 Subject: Thoughts and Comments Greetings from Modius Monsdraconis. The SCA exists in a mundane world and its structure needs to be set up in such a way that the contact point (ie Corporate) can interact with the mundane world. Corporate is the bridge to the mundane world. Decentralization is okay in some respects, but we need a centralized corporate office. Corporate would handle Registration and memberships, act as the central repository for Heraldry (ie names and devices), oversee contact with the IRS and other governmental entities, and publish TI. The services provided by Corporate need to be well published. The Society members need to know what services the Corporate office provides. I strongly agree that "The corporation needs to be more of a service to the local groups and kingdoms than a generator of new policy and new procedures. Once the Corpora and Bylaws are organized in this way it will be easier to allow local groups to flourish and grow within the guidelines established for insurance and liability needs of the whole SCA." We need to discuss more specifics in regards to what the individual kingdoms can handle under a policy of decentralization. We need to remember that this works only if have enough resources (people/volunteers, and money) to fill these new Kingdom offices. We also need to keep the BoD as the highest level of decision making in the SCA. I also feel that the BoD needs to delegate much more than it has been doing. This will become more critical as the SCA grows over the next five years. To ensure positive and helpful growth we need to keep the SCA together not facilitate the splinter groups who can defect in mass. A few of the GC members have put forth ideas which may result in such. The SCA needs to minimize differences and provide a common medium of play. That is what corporate needs to be focused on. I as a rapier fighter from Ansteorra may not be able to go to East and fight under the exact rules of combat which I have trained, but there is commonality. Generally, differences in combat rules can be worked out in a mutually agreeable fashion (ie Gulf Wars, Estrella, and Pennsic). I agree with the GC members who stressed that the GC make no recommendations without some consensus or near-consensus. We need majority and minority opinions of the GC with our recommendations. These recommendations need to be quarterly. We need a timetable for when we present these quarterly recommendation, who will write them, how we vote on them, and what the populace feels of these proposals. These all need to be kept in mind in order to determine the timetable. That in my estimation will take over one month per quarterly reccomendation/update. Time is ticking. The GC's life span is only two years. Let's start hammering out the points we agree with and get feedback on them from the populace. In our first quarterly missive to the BoD we need to find out if they are willing to delegate some of their power and if so, what aspects. We need to discuss the checks and balances. We need to discuss the mechanism which the BoD will use to ensure the items which they have delegated have been carried out. Many of our thoughts revolve about this topic (ie delegation of banishments to the IAC). modius@dobharchu.org ---------------------------------------- >From ALBAN@delphi.com Sun Apr 9 22:55:23 1995 From: ALBAN@delphi.com Subject: answers to 2 questions Topic 1: What should the Mission of the SCA, Inc. be? *to facilitate research into pre-seventeenth century europe. (we should encourage any and all research, whether it be on food, dance, garb, wars, politics, religion, death, disease....) *to facilitate the re-creation of _certain aspects_ of this research. (we do want to encourage dancing, feasting, and garb-making. we do not want to encourage re-creation of the plague, the inquisition, or the mass slaughter of children on crusade.) Topic 2: What should the role of the Board of Directors be in the day to day running of the Corporation? *non-existent, except in rare cases of absolute emergency. the board should set strategy, not tactics. it should set broad policy, at monthly or quarterly meetings, and leave the implementation of that policy to its line officers. this is the way most corporations are run. alban ---------------------------------------- I, Magnus Maguire, write to make introduction to my fellow members of the Grand Council. As ASCII provides no proper font for 9th Century Irish lettering, I have rendered my name using modern Irish script as follows: Maghnuis MaolMhichel Brogan MagUidher. Appropriate to Period but inappropriate to Uniformity I have also spelled it about 7 other ways. For official purposes I will use the spelling of Magnus Maguire. As an Irish scholastic at the Court of Carolus Magnus (many of you know him as Charlemagne) a simpler and Latinate version is appropriate. Born A.D. 772 on Lough Erne in Fermanaugh, Ulster, Eire. I spent much time as a boy involved in the warfare of cattle raids and the like. As life got Peaceful I went off to Clonmacnoise to continue my education. From there I travelled to the Continent to spread this learning among the Franks. Living on the tip of Lake Superior I determined a few years back that the area needed an SCA group and thence was founded the Shire of the Inner Sea (Hopefully Incipient for but a short time longer). Serving as its first Seneschal and now as the Inner Sea Pursuivant I have had opportunity to play with Society members as far away as the Debatable lands where I attended my first Pensic War last August. My mundane sponsor, James D. McManus, is an Attorney who has been a Director of other Non Profits and and professionally advised and drafted Articles, Bylaws and Operating Structures for several other 501(c)3 Corps in Minnesota. He has a B.S. in Government (Yes, I know that is redundant) and completed his undergraduate studies at the largest Benedictine monastery in world. (This is also the site of the largest collection of medieval manuscripts in the world, all on microfilm.) Having read only Chronicles 8 and 9 I will not comment yet in depth. (My Introduction is probably deep enough.) To over simplify my view; I believe the SCA Corporate office and BoD should do everything it needs to and nothing it need not do. How we figure that out will be fleshed in over the months ahead. Magnus Maguire James D. McManus Maghnuis@aol.com Larson Huseby Brodin & McManus Ltd. (218)343-4210 (Cell #) 5 North 4th Ave West Any reasonable hour Duluth, MN, 55802-1509 ---------------------------------------- >From Carole.C.Roos.2@nd.edu Tue Apr 11 09:59:21 1995 Subject: GC: No Haste; Heavy Stuff; Mission Greetings from Alysoun No Haste: Caroline, what is a Delphi discussion? I am not opposed to focusing the discussion, but am very concerned about being driven by the Board meetings. I do not want to rush through things piecemeal but rather present a coherent set of recommendations at the end. (And to do that we need more information.) Can't we just send the Board progress reports? Heavy Stuff: I do not think the "SCA inc" and "Society" dichotomy is a fruitful way to look at the situation. Unless our problems are rooted in California state law and/or the particular way we are incorporated, the "inc" is not worth discussing. I am not ruling out this possibility. There is a social web made up of individuals and groups of individuals which are tied with varying degrees of dependency to each other and to . . . what? Not the "inc", but the organization. We are not just a social net, we are a structured system. It is a grave mistake to cede the organization to a legal fiction. That is what this dichotomy does. I suspect that the dichotomy has arisen through a confusion of context. The Board is both the human representative of the "inc" and the central governance body of the Society for Creative Anachronism. If the other members of the Society are not pleased with the governance functions and the Board responds with its legal status, the roles become mixed. The first thing to do is to sort them out--what are corporation issues and what are governance issues. This distinction is crucial, so let's get clear on it. An unincorporated organization could have a Board of Directors to handle governance. In an incorporated organization, the governance and corporate responsibilities do not have to rest in the same body. All the parts of an organization do not have to be tied to the corporation or to the governance body in the same way. Given our recent history and the politicization of key terms, it is going to be difficult to keep this distinction clear. The Council derives >from the governance function. The most narrow and passive conception of the corporation is the most useful for our purposes. A rule of thumb may be asking "Does the State of California care . . . ?" On some matters the answer will be "yes". Those are corporation issues. The greater part of our concerns will not fall in this category because they are the concerns of the organization. Mission Statement: The sense that a mission statement is necessary may reflect this same confusion. I see no real difference between a mission statement and a statement of purpose. There is a statement of purpose in Article III of the By-Laws: "The Society shall be dedicated primarily to the promotion of research and re-creation in the field of pre-17th-century Western culture, as stated in greater detail in Article II of the Society's Articles of Incorporation." What is wrong with it? It seems both sufficiently vague and sufficiently inclusive to cover what we do and want to do. It doesn't somehow belong to one part of the organization while the rest of us are doing something entirely different. Moving on: A vague and inclusive mission statement is not very useful for planning, goal-setting, or evaluation. The question is "what is meant by the statement?" Given the diversity of interests, we may not want to get too specific. On the other hand, it may well be that tensions from the grassroots up stem from a failure to articulate the particular nature of the Society. I can well appreciate a reluctance to wade into these waters, but more than one member has already expressed a concern over what is the game. Squabbles on the local level and burdensome appeals to officers all around the chain may be less a matter of personality conflict and more a matter of ideological conflict. If this is the case, each year that passes will make it more difficult to address such a radical question. ---------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Apr 95 09:36:05 cst From: "CAROL L SMITH" Subject: GC: Business as Usual After the Board Meeting Greetings from Caroline! Some of you may have heard that the 20 newest GC members were not approved at the Board meeting on 8 April. This is true. I have communicated with 3 of the Board members on this issue and have some information on the reasons for this action. The Board felt they needed more information on y'all and were therefore hesitant to confirm you. This need is quite understandable, although it is unfortunate that I was not aware of it before the meeting. Additional information would have been provided had I realized it was critical. Therefore, we are in the process of putting together a memo detailing the process used to select these 20 members and providing background information on each of you (the 20, not the whole 40). I expect the memo to be completed and sent in the next week or so. In the meantime, I urge you all to continue your work as before. I expect no problems with any of your appointments (but then, the Board is known to be whimsical upon occasion). Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns. Caroline clsmit@ccmail.monsanto.com/314-530-1836(eve)/314-694-4655(days) ---------------------------------------- From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: GC: Items from 4/95 BoD Meeting Date: Tue, 11 Apr 1995 15:57:07 -0400 (EDT) Greetings from Tibor. The following is regarding the two pieces of business that involved the Grand Council this weekend. For the following, please bear in mind that I wasn't there. I've talked to a few people, and think I have the following reasonably correct. But with distance and increasing time, there is bound to be some inaccuracy. The theme for today is bad communication. Two topics: the list of Grand Council nominees, and the vote to remove me >from the Grand Council. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - On the list of nominees: The report that Caroline sent to the Board, was the thinnest possible report. It consisted of just a list of names. It was sent just before the deadline of materials for the Board meeting. The thinness of this report, in my opinion, was a serious error. The Board had made much at the previous meeting, of not wanting to micro-manage the Grand Council, and encouraging the nominating sub-committee to just get the job done. Nevertheless, the lack of a substantial report left no room to maneuver if things got entertaining at the meeting. Which, I gather, they did. Part of the blame for the set up, however, can be laid at Randall's feet. Randall was the ombudsman for the Grand Council. He had been less than communicative. When given this minimalist report, he did not ask for any additional information. His failure to preemptively solve a problem, would create additional tensions at the meeting. Especially since he seems to have been one of the voices that was the most upset at the lack of information. At the meeting, at least one Director (A.J.) was not pleased with the resulting slate of appointees. He told me last night, that it appeared to him to be stacked, and stacked inappropriately. Given that neither he, nor the other directors, had been given any information about the process of nomination, it seems that many wrong conclusions were jumped to. More about this later. When explanations began to be provided, things really got tense. (According to my understanding from conversations with A.J. and Lee.) At least Randall and A.J. were furious that "The Net" had better information about the nomination process and the backgrounds of the GC than the Board. This hardly made them feel cooperative. In any event, the Board refused to confirm (not rejected) but refused to confirm the list as provided, pending further data. It is not clear from the comments I have received whether we have any other instructions. I gather there was no vote, so whatever else may be required will be up to the new ombudsman and the chair to work out. (The new ombudsman is John Fulton. I have not talked to him yet.) Caroline and I have talked, and I think we can expect the following to take place. On the other hand, until she talks to John, this is tentative. We will presume the Grand Council will go forward with its work, with the members that it has now: ratified and unratified. Caroline and I will, this week, provide the Board with a full report. That report will include the background of the nominating committee, the process, the results, a precis on each candidate, the chronology, and some analysis of various factors. Given those things, I think we can expect confirmation at a future conference call or formal meeting. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The vote to remove me from the Grand Council: As to A.J.'s motion to remove me from the Grand Council. I spoke with him last night (4/10/1995). At first he didn't want to talk to me: he feared I would go on some kind of witch-hunt or pillory expedition. He referred me to the ombudsman. Eventually, I managed to convince him that I was interested in addressing whatever real concerns he had. It is important for everyone to understand the following: this is a committee of the Board of Directors of the SCA Incorporated. No one should be serving on such a committee against the will of the Directors. This is their bat, ball and playing field. It seems that A.J. was not at all pleased with the results of the Grand Council nominating process. Specifically, he mentioned the number of radical reformers and the number of CSOS members. He was looking for someone to blame. As you know, he had no knowledge of the process, or result. (I gather he didn't even know there were three members of the committee: he thought it was Caroline and I.) This was a combination of several factors: a slim report from the chair of the GC, bad communication on the part of the ombudsman, Randall, and a failure on A.J.'s part to accurately get the facts on his own. Somehow, he became convinced that I was the only one who had reviewed the resumes, made the choices, and appointed the members. Since he had a previous poor opinion of me, this incensed him. Also, it seems he was already quite upset, feeling that the members who are on the Internet being potentially better informed than members of the Board of Directors. Without further exploration of the facts, he called for my removal during an Executive Session. I suggested to him last night, that this was intemperate. He agreed, and use the term ill-informed. He is now claiming that he was aware all along that the motion would not pass, but that he wanted to send a message. It's not all that important, but it may be worth noting that the Board of Directors Manual forbids such an action in Executive Session. "Aside from Director selection, no final decisions may be made; this must be done at the formal meeting." (V.C.4.b.1 see also V.D.4). Nevertheless, the motion was entertained, the vote was take, and the motion failed to carry. It's also worth noting, that A.J. did not follow anything like the channels for complaint and appeal. This whole thing could have been defused by a simple discussion with any of the Grand Council representatives that were present at the meeting. In any case, the motion failed. The whole situation could probably been resolved with a more even temper, and better communication. According to A.J., he has no further issues with my conduct on the Grand Council at this time. It remains to be seen if there will be any repercussions from this action. Tibor ---------------------------------------- From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: GC: News of Great Importance Date: Tue, 11 Apr 1995 16:04:38 -0400 (EDT) Greetings from Tibor. Lest we get too bogged down in the petty detaisl of the Society, let me not forget to wish Lady Caroline a happy 30th birthday, this week. Tibor ----------------------------------------