======================= Grand Council Chronicle ======================= Issue #12 -- April 19, 1995 Contents of this issue: Finnvarr: GC Issues; Intn'l Corp. Affairs; Relations w/ the Board Wm Oakenshield [fwd]: Closed Board Meetings Alban: Replies to Nathan, Modius Corwyn: Introduction Alysoun: Information Needed Justin: Delphi, Voting, Central Structure, and Territoriality 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. ---------------------------------------- Sender: Steve Muhlberger Subject: RE: Grand Council Chronicle #11 Greetings from Finnvarr. Topics: GC Organization International Corporate Affairs Relations with the Board I was glad to see that GCC #11 was relatively short. I think this is an indication that people have been digesting the information and views that have been posted in recent issues. I find myself in substantial agreement with Nathan Adelaar on most of the topics he raised or responded to. GC ORGANIZATION I, too, think that we need a way of calling for a final debate and then a vote (even if we reserve the right to revisit issues after further discussion and decision-making. Parliamentary procedure exists for a reason; agreement on the issues or even the issues that must be decided does not "just emerge" even with fairly small committees. I am willing to try the method suggested by Nathan. INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE AFFAIRS I am less anxious than Nathan for the SCA to *immediately* come clean and confess our sins to the appropriate Canadian authorities--not unless the SCA, Inc. has buckets of money sitting around unused and unloved. However, the SCA, Inc., is going to have to make a decision in the near future, i.e., whether it will use its resources to comply with laws in foreign jurisdictions; or whether it will allow parallel incorporation in foreign jurisdictions on some kind of reasonable basis. By "reasonable basis," I mean incorporation of the SCA in foreign jurisdicitons that (1) exempts groups outside the US from paperwork that is required by US or California authorities; (2) allows members outside the US to qualify for Kingdom offices, etc., without paying the full price of supporting both the US corporation and their own (3) allows members outside the US to take part in the decision-making process for issues ("internal governance issues") that affect the Society as a whole. (There are other desiredata, but these are crucial). This could be pretty complicated, especially in Canada, where members belong to Kingdoms and in some cases Principalities based in the USA (and in most parts of the country may do so for a very long time to come). However, I think some of the issues have been dealt with in part, in regard to Australia and Sweden, to pick two obvious examples. I for one have no idea what institutional arrangements have been made in those places. I think I and the rest of the Council should know what has been done in these cases. I should mention here that the Prince's Council of the Principality of Ealdormere has been looking into the matter of incorporation, either in the province of Ontario, or in cooperation with other groups, in Canada. This of course is not any kind of "statement" but simply a matter of protecting ourselves. For years the SCA has pretended, in most respects, that the international border does not exist, a fine old game on both sides of it that has its advantages for everyone. The feeling grows, however, that we can't play this game much longer. So you see, Alysoun, that there is more to it than "Does the State of California care . . . ?" (grin) SPECIFIC REQUEST FOR INFORMATION: How does the SCA, Inc., manage its affairs in various jurisdicitons outside the USA? I am cross-posting this part of my contribution to EALDORMERE-L and various members of the SCA in Ontario. Just so's you know. RELATIONS WITH THE BOARD I was disturbed to see evidence in GCC #11 that the Board (or some members thereof) is so wary (to put it mildly) of this Council. Some of them at least must have seen these chronicles (I did before I was put on the council -- if indeed I have been), and if they have, they should see that we aren't *all* out to crucify them. (Damn few hammers and nails out there, as far as I can see.) But, if they haven't taken the initiative to look at our discussions, we must make sure that they get the discussions in a very timely manner. This kind of mistrust only feeds on itself. SPECIFIC REQUEST FOR ACTION: Could our Co-ordinator make sure the Board is getting our stuff (that is if they aren't already--I admit to confusion about what the Board does and does not have). Finnvarr ---------------------------------------- [Approved by Tibor] From: Jim Pilcher Subject: Closed Board Meetings Date: Fri, 14 Apr 95 10:42:00 PDT Good Gentles of the Grand Council, While you are determining how to reform the SCAINC, I would like to speak to something I have a great problem with: closed sessions at the Board meetings. The non-profit I belong to, Oregon Science Fiction Conventions Inc., has no secrets. The board meetings can be attended by any member of OSFCI, there are no closed sessions, and ALL DISCUSSION OF BANISHMENTS ARE OPEN to the members. We do throw people out of our events, and it is never secret. The person under exclusion is allowed, even encouraged, to attend the meetings where they are discussed. I would most humbly suggest that the SCAINC should end the closed meetings, and make all banishment proceedings public. Most Cordially, William Jamieson Oakenshield Jim Pilcher ---------------------------------------- >From ALBAN@delphi.com Sun Apr 16 14:37:52 1995 Subject: replies to nathan, modius mission statements: the 1 may 1995 issue of fortune magazine has two book reviews on: jones and kahaner, _say it and live it: the 50 corporate mission statements that hit the mark_, currency/doubleday ($14.95); and graham and havlick, _mission statements: a guide to the corporate and nonprofit sectors_, garland publishing ($90!) (available only from the publishers at (800) 627-6273). from the review: "how do you write a good statement (or liven up a dud)? the advice of these books is simple and direct: don't use jargon. don't use fancy language. make sure the dumbest person on your staff can divine the meaning of every sentence instantly. does it matter what values you espouse? no one - including the authors - has ever proved it does. what matters is that values be shared." nathan said: "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 latitude 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." the _main_ rationale may be to enable widespread incorporation; but the rationale _i_ used was to give local groups more flexibility in self-organization. the way i thought about it was that low-level incorporation would, in fact, not be needed or encouraged; a nation or province would incorporate; but the shires, er, local areas could set up either as a normal territorial group, or as a collection/federation of guilds and households, or as a combination. no incorporation needed on the local level. i am _not_ suggesting this mode would _replace_ territoriality; i _am_ suggesting that local groups be given the choice to decide how they're organized. if calontir doesn't like the idea, it won't happen in calontir; but if, oh, trimaris has one or two groups that wants to go that way, why not let them? as for nathan's specific proposals: 1. board liaison, committee oversight, votes and polls, and chronicle commentary: i like it. 2. delphi group: not being familiar with this, i'll go along with it as long as it works reasonably well. 3. votes: yup, we need 'em. we also need to decide whether it's a majority vote, a 2/3 vote, a 3/4 vote, or some such, and what the quorum should be; and i'd like to be sure that proposals with a significant minority behind them get included in the final report(s). 4. that gc members only vote: yup. 5. information from the board on: insurance, waivers, liability, chirurgeonate, irs statues, incorporation, tax liability, and international law: that's a lot of information. what's the best way of distributing all this? would it be a good idea to digest the information for those of us with limited knowledge of legalese? or should we form sub-committees for each of the areas (oh, one each for insurance/liability/waivers, irs status/taxes, chirurgeonate (although i'd like to know why we need to study this particular area more than, say, the marshallate or the treasury), international law, and miscellaneous affairs? 6. outsourcing: all we need would be a formal request from the board, and we can let bertram handle it, if he's interested. he is the one, after all, who solicited the original information. 7. canadian tax law compliance: why just canadian law? why not the laws of _all_ the countries we're active in? 8. other countries: er, ah, see 7. Modius Monsdraconis said: "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 college of arms is semi-independent already; the submission fees handle all of the expenses, and the only thing corporate pays for is shipping the files when the office of laurel sovereign changes. ti (and the other corporate publications) could be handled independently as well, for a separate subscription (although most non-profit organizations handle such magazines out of the central office - but we don't _have_ to). corporate would be in overall charge of memberships (with the actual scut work being handled, if need be, by a management firm); and with the irs and such. "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." the bod, or some such overall group. a federation council, with members from each kingdom? and, yes, the bod needs to learn how to delegate; one problem is that they delegate, but when mistakes are made (and they will be; it's the nature of things), the board promptly undelegates. "Let's start hammering out the points we agree with and get feedback on them from the populace" yes. very yes. "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." err, no. _we_ need to tell _them_ what power they should delegate; that's our job. we advise them; they don't tell us what we should tell them. alban ---------------------------------------- >From CORWYN@aol.com Mon Apr 17 02:02:11 1995 Subject: Corwyn's Introduction Unto all upon the Grand Council, and those who also read these words, greetings ! It has been pointed out to me that I have yet to introduce myself, despite being here for a while. Allow me to correct this situation ! In the Society, I am Corwyn Da Costa, Baron of the Court of the West, AA, OBH, QC, Admiral in the Western Royal Navy (fleet of the foreign seas). I've been active since about 1982, starting at the College of St. Katherine (U.C. Berkeley), and eventually living in academic exile (grad school) in Caid for four years, a kingdom which is still a very welcome second home to me. I have been involved in running local groups, a household and a war unit. Most presently, I am attempting to teach and encourage interest in the nautical side of the middle ages: thus the royal navy part of the titles. Yes, I sail; and I'm trying to merge two overinvolving and expensive hobbies ! I am married to a wonderful lady, who has been in the SCA for even longer than I. I was appointed to the GC by the West, and have so far worked on the nominating comittee. Persona-wise, Baron Corwyn is generally an honest English merchant from 1585, running a perfectly respectable salvage and exploration company, and doing occasional collections work for the crown. He is renowned for being the first Englishman to circumnavigate Europe, the hard way, and has a neat hat >from the Uzbec Kahn to prove it, unlike that braggart, Francis "oh what a big ship I have" Drake. He is a very law-abiding fellow, and except for those he has hired, has no connections to pirates or other unsavory types, now or ever, despite what various untrustworthy types say; also, he would like it to be known that he had nothing to do with the misuse of the mock lighthouse kits sold througout Devon and Cornwall by his company during his absence on a very important trading mission. He is the great-grandson of another Corwyn, a simple mercenary man-at-arms in the War of the Roses, who ended up on the winning side at the conclusion of the battle of Bosworth, although records are less clear about which side he began the battle with. Corwyn (1485) was made a Baron for finding Richard the Third's crown and having the good sense to turn it over to the now king Henry VII, who showed up just then, anyhow. Sometimes Corwyn gets bumped in the head (rather frequently, actually) and forgets which of them he is. Mundanely, I am Martin Costa, a newly frocked Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology graduating from USC in 1994. I am trained both as a therapist and as a researcher; although my primary interest is in research, covering clincal outcome research, organizational dynamics, and presently Schizophrenia and Alzheimer's dementia. I've spent more time on committees than I like to think about. Extra-academically I've worked in sales and management, which, horrors of horrors, I actually enjoy (although not enough to make them a career). Mundanely I am the Grandson of Joachin Alves Da Costa, a Portugese/Brazillian Raconteur, but I have yet to become confused about which one I am. Thoughts about the GC: The mission of the Council is to help preserve the nature of the Society while accommodating the demands of the mundane world, our growth and our changing administrative needs. Accordingly, I feel that the most important work we will do will be to decide when not to suggest change. The nature of the society is the consensus of _all_ of it's members, most of whom have no idea of our mission, and less care for it. It seems wrong for us to try to change the game simply because we have the opportunity and the desire to do so. Neccessary and sufficient cause must be our watchwords when reccommending the redesign of something we did not make, do not own, but nonetheless love and share with many friends. ---------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 18 Apr 95 10:54:19 EDT From: Carole.C.Roos.2@nd.edu (Carole Roos) Subject: GC: information needed Greetings from Alysoun I am in sympathy with Nathan in wanting a more focused structure for the Council. The Delphi format sounds reasonable and a steering committee sounds reasonable, but I am concerned about how the topics of our discussion will be determined (see below). I am very worried by the perceived need to send proposals to the Board in the near future. If we spend the rest of this year collecting information and making serious study of target areas, we will be able to make more informed and useful recommendations next year. Most of us cannot make intelligent decisions on Board responsibilities, etc. until we have some concrete information on the existing structure. Last year was not representative. We need to look at the last five years: we need minutes, budgets, publication and membership data for the whole period. We need to look at what studies and reports have been made. Without this kind of input we are working in the dark. And we need to review our expectations. Whatever we call it--the Corporation, SCA inc, the umbrella organization, or the Board--there is a central body which as near as I can tell consists of very few people who are by all accounts already overworked and who lack any real support system in the way of standing committees, professional staff, etc. If this is true, asking the Board to do things such as solicit detailed information on outsourcing is like going to a dry well. The primary responsibility of the Board is to make necessary data available to us and our responsibility is to research the matter and present options and recommendations to them, which they can accept, modify, or reject. The more homework we do, the more acceptable the recommendation is likely to be. Different approaches are necessary for different topics and a close working relationship with the Board is essential. A Council subcommittee can certainly study outsourcing; the Canadian situation may be better handled by the Board. However we should stand ready to assist if it would be helpful, for example, the Board may wish to form a task group which might consist of Board members, Council members, legal counsel, and Canadian officers. I think discussion of more *philosophic* matters is useful both in providing a window on the varied opinions that exist and in challenging one's own perceptions. However, these discussions must eventually be tied to reality through serious analysis of hard data. What information is available and how can we get it? ---------------------------------------- Greetings unto the Grand Council from Justin du Coeur (wearing his member-of-the-Council hat, not his Secretary hat)! A couple of things: Delphi Method ------------- Nathan and Caroline propose that we use the "Delphi" method for crystallizing ideas. I'm quite sympathetic to this notion (it's increasingly clear to me that we need *some* way of organizing this discussion), but a little concerned. Everything I've heard about Delphi *seems* to indicate that there's this central group, with *colossal* influence over the process. This group is in charge of "refining" the questions, so that the overall group progresses in each iteration. But it seems to me that this method is enormously susceptible to the biases of the people doing this refining. Now, I do *not* know much about the process; I may well be misunderstanding how it works. I would like to understand how the process gets around this problem, though, before I wholeheartedly endorse the notion. Voting ------ As for voting -- sounds reasonable. It's clear to me that we will need *some* method for voting; I'm pretty sure that we're never going to get anywhere if we insist on a true consensus on all issues. (Remember, this group was selected to be diverse, and we have people at all extremes of any issue. Except for the easy questions, we *are* going to sometimes need to gore someone's ox.) The check on abuse of the system (in the form of tyranny of the majority) is the guarantee that the minority always has the right to write and attach an opinion when a recommendation gets sent to the Board. Central Organizations --------------------- I'll put this idea into peoples' heads: even if the SCA *does* need some sort of center to hold it together (which I am unconvinced of, but for the sake of argument I'll take at face value), what level of power does that center need? It's clear that we're at an extreme now -- the center holds *far* too much power and responsibility, more than it is capable of really dealing with. (That is, the center is not only making dramatic mistakes, it's also *wildly* overworked.) How much is needed? I'd say that it's clear that we need strong lines of *communication* across the Society, to avoid excessive inadvertant drift (which seems to be the cause of most Kingdom-to-Kingdom differences). Do we need much more? Would an empowered IAC, a sort of council-of-equals among the Kingdoms, suffice? I suspect it would, but I'd like opinions on the subject. On a tangent to that question: what do we *need* from the center, and what do we *want*? This is a sort of restatement of the mission statement question, an attempt to bring it back down to something concrete. Let's list the services that the various levels provide, and take a look at what level is appropriate for those services. This may help us prioritize what we want the SCA, Inc. to do, and help shape what it should look like. Territoriality -------------- Nathan also writes: >The main rationale for changing these rules seems to be to enable more >widespread incorporation at a local level Nothing of the sort (at least, that's not why *I* argue for it). It simply makes decentralization easier. One of the things the SCA, Inc *does* do now is to point at groups and say, "*YOU* are the only legal SCA branch in this area." It spends a *lot* of time and effort on that, especially at the Kingdom level (I'm close to the just-stepped-down Seneschalate of the East, and their stories have made it clear to me that territory disputes are a cause of much headache). We can make everyone's lives a great deal easier by just not getting into that business, and instead adopting an attitude of, "If you want to be an SCA branch, and play by the rules, you are an SCA branch." Of course, this requires formulating a much better idea of what an SCA branch *is* -- currently, it's defined solely in terms of the Corporation. (You are a branch if and only if the Board says you're a branch.) It would almost certainly require formulating *some* kind of SCA "landmarks" (a difficult project, but one that people are working on). I think it would be mightily helpful in making things run more smoothly, although I don't think it's dead-critical (and don't especially want to get overly side-tracked onto it yet -- I think we have bigger fish to fry yet). Centralization -------------- Modius writes: >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. Why? I mean this -- why do all these functions need to be centralized? Registry might well be easier to handle at the Kingdom level (although personally, I still think "membership" as a concept has caused far more problems than it's worth, and should just be scrapped). The Heralds office is centralized, but currently has next to nothing to do with the Corporation -- why couldn't it be severed entirely? There is *some* merit in having an information point for the US IRS, and maybe in having a single tax id number, but there are also drawbacks, and it certainly doesn't need to be as heavily centralized as it is now. And TI should *clearly* (IMO) be spun off to be something separate -- the current situation (where TI is essentially mandatory if you want a Kingdom newsletter) allows the magazine to remain basically a coffee-table book, that most people in the SCA never even look at. Examine your assumptions. There *are* arguments for *some* centralization. But not much, and the arguments are fairly complex... Well, that's enough for today -- I need to put the Chronicle to bed. Hopefully, there is some worthwhile food for thought here... -- Justin ----------------------------------------