======================= Grand Council Chronicle ======================= Issue #21 -- June 21, 1995 Contents of this issue: Flieg: Vote Bits Gareth: unavailable for a few weeks Magnus: Alban's proposals Serwyl: Territoriality, Crowns, TI Alysoun: Purpose Caroline: Results of Votes on Proposals Notes from Grand Council Gathering at Lilies Justin: TI, Territory and Other Stuff 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: "Flieg Hollander" Subject: Vote Bits Hi there. Yes, I have been paying attention, at least a little. These are my votes on the current two issues. Outsourcing - YES -- after all, the Board is the only one who officially can inquire, as Bertram found out a year ago. Territoriality -- NO -- I found this confusing, vague, and unneeded. Not an official item but... Committees -- No private discussions! Committees are OK, but the discussion should be in the open! I'll have an intro in to you in a bit. Right now I have a Broadside to put out. * * * Frederick of Holland, MSCA, OP, etc. *** *** *** flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu _|___|___|_ |===========| (((Flieg Hollander, Chem. Dept., U.C. Berkeley))) ================== Old Used Duke ================= [All subjects of the Crown are equal under its protection and no Corporation is going to convince me otherwise.] ---------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 95 20:14:45 -0800 From: rgathercoal@foxmail.gfc.edu (Roy Gathercoal) Subject: GC--unavailable for a few weeks >From Gareth unto the council I will be unavailable (via computer) for about the next three weeks. I will be presenting at a conference in Philadelphia. So please accept my apologies for my temporary absence from the active council. Thanks. ---------------------------------------- Sender: Maghnuis@aol.com Subject: Re: #2(2) Grand Council Chron... I, Magnus Maguire do support Alban's structure of Locus of Control. Actually so much so that I can think of no way that it needs to be changed. (How often does that happen?) It appears, from his Breakdown of "Finance" issues, that everything except "Membership" issues falls in this category. In the broadest sense this is true tho. Actually "Membership" is tied intimately to finance as well. Magnus...(nodding his head a lot today.) ---------------------------------------- Greetings unto the Council from Serwyl Re the Membership Committee If the committee still has space, I'm interested. In response to Alban on Territoriality Your suggestions on the territoriality mirror many of my beliefs about how we should handle this issue. On the specific suggestions: a) I had suggested previously that Kingdoms bear the responsibility of group creation. I'm leery about the concept of Kingdoms (as you put it) 'establishing' households, Kingdom Marshallate or a Kingdom College of Heralds. Did you perhaps mean 'recognize'? When you expand the definition of member groups to include all these bodies, you get into what constitutes a recognized household vs. an unrecognized one. There's a can of worms here somewhere and I definitely don't want to open it... Re the Kingdom College of Heralds, Marshallate etc. They are already part of the Kingdom structure. There should be no need to recognize them. Any event such an organization hosts would of necessity be a Kingdom function. Please let me know if this is unusual outside of Trimaris. If our College of Heralds wants to host an event, they check with the Seneschal to see if she minds, then book a site. b) I agree except in the sense that you imply a household would be allowed to become an 'official' group. Would a recognized household have to have a bank account established to front the money for an event? Would the household's event be covered under the Corporate insurance policy? If yes, would the group's finances be subject to review like a territorial group? Like I said, a can of worms. Response to Gareth re Territoriality Actually, I'm not really attracted to any of your potential structural models (strong corporate, strong kingdom, strong branch, member based). You neglected a federal model, where authority and responsibility is distributed between Corporate and the Kingdoms (central government vs the states if you will). There are certain functions which are better kept at a local level (group creation, awards) and those best regulated by a central authority (membership, TI, marshallate rules), with interkingdom affairs mostly regulated by a version of the interkingdom advisory council. Response to Gareth re Crowns I realize this was under your territoriality section, but the way we handle Crowns is a subject of great interest to me. Trimaris is one of those Kingdoms with both a long reign (6 months), and a long lead time between Crown Lyst and Coronation. These factors, plus unclear limitations in both Kingdom laws and the Organizational Handbook as to exactly what the Crown's authority is contribute to an unstable environment for Kingdom officers and for the populace at large during the reign of a 'bad' Crown. As you point out, a Crown can exert a lot of influence over spending. It also has a lot of sway over officers. The problem is where to draw the line. It's hard to function in a management structure where you report to multiple, and sometimes conflicting superiors. As you may have gathered, I favor a weakened Crown. The function of the Crown (in my mind) should be ceremonial and social, with little if any monetary influence, and limited influence over most of the functions of the Kingdom officers. I will have more to discuss in this vein in future issues. In response to Alysoun re TI Alysoun requested a short opinion of TI in preparation for a new discussion topic (and I apologize if this isn't all that short). The strange thing is that I never really thought about whether I really liked TI or not. It shows up in the mail, I scan it for interesting articles or advertisements, and then it ends up in some pile or another until it finally gets filed away. Through the years it became just another element of life in the SCA, not something I stopped to examine for it's own sake. The first copy that came to hand after reading your request was Fall 1994. Actually, I found a lot to praise. The items that stood out were the 3 good craft oriented articles (arrow making, 15th century color recipes and one on making a 13th century brocaded belt). It also had an interesting article on an alternate system for working melee combats. After spending some time reading I decided that while there are areas I wouldn't mind seeing improved, I like both the magazine and what it represents. TI is a unifying factor in the Society. I may not have any idea what's going on event-wise just over the border in Meridies, but I can pick up a TI and feel like part of a much larger whole. This, more than anything else, keeps me from wanting to abandon TI as has been suggested in earlier issues of the Chronicle. Something occurred to me while I was reading. Has Corporate ever approached any of the magazine distributors about marketing TI with other publicly offered publications? Mind you, I don't have any illusions about TI being mistaken for a scholarly periodical, but there are worse special interest magazines on the newsstands right now. The advantages: possible source of revenue, a public relations tool. We all know the perception problems the Society has with the outside world, TI could help not only with soliciting new members, but with ameliorating the perception of us as 'that bunch of weirdos'. By the way Alysoun, thanks for asking. Serwyl ---------------------------------------- Sender: Carole.C.Roos.2@nd.edu (Carole Roos) Subject: GC: Purpose Greetings from Alysoun Reading Chronicle #20, I was struck again by how much we need to work toward an understanding of purpose. Gareth's various models are biased, as he admits. A strong central body might be more effective in serving members than his "member-based" model. We do not currently have a strong central body, even though many of you seem to think so. What model would best serve the needs of the people depends a great deal on what it is that we are trying to do. Alban has mentioned educational research grants on several occasions, and this idea well illustrates the problems we have with purpose. Let us say that I have won a major lottery and that I am giving an enormous sum of money to the SCA for this purpose (so we don't get bogged down on the financial aspect). Should this money be used for real research--grants to those who qualify by having the educational credentials to make best use of it? For example, we do have members who would benefit from the opportunity to do manuscript work here and abroad. This would further knowledge in the field and by publishing make that knowledge more available to the rest of us. It would also polish up our image in academic circles and attract more learned people into the society. Even if we tone this model down a bit, we would be talking about supporting Laurel level work. This use takes our research/history aspect seriously and emphasizes individual members. Or the money might be used for the acquisition of skills and knowledge useful in re-creation. This would be a greater number of smaller grants to underwrite the class fees, etc. at local colleges, art centers, etc. If no one for several shires around knows how to weld, or spin, or whatever, the grant would enable someone to take a how-to class and then teach the skill to other members. This use puts the emphasis on local groups, strengthening their ability to support good re-creation. A third use might be for the diffusion of skills and knowledge within the SCA. This would be for supporting lecture tours or exhibits (which might be open to the public) and helping finance individuals' attendance at SCA workshops and symposia, especially across kingdoms. This use would also support the local group and re-creation, but it emphasizes the Known World as a whole. Each of these options reflects a different view of our purpose. These views are not mutually exclusive, but they do need to be carefully articulated and balanced. I hope we can continue to discuss purpose (not just corporate structure) in the chronicle while we are working in small groups on more specific topics. ---------------------------------------- Sender: "CAROL L SMITH" Subject: Results of Votes on Proposals Greetings from Caroline! Below are the results of the voting on the two proposals on the table. Outsourcing passed; territoriality didn't. I have asked Bertram to prepare a proposal to be sent to the Board with this quarter's report, and I have asked Fiacha to chair a team to look further into territoriality. I am dismayed that 13 people did not vote at all. If you are one of those non-voters, I would like to know why you chose not to vote. Please contact me privately or discuss this issue via the Chronicle. Please let me know if you have any questions on the results. THE RESULTS (Y = yes, N = no) Outsource Territoriality Alban St Albans Y N Alienor Llanfaes Y Y Alysoun de Ros N N Arthur the Dented no vote N Bertram of Bearington Y N Bertrik van Triecht Y N Brian O'Seabac no vote no vote Brion Thornbird no vote no vote Cariadoc of the Bow Y no vote Caroline Forbes Y N Catrin Gwyntstlum Y N Corwyn Da Costa Y N Edric Aaron Hartwood Y N Edward the Discalceate Y N Eichling von Amrum no vote no vote Eric Bearsbane no vote no vote Fiacha Mac Neill Y Y Finnvarr de Taahe Y N Frederick of Holland Y N Frithiof Skagge Y N Galen Eadwin Kirchenbauer Y N Gareth Tancred abstain abstain Gyrth Oldcastle Y N Hossein Ali Qomi Y Y Isabeau of the Wylde Woode no vote no vote John of Sternfeld no vote no vote Justin du Coeur Y N Kyle of Kincora Y N Magnus Maquire Y N Michael Fenwick no vote no vote Modius Monsdraconis Y N Myrdin the Just no vote no vote Nathan Adelaar Y N Olaf Askoldssonn Y N Randell Raye of Crianlarich no vote no vote Sarah no vote no vote Serwyl no vote no vote Terras Y N Tibor of Rock Valley no vote no vote Titus Claudius no vote no vote TOTALS Yes 23 3 No 2 22 Abs 1 1 I remain, ever in Service, Caroline clsmit@ccmail.monsanto.com ---------------------------------------- Sender: "CAROL L SMITH" Subject: Notes from Grand Council Gathering at Lilies Greetings from Caroline! We held a meeting of the GC at Lilies. Below are the notes I took at this meeting. There are some items that need further discussion, so please respond to them below. We will be meeting again at Pennsic. Date and time to be determined. It will be later in the week. If you have a preference, please let me know. Attendees: Finnvarr, Nathan, Terras, Caroline. (John Bearkiller was at Lilies, but we missed him at the meeting! :( ) (Thanks to the Baroness of Vatavia for providing beer.) Items discussed: * Non-participation in the Chronicle is a problem. A few people are discussing all the topics. Some of the lack of discussion could be from netiquette -- not wanting to say "me, too" -- but some people have not been heard from at all! This issue is especially important with the Kingdom-appointed members, whose Seneschal and Crown may be wondering what is going on. I will be following up with non-participants to learn more about why they're not more active. * The attendees were concerned about the lack of voting. There was a suggestion to require a vote (yes/no/abstain) of all members, and hold them accountable to vote. Any comments on this thought? * Finnvarr explained in more detail the information he's learned about the tax structure of Canada and how it affects non profit organizations. He will be providing that information to the Grand Council, since a group was meeting in Ontario this week to discuss it further. * Nathan suggested having everyone send in a picture to be color copied and sent out to everyone so that we'll all know who everyone is. (I'm at an advantage compared to most of the people at the meeting, in that I know almost half of the GC. It's the advantage of living in 4-5 kingdoms.) Does this sound like a good idea?? If so, send me your picture (wallet-sized, if possible) and I'll get them copied! The meeting ran from midnight until 2 am (it's more comfortable then!), and broke up when Terras had to work troll and Finnvarr was called away to other important business. We all found it helpful to put a face with a name and to just sit around and talk. Thanks to all who attended, and I expect to see more of you at Pennsic! Caroline still recovering from staying out too late clsmit@ccmail.monsanto.com ---------------------------------------- Greetings unto the Council from Justin du Coeur! A few comments on last week's postings... Re: TI A couple of people have asked for opinions about Tournaments Illuminated. My personal take: it's nice, but really isn't handled right. At the moment, my observation is that it's basically a coffee-table book: most people get it, skim it, toss it on the table and never look at it again. While that's one possible model for such a thing, it's lousy to tie such a thing up with membership so integrally. On the one hand, a *hell* of a lot of people would prefer to get their Kingdom newsletters and not TI. On the other, it's currently impossible to get it *without* a membership. My wife is EK Historian; she has to maintain a fictitious "membership" for the office, so that the files can get a copy of TI. It's just silly. Unbundle it, I say. Letting TI sink or swim is going to either make it a better newsletter, or get rid of it. (It's not as great a tragedy as you think if it died -- several different people are running independent newsletters of essentially the same sort, entirely independent of membership.) The only argument I can see against unbundling TI is sentiment -- and sentiment is a really crappy reason to charge people for something they don't want. Re: Territory and Structure Gareth posits several different forms that the Society's structure could take: >1. A strong corporate structure >2. A strong kingdom structure >3. A strong local branch structure >4. A strong member-based structure I think there's a not-completely true dichotomy implied here. I agree with Gareth that (4) is in many respects the best structure (although I suspect we disagree on the exact definition of "member"). However, the checks and balances mentioned in that imply that there needs to be *some* power distributed among the other levels as well. In other words, I think that (4) can (and probably should) co-exist with one of the other options. Personally, I'd say that I prefer some element of (4), combined with a general structure somewhere between (2) and (3). While my deep preference is for a highly decentralized structure (ie, (3)), I don't regard it as *strictly* necessary. I do think the power needs to get pushed way down, though, so that people are being ruled mainly by laws they have some chance of affecting. >On one minor point of disagreement with Cariadoc: I can see that the rules we >have now, and the way things are now run are significantly better than they >were fifteen years ago. In some ways; in some, far worse. I would say that running events and holding office is *far* harder and less fun than it was a decade ago. The sheer mass of bureaucracy (at every level -- most Kingdoms are scarcely better than the Corporation in this respect) is making the running of the SCA a deadening proposition. Some specific rules are a good thing. But in the aggregate, I think they've made matters worse... >Kingdoms may be big enough to work out sensible rules, but many are not >currently structured to do so. Absolutely true. I take it as fact that *any* amount of decentralization would require the individual Kingdoms to put in place checks and balances that many of them totally lack today. (On the other hand, I think that that's a good idea even if we *don't* decentralize, so that not so many problems land in the Board's lap.) On the subject of children, Gareth writes about the various difficulties parents face, and writes: >This is an increasing, not a decreasing problem, and one I >believe we should decide about, rather than simply let something happen. Is this true? I don't think it is in these parts; while things aren't exactly perfect for parents, it's clear that they have greatly improved. A decade ago, parents had a *very* strong tendency to drop out, because events were so family-unfriendly. I've observed a very steady evolution in that (as, among other things, both our Seneschal and Baron had kids), to the point where children are a downright common sight at events today. It still requires some effort, but it's no longer prohibitive. I don't have a global perspective on this, and I haven't paid a *lot* of attention (my lady and I have no plans for children), but from where I sit, things certainly appear to be getting better on their own. (And the problems seem to generally be on the local level, not a global one.) Finally, on alban's territory proposal: reasonable and common-sensical. Doesn't go quite as far as my personal ideal, but it's certainly an improvement over the current situation. -- Justin ----------------------------------------