[address]
						February 22, 1994

Board of Direectors
Society for Creative Anachronism
PO Box 360743
Milpitas, CA 95036-0743

Greetings:

I am writing concerning the actions taken by the Board at the January 22 meeting -- specifically pay-to-play, the rate hikes, the termination of the minutes, the budget, and the methods used to reach all of these decisions. I have read your letter to the populace on this matter; frankly, I don't consider it a sufficiently detailed explanation of such fundamental changes.

I am appalled that such important changes (by your own admission) were made without taking the time to consider them properly and solicit input. I have trouble believeing that there was a financial crisis so severe that you couldn't make it to the April meeting; after all, the rate hikes won't bring significant income for several months (at least), and pay-to-play will likely take a year or more to yield financial results due to the "visitor passes". Further, it appears that you have not considered the possible NEGATIVE impact on membership that your new policies will cause.

Pay-to-play is reprehensible; it is completely counter to the way our society has operated for 28 years, it does not appear to be legally necessary, and there are better ways to raise money. (For starters, you could have ASKED.) Combining this with a rate hike, especially so soon after the last one, adds insult to injury. In under three years associate membership will have risen from $6 to $20; one naturally must ask what happened to require that.

Further, the pay-to-play rule deals a fatal blow to many small groups; we rely on volunteer labor to put on events and practices, and you've just told us that all the labor in the world isn't good enough if someone can't afford to send at least $20 to Milpitas. I disagree; if the corporation disappeared tomorrow we would still be able to hold most of our events and practices, but with pay-to-play we'll be forced to banish some of our hardest workers or go underground. Many of us will not be a party to such nonsense; this decision fragments where you said you intended to unify.

Why did the Board ignore the will of 94% of the respondents to its own survey on pay-to-play? Why even waste the time and money conducting such surveys if the input is going to be completely ignored? I've heard some Board members assert that they are not bound by the actions and decisions of prior Boards; if this is true, it is corporate irresponsibility of the highest degree. Therefore, I must presume that there is some other explanation.

In an effort to better understand the financial situation, which was not adequately explained in the general mailing, I have attempted to obtain a copy of the real 1994 budget -- the one showing the line items that were omitted from the summary. Tim Moran refused and directed me to Tony Provine; Tony Provine told me he had taken the request "under advisement" and has been sitting on it since January 27 with no prognosis for when I might see a response. He has also been sitting on my request for access to the books of account, even though the Bylaws grant this right of access to all advisory members and California law mandates a five-day response on such requests. I would expect that a professional expert in the management of non-profit corporations, such as Mr. Provine, would be aware of these facts, so I am surprised by the lack of response.

In the absence of real financial information, I must base my questions on the summary. Could you please tell me why we're more than doubling the expenses for the Board and officers? Why, in this financial crunch, we're spending money to improve the already-fine paper in TI? Why we need to spend $100,000 on "professional services"? (Which ones? How much? For what specific services?) Why you think the Stock Clerk can earn twice as much as it costs by competing with SCA merchants? How you're specifically spending the $25,000 allocated for capital expenses? Why you've hired a consultant to port the database when the SCA is full of qualified and unemployed experts? How many people in which jobs you're paying?

How did all of these extra expenses sneak up on the Board between July, when financially we were fine according to the minutes, and January?

Given how hard it has been to get any useful information out of the corporation, it is even more distressing that you will be taking away a quarterly source of information that we have been willing to PAY for. Your lawyers say you can't call them "minutes"? Fine; continue to produce the summary, but call it a summary. A page or two in TI six months after the meeting cannot adequately replace a 20-page mailing. Besides, I'd rather see articles in that space in TI; there are precious few of those already due to the increasing sprawl of corporate communications.

The decisions made by the Board in January are appalling; more appalling still is the process and lack of accountability. This must change. I urge you to immediately rescind the above-mentioned changes, seek alternate ways to raise money (such as a $1/person/event surcharge -- fair and very easy to implement), and appoint a body to draft changes to the Bylaws and Corpora to make the corporation accountable to the society. The corporation is there to serve the society, not the other way around.

						Sincerely,

						Monica Cellio
						Mistress Ellisif Flakkari, OP