From pwp+@cs.cmu.edu Sun Jul 23 19:35:24 EDT 1995 Article: 120195 of rec.org.sca Path: hudson.lm.com!news.psc.edu!nntp.sei.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!casaba.srv.cs.cmu.edu!loan4.sp.cs.cmu.edu!pwp From: pwp+@cs.cmu.edu (Paul W Placeway) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: BOD meeting (very rough) minutes, 7/22/95 Date: 22 Jul 95 22:34:46 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, School of Computer Science Lines: 622 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: loan4.sp.cs.cmu.edu Summary: The BOD met. These are my rough notes of the meeting. Keywords: BOD, just-in-time X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #13 (NOV) I spent the day today attending the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. I brought my lap-top and took notes. These are those notes. DISCLAIMER: These are my OWN NOTES, taken while the meeting was in progress. I missed some items. I missed some discussion. THERE MAY BE FACTUAL ERRORS DUE TO MY OWN MISUNDERSTANDING. NO QUOTES ARE ACTUALLY ACCURATE QUOTES!!!! These are OBVIOUSLY very rough notes. But they are prompt. ;-) I CLAIM NO ACCURACY WHATSOEVER TO THESE NOTES. Have a nice day. I hope you enjoy them. --Tofi (Paul Placeway), 7/22/95 6:00 PM. ============================================================== Society for Creative Anachronism Inc. Board of directors meeting -- July 22, 1995 The board started in executive session Sitting left to right (audience point of view): Elizabeth Ellis Peter Gareis Renee Signorotti Lori Taylor L. Jane Richards John Fulton A.J. Riviezzo Martha Wallonhorst Lee Forgue F.F. Morrill Carol O'Leary Mark Long =========================== John called the meeting to order at 10:07 Met in exec. session at 9:00 Introductions (in order above) JF: anyone is free to comment, though we may have to cut discussion short Agenda (changes). Vote: release of previous four sets of board minutes. passed, one nay. (AJ) EE: request for help at Pennsic membership booth. Request: delete the seneschal's bboard, as it was only used by the s. of Outlands. request: after two years of service (as per contract), request to be fought for in East Crown Tourney. PG: have you a successor? EE: I am about to ask for my successor's warrant to be renewed. voice vote: yes. Please renew my successor's warrant. (yes) request: letter of commendation to the Middle for best compliance to reporting requirements. Also, Meridies was close second, East is much better after change in seneschal. (Flieg (audience): objection -- query about West. EE: west was late.) request: board grant S.Sen the authority to grant 60-day variances to events. These are events of greater than 1 or 2k. EFM: Large events: you know where they are, you know when they are, and they should be capable of planning for this. EJR: Large events are a problem. COL: Large events are planned enough in For: AJ, LJR; against (others) -- denied request: more money -- already spent about 75% of budget. Oath policy: failure to swear an oath due to religious reasons is not to be a problem. (Case: Calontir crown tourney req.) EE request for vote: AJ prop.. for vote. all in favor. request: going back to the old membership standard for crown list. Since the advent of instant membership, seneschals have had an interesting time determining membership, since the lists are out of date. (Requests for clarification from board) AJ: there is nothing preventing the kingdom from requiring more stringent requirements. Board didn't act on it -- feeling seemed to be this wasn't a problem for the board. (Last item for exec session.) entered into record. Intro by soc. earl marshal. 3a. 1: Lori Taylor The insurance agent closed doors and disappeared during renewal negotiations. Have gotten a new agent in ABQ, NM. New policy jun 16 95-- jun 16 96. Essix insurance co -- has an A6 rating, as opposed to B. Does not have a prop. exclusion. Any SCA member is protected from claims form outside members. Saved $2500. Per claim ded. $300-->$500. Exclusions on cross-claims: will not cover claims on SCA members by SCA members. A new insurance letter detailing this was mailed Thurs. to all kingdom sen. and soc. officers. Next up: equestrian policy. Current eq. insurer considers it duplicate coverage, and has more exclusions than general policy. claims: HS Gym floor in New Hampshire -- still in progress. claim: ask for repayment for $19k of expense from result of Cellio et all. suit. Result of new exclusion: any SCA member who rents a facility to SCA for use has less coverage than an outside party. Working on change of renewal date. Members of the law enforcement community. in Texas who were misinformed about SCA opinions of use of illegal drugs, religion, etc. This is a delicate matter, to be handled in exec. session. Coming out: article on subscribing to board minutes and report, and on the new waiver. New minutes are $15/yr, 1st class only. 94 reports (but no minutes) are $10. Action items: There is a chance that NH Gym floor, $3k, may not be covered by insurance coverage. JF: can we wait until this is dealt with? LT: this has been dragging out for a long time already, and the barony is worried about being able to get new cites. AJ: How are East funds? EE: not good. AJ: I'm concerned that with the current society finances, this is not a good time for this. (Concern: insurance paid for carpet damage of a much lesser amount. why won't they pay for this? What happened? Someone moved a roped-off area, to drag an armor bag across the floor. Offender is unknown. LT: understanding on current policy -- someone messed up and should not have covered the carpet. Now thy are trying hard not to pay for it. NOTE: current policy _does_ cover this sort of damage. Since we no longer have coverage with the old company, they have no incentive to cover now. JF: suggestion: go back to group, find out (in person) about damage, and the ability of the barony and kingdom to kick in funds. If the group is in good faith being screwed over by insurance co., the board may kick in money. AJR: suggestion: inform CA insurance board if no prompt resolution. JF: "Insurance companies are vampire sons of bitches..." LT: now that we have paid subscriptions to board minutes, who should get them for free? (board -- same as before) EE: also kingdom chroniclers? --yes (???) item: should regular performance reviews be scheduled for all paid employees? JF: reviews are done, but there is no formal policy on exactly how. LT: can I assist that? AJ: offer to send examples to LT, to deal with. Two items not on report: Request for purchase (after consultation) for an SCA-owned lap-top. (Thanks to M. Arianna for lending a lap- top to board for this meetings official)' AJR: we don't need a Pentium. JF: check with computer committee. We are looking for a good basic- word processing machine. LF: note pending request for $2500 for lap-top and portable printer. JF: concerned about price -- too high -- generally notes that if a price is specified, people will tend to spend up to the limit. Motion: authorize up to 2.5k with Randal's okay. Item: the SCA does not currently have a working relationship with a lawyer, one LT can take questions to (in emergency cases). Request to investigate a lawyer to open a relationship with. It takes a long time to explain the SCA to someone, adn we don't want to be doing that in the middle of a legal crisis. 3yc: It's going to be more expensive, due to increased need for buildings. Have negotiated special rates with various airlines, including Quantas. (Locharc is expected to turn out "in droves.") Move: file a report? yes. Exchequers: out of 13 kingdoms, only 6 received by deadline. Chroniclers are doing better. IRS is asking for a state-by-state breakdown of 94 finances. This has exposed a number of accounting problems. request: raise expense reporting min. from $100 to $500. Also, encouragement to report fair market value, not sentimental value, for all items. LJR: if you can't sell it for $3k, don't report $3k of value. Request: Exchequer requests permission to fight/be fought for in a crown. AJR: it is sometimes hard to attract people for these jobs. EFM: sometimes, when you take a job with open eyes, life is tough. COL: crown tourneys are not a sure thing. JF: she was kind enough to ask. Motion: to allow: AJ, EFM, CO: yes, LJR, LF: no. JF breaks with a yes; approved. 10 min. break for bodily function. Membership: 101 new members this quarter, so we are again going up. Request to reprint Known World Handbook in 3-hole. Printing costs are sharply: $11,375 + tax for 2500 copies. AJR: isn't this a matter of course? RS: yes, but due to the great increase in cost, this is special. Isn't there a revision coming soon? RS: we tried that before, and it was a disaster. We don't want to do this again. LJR: we should not continue the bound one, since the 3-hole is much easier to revise. RS, Mr. Rose: perfect bound is much more popular, 4-to-1. LF: is 3-hole worth bothering? RS: yes. And 3-hole will be shrink-wrapped at publisher. Flieg: the real question is: how long does it take to recoup our costs? JF: are we in agreement? EFM "we are in agreement in principle over the action." request: marketing committee seems to have lost focus on the need for help and new items for stock clerk. question (Angharad): what is the reason for this committee? RS: There is a need for new items. ... JF: This is an on-going discussion. The essence is that we are to offer items that are a service to the society. Mr. Rose: request to wait for his report on this. AJR: my understanding is that the stock clerk was to make enough money to prevent membership cost increases, etc. This has never happened. RS: we are having problems with people e-mailing requests. It was a disaster. The corporate office DOES NOT HAVE AN E-MAIL ACCOUNT. Use the FAX. E-mail information had to be written down and hand copied into the information service. PG: as per "Bertram's impolite response" (laughter), there are more efficient ways of handling e-mail. Bertram: I'm sorry -- but that is the wrong way to handle customer service. JF: The request is to publicize that there is currently no address. AJR: the problem is that anyone with an account is getting requests. [IMHO -- of _course_ requests to random people are getting lost.] ======== Heralds: New Pelican is Brian Scott. The split seems to be working well. General state of COA is okay; there are some kingdoms that are having problems getting LOAs and packets out in a timely way. The "modest proposal" is fully implemented and in effect, and so far so good. JF: There was a Earl Marshal: John Slack The report has been e-mailed and FAXed; I have a FAX receipt. RS: if the fax machine is out of paper, it may acknowledge but not received. JS: Drachenwald has reported. There was an e-mail account problem. Ansteorra is experimenting with acetylene-powered cannon. The kingdom earl marshal is less than entirely In Trimaris, there was a small disagreement between the king and the ex-earl-marshal. the drop dead is now acting earl marshal. Finally, I'd also like to fight in the next eastern Crown. This would be fall crown. P.Placeway: There was a comment that the FAX machine could acknowledge a receipt without actually receiving (if it is out of paper). This is a possible source of information loss that cannot be tolerated from a trusted device. JS: Comar, drop-dead, also would like to fight. EE: I am concerned about both the Middle Seneschal and Society Earl drop-dead living in the same house, and what would happen to the middle seneschalate should Comar win. JS: I will ask about it. EFM: "My standard comment about officers fighting" Motion: allow John Slack to fight, as long as he has a solid deputy in reserve. Bertram: Why is this being handling one at a time? JF: because it crops up at odd times. Vote: 3 for, 2 against, JF breaks tie with a yes; motion carried. =========== Chronicler: There was a problem with free advertisement for a reenactment of a medieval church service. Request to print a disclaimer. Problem with a gentle printing a TI: "oh boy". there was an announcement that TI was almost back on schedule; this is untrue. I'd like to publicly apologies to the populous on behalf of the . TI has a pretty cover; it is wafer-thin, and has many typos. We are working to correct this. Complete Anachronist: this is a gem. You should have received one; you will receive another next week; and another next month. It should be up-to-date by fall. I'd like to publicly kiss Martha's feet [And he did!] MW: I will be in the barn at Pennsic to talk to anyone about anything regarding C.A. I have three proof-readers. If you find a mistake; please e-mail me (don't flame me), so that I can make the correction for the reprints. When I took this job, I found there was no policy on copyright. One of the people working on CA is a copyright expert lawyer. She has put together a copyright policy for CA. What is copyrighted is the format, not the content. The copyright on content reverts to the author. Still need to catch up on her own July back-log. (She handed out pre-copies of a good article on period black powder. It contains no recipes, and the comments that this is not a toy. The copyright lawyer has advised that, after addressing her itemized concerns, the society takes on NO liability in publishing this. She has looked up all case law on this, and included all judgements. No suit or judgement against a non-profit has ever succeeded. Request: can we use these disclaimers to publish this article, and other articles of possible risk. The Boy Scouts of America was sued over an issue on rifflery; claimant was told she did not have a chance, and was turned down at initial judgement and every appeal. EE: there is a lot of technical language here; I don't think the board could render a judgement today. MW: fine AJR: I believe that the supreme court has ruled that this is fully covered by the first amendment. ... AJR: we have not reviewed any issues before; that's why we have an editor. Is this really a matter for the full board? MW: the last item is a CA index that I pulled off the Internet. It is not complete. I think having it on the Internet is a good thing. The problem is that someone has decided to scan in all of issue #70, period belly-dancing, and put the whole issue on the WWW under the name "complete anachronist". What should I do about this. PG: I will be looking into this, as well as several other issues, shortly. PG: I'd like to request the board, at a future meeting, authorization to buy a printer for the CA editor, as she is borrowing one at the moment. Item 5: I'm organizing files; I hate it, but it's getting done. Item 6: my term is up today; I'd like to put in for an additional 2-year term. AJR: I'd like to see a smooth transition of officers. Other than that, I have no objection. Mr. Rose: Was this advertised? Is this a problem? JF: no. To re-authorize an officer, advance notice is not needed. ================= A&S: LJR: Known world A&S comp. went well. Corporate was asked to fund publicity for it; should this be free? Flieg: I can see some concern by kingdom chroniclers of being flooded with letters from Society officers to be published gratis. Next A&S is in Dallas TX [I missed the date]. Chirurgeon: LF: Current Soc. Chir. is new to the job, and is having problems with reporting. 9 of 13 have not reported. File report and see how it goes next quarter. Lunch break; adjourning to exec. session in 10 mins. To start again at 2. =================== At 9:00 exec session, board "Confirmed Fast Eddie as a director of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc." At 11:50 session: Joanne shields, AKA Joanna of unicorn shield -- Membership revoked. Christopher ????? -- remanded until next meeting. EFM: Grand council reports an effort to gather information on out-sourcing various services of SCA Inc. AJR: comment: this is not a guarantee that the board will issue an RFP. JF: that does not match yesterday's consensus. COL: my understanding is that there is nothing to be lost by seeking bids. There was some disagreement on whether or not the board would issue a request for bids. "To approve and begin to implement the out-sourcing proposal passed by the Grand Council, below.... This proposal is not _to_ out-source, but to gather the information needed to submit a bid to out-source. The board did not feel they did not have the information needed to decide whether or not to actually submit bids at this time. EFM: Here is the reality of the situation: Dave made a good presentation yesterday, saying what we need to submit a bid. We do not have this information. We are indeed beginning to act on this. We are forming a committee to gather the information. JF: LF: Motion to establish a task force to investigate out-sourcing, consisting of Carol O'Leary, AJ, Renee, & Dave Schroeder and that we revisit the GC proposal when we meet in October. Motion carried unanimously. ======= IAC: The chair of the IAC is concerned about the lack of interest. There has been no input from any major kingdoms. Only half of then kingdoms are even represented. Report filed, no action. Finance: M. Ghita is chairing a subcommittee to investigate budget compliance. Letters look very good. The budget is developing nicely. The seneschal office is having budget problems. The finance committee will be pulling $3000 from board member phone expenses and $500 each from board member postage, and $500 from board member general expenses, to add to the seneschal's office budget. LT: Has letter from an offer to finish the FoxPro project. Request is for free time, reimbursement of travel and communication costs. First action is to check the credentials of this gentle. LJR: a list of potential board members has been published. She has received _no_comments_ on anyone on this list. Gail Lefkowitz expresses concern that she saw no request for comments. LJR points to a letter in the winter TI. LJR: we will be trying to choose two new board members in the fall, so please write letters. (That is addressed to any member, not just "important" people.) Marketing committee: Mr. Rose Reports on a proposal for a marketing service survey. 1: that be authorized to publish two 1-page surveys: A: member satisfaction, B: member service preference. 2: that the board pay for publication of the survey in kingdom newsletters and/or national publications. 3: that they be authorized to identify large volume merchants, to ask them. RS: we don't keep name information Rose: fine, we will defer item 3 until October. There was some discussion about the mechanics of the survey. There is a concern (AJR, EE) that it will cost too much (to the kingdom chroniclers) to publish in kingdom newsletters, and that kingdom newsletters don't cover international members. Then again, there is some concern that if it was submitted to TI, it would not come out in a timely fashion. Item 4: that the board direct the Soc. Seneschal to collect suggestions for new products. EE: is happy to put in a request for comments, but concerned that her people have a lot to do already without specific board-mandated direction such as this. ===== Insurance: EFM There is nothing to report on insurance. ==== 5 min. break. ==== Waiver committee: Mark Long -- co-char of the waiver committee New report submitted in June for July meeting. Have solicited members to sit on committee, and solicited suggestions for waivers. Arbitration clause is out. California laws is out Storage and retrieval of waivers will be important. Not looking outside the U.S.A. Specifically not making any recommendation on other countries. Asks seneschalate to look at laws of individual states. Not happy with waiver for minors, but this is the best to date. They are not legal council for the Society. LF: asking for your personal opinion Mark's personal opinion: "I'd sign this waiver." he's not sure he would sign the old one. Question: Please explain imdemnify ML: It is an agreement by one person to make sure the other is made whole. It prevents A from suing B, B in turn suing the SCA, resulting in a gain to A. Question: Does it cover cases of negligence or fraud? ML: If a marshal inspects your armor, and says it's okay, and you are injured, that marshal is covered. If someone hits you blind in the back, the person who hit you is not covered. EE: request to allow kingdoms using this new waiver, if they see fit. To allow this would require modification of G&PD. AJR: moves to authorize kingdom use of the June 30 1995 waivers. Seconded and passed. JF: I want to say that your committee has done something that has not been done for a long time. You have done a difficult job in a bad circumstance, and I want to thank you. (paraphrase) [NOTE: this was _not_ the text that was sent out for comment, this is a revision of that.] ML: request: what should the committee do next? JF: sit back, wait for a bit, and relax in a job well done. LFR: request for thank-you letter from JF. JF: fine. ================= Seneschal section: EE New shires 3 new baronies request for dissolution of two shires (in CA) AJR: move to dissolve -- passed. EE: at the request of the board, she will be expanding on some letters. Specifically, to AEthelmearc, specific suggestions on what should go into a kingdom bid, and to several baronies for a principality bid. JF: bids for board meetings: St. Louis and Orlando. EE: concerned about handicap access. AJR: suggest to remand pending a conference call, in order to find out some missing info on both bids. JF: Remanded until next conference call. ========================= Bank Authorizations: RS There are 7 reported and cleared. Warrant status: EE We are in much better shape than last year on kingdom warrants. All kingdom seneschals and chroniclers are warranted. ============== V. Old business. changes to gov doc, E.D. / SocSen -- remanded changes, Add exchequers -- remanded until oct. Six month review: 95 budget: AJR Just printed, and hasn't had a chance to carefully review. Membership running 55% of yearly proj. Non-memb Sur. running 50% of yearly projections. expend: a number of exp. are not yet in the budget. TI and CA lateness caused confusion. Board meeting expenses are running +8% of projections. Sal, benes, and taxes are running +8%, due to a change in accounting. Gen. Admin: 44% Prof. Services: 33% Total expend. 45%, but caveat: some TI and CA expenses not in budget. LF: doesn't understand why lodging is running more this year than last. AJR: it was hard to split lodging from food & drink. The sum of both is similar. West kingdom non-mem charge compliance: EE west overpaid by $118, according to Betsy's calculation. Draft G&PD 18 (60 day notice policy) -- remanded to Oct. =================== New business: Pennsic variance request: EE Give them until Oct 30 to close books on Pennsic. Approved. 10 min. recess. International affairs: EE request for support from international groups. Specifically, there is concern with the delay in getting names passed. Betsy reminded them that this is partially due to a lack of reports. Concern that membership rates not vary wildly. Many international members not interested in getting TI at all. Some members cannot read English, so TI is of no use whatsoever. Also international mail to Austria going to Australia. Request: allow international members to choose either TI or their kingdom newsletter for the same price. On getting group names passed, there was concern that much of the fault lies with the kingdom, not Laurel King. On TI (AJR), sending TI internationally is used to claim international service. But the US IRS doesn't care. So AJ recommends going ahead with this proposal in a slow way. There has been a separatist movement from a segment of the barony of Nordmark, of concern to the kingdom of Drachenwald. Drach. would like a statement that even if every member of Nordmark drops out, Drach will retain kingdom status. LF: this has been done before JF: there is a severe lack of communication problem with Nordmark. We need to open lines of communication. AJR: move to retain kingdom status of Drach, for the next two years, regardless of membership. Passed, k-to-1 G. Rose: suggests that the Drach. ombudsman (LF) to Nordmark for face-to- face talks. EE: this was kept private from most of the kingdom of Drach. until about 2 weeks ago. .... G. Rose: "Honest to God John, it's not just 3 people; I've had at least 20 people from Nordmark send me mail last week." AJR: has heard an allegation of that there is a pattern of separatism. ????: That is false. Less than half of the founders were even involved with this. (The board may not be able to get a representative to Visby in time for the separatist movement meeting. Fall coronation was suggested.) Greg Rose walked up and layed down $20 to send someone to Visby. Flieg suggested that people talk about this at dinner. JF: will try to get in communication with these people. On Australia: LT reports that the is an effort in Locharc to improve US/Oz communication. On Canada: AJR requests a small sum (roughly $500) to investigate Canadian incorporation law, in order to find out how the Canadian groups should be organized. On kingdom reports: AJR suggests that officer reports be restructured to separate requests for board action into a list of action items, and only those items be verbally presented in board meetings. Flieg: several items of report, which are not action items, have spurned questions from the floor, which spurned further board investigation on those topics. This request would limit a mode of communication that has been useful in the past. Fridrikr: suggests that synopses of reports be included in written minutes. EFM: asked Flieg to cite an example Flieg: referred to the Chron's description of the TI and CA situation, and Earl Marshal's items on cannoneering. JF: notes that he is new to this, and that perhaps October's meeting will be be better. JF: we will look at this, and look at the order of agenda. And ask officers to prepare a brief summary of their reports. EE: suggests that the officers be informed that this summary is to be suitable for public release. Meeting adjourned, 5:45 pm. From dani@telerama.lm.com Mon Jul 24 16:10:47 EDT 1995 Article: 120279 of rec.org.sca Path: hudson.lm.com!asia.lm.com!not-for-mail From: dani@telerama.lm.com Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: BOD meeting (very rough) minutes, 7/22/95 Date: 23 Jul 1995 19:14:39 -0400 Organization: Telerama Public Access Internet, Pittsburgh, PA USA Lines: 177 Message-ID: <3uul4v$2lm@asia.lm.com> References: Keywords: BOD, just-in-time A few notes follow regarding Tofi's BoD meeting report. > claim: ask for repayment for $19k of expense from result of > Cellio et all. suit. An attempt is being made to get the Directors and Officers Liability insurance to pay for this. I'll be surprised if it succeeds. > Result of new exclusion The new insurance policy seems to be better than the old one in a number of respects, among which is that members (not just Officers) are now insured against outside third parties. It does *not* insure one member against another so, for example, if an event is held on a member's private property, that member may have a hard time collecting for damage done by another member. > Members of the law enforcement community. in Texas who were misinformed > about SCA opinions of use of illegal drugs, religion, etc. Worse, from what I gathered. A self-styled expert is accusing the SCA of being a front for illegal activities involving children. Everyone's walking on eggs on this one. My personal advice: If you think of a way to step in and help...*don't*. > New minutes are $15/yr, 1st class only. > 94 reports (but no minutes) are $10. The answer to something I was wondering about is that if your membership isn't up for renewal for a while, you can still subscribe to the Minutes when they become available in about a month. >Membership: 101 new members this quarter, so we are again going up. My notes indicate that membership went up 101 in *June*. >E-mail information had to be written down and hand copied >into the information service. Near as I could make out, they got a Compuserve account, they either weren't set up to download messages or nobody told Renee how, and after a few predictably frustrating months they declared email a failed experiment. > (She handed out pre-copies of a good article on period black powder. > It contains no recipes, and the comments that this is not a toy. The > copyright lawyer has advised that, after addressing her itemized > concerns, the society takes on NO liability in publishing this. I'm not sure she believes it. She had Justinian omit formulae, perhaps on the theory that the people most likely to blow themselves up are the least likely to go to the library and look them up themselves, and every page is going to carry a dont-try-this-at-home sort of footer. > The problem is that someone has decided to scan in all of issue #70, > period belly-dancing, and put the whole issue on the WWW under the > name "complete anachronist". What should I do about this. Specifically, the author of the article scanned it in without reformating (this violates CA's copyright) and without removing the CA 'label'. (It's not clear to me why the editor cares.) >There was some disagreement on whether or not the board would issue a >request for bids. The situation as I see it: - The Board has agreed to obtain a bid form (needed for requesting bids from outsourcers), and to collect the data required before such a request for proposal can be written up. - There was considerable heat over the fact that the Board would not commit to actually requesting bids, but only to consider the matter again once the data has been obtained. My personal opinion is that there was nothing meaningful that the Board could commit *to*: Not only does nobody have exact estimates of the office's workload, but nobody's real sure of just what functions the office actually carries out. It's not meaningful to talk about requesting bids before it's clear whether we're asking for someone to generate our label runs or whether we're trying to close the office, open a post office box in Delaware and a phone line in Kansas, and let someone else do all the rest -- or anything between. - Renee appears to me to be a major bottleneck in the process of getting the needed information. A charitable interpretation is that she's swamped with the routine work of the Society, and reluctant to disrupt it. An uncharitable interpretation is that she's dragging her feet as hard as she can. That said, if the other three members of the task-force make a good-faith effort to keep the project on schedule, I suspect they'll succeed. >Question: Please explain imdemnify >ML: It is an agreement by one person to make sure the other is made whole. >It prevents A from suing B, B in turn suing the SCA, resulting in a gain >to A. The 'i' word has been the most complained-about aspect of the proposed waiver, since in some contexts it means that if a third party sues the SCA on your behalf (even if you don't want them to), you have to reimburse the SCA. According to Mark, it means something different in this context. Suppose (an example given), you sue a site for $100,000 for leaving barbed wire lying around and injuring you. Suppose further that the site turns around and sues the SCA for negligence, and a judge agrees that the SCA is partly negligent, and must pay $25,000 of the $100,000. Indemnification here means that you'd only collect $75,000, and not the SCA's share. >Membership running 55% of yearly proj. >... >Total expend. 45%, but caveat: some TI and CA expenses not in budget. In brief, and to simplify, income has been running 10% higher than projected and expenses have been running 10% lower than projected. There may be reasons to maintain the non-member surcharge, but balancing the budget is not one of the true ones. >Request: allow international members to choose either TI or their kingdom >newsletter for the same price. >.... >AJ recommends going ahead with this proposal in a slow way. 'Slow' because our computer system can't currently handle it. :-( >There has been a separatist movement from a segment of the barony of >Nordmark... The statements made about this are particularly interesting in light of the other statements which have just started reaching the Rialto. Sedalia stated that the separatist movement consists of only three people. (Presumably the three peers mentioned in other postings.) John (I think it was he) stated that the Board only became aware of this mess a couple of weeks ago. >AJR: has heard an allegation of that there is a pattern of separatism. >????: That is false. Less than half of the founders were even involved >with this. The 'this' is that some of the founders of Nordmark came from a Tolkien group from which they are said to have separated in a similar huff. >On Canada: AJR requests a small sum (roughly $500) to investigate >Canadian incorporation law, in order to find out how the Canadian groups >should be organized. Apparently An Tir is experiencing an outbreak of groups incorporating in Canada and calling themselves the true SCA Inc. >On kingdom reports: AJR suggests that officer reports be restructured to >separate requests for board action into a list of action items, and only >those items be verbally presented in board meetings. This was in the context of an expression of general frustration that at every meeting, routine business eats up most of the day, and there's never time to properly consider new and nonroutine matters. The next Board meeting may be on October 20-22. St. Louis has a bid (I got the impression that it was long-standing, but not as complete as the Board preferred), but wants to move the date if it can. Orlando has submitted a last-minute bid. In any case the next commenting deadline is Monday, October 2. ----- Dani of the Seven Wells dani@telerama.lm.com "The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity." -- W.B. Yeats From mjc@telerama.lm.com Mon Jul 24 16:21:12 EDT 1995 Article: 120292 of rec.org.sca Path: hudson.lm.com!pink.lm.com!not-for-mail From: mjc@telerama.lm.com (Monica Cellio) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Board meeting report (corrected) Date: 24 Jul 1995 01:43:03 -0400 Organization: Telerama Public Access Internet, Pittsburgh, PA USA Lines: 468 Message-ID: <3uvbt7$nm2@pink.lm.com> Greetings from Ellisif, Following are my notes from this weekend's board meeting. I didn't take notes on everything, and it's possible I may have misunderstood some point or other, but I believe they are fairly accurate. Comments from me are in square brackets. Anything in quotes is a direct quote; everything else is a paraphrase/summary. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Ed Kreyling was not present at the meeting due to a work problem. In addition to the other board members, the following were present: Sedalia, the corporate chronicler (Peter), Renee, Lori (the executive assistant), the CA editor, the marshal (Bjorn), and the co-chair of the waiver committee (Mark). In executive session, Eddie was confirmed as a board member, one membership was revoked, and one was deferred. (I didn't catch names.) Minutes were approved from the April meeting, 2 conference-call meetings in November '94, and a (presumed conference-call) meeting in (I think) February. [The minutes weren't made generally available, but presumably they'll be in the proceedings (see below).] The changes to governing documents to make the corporate senescahl the person in charge generally of the mundane side (in addition to the medieval side), a proposed change to add the exchequer in some manner (text forthcoming), and the 60-day grace period proposal will be discussed in October. Several corporate officers asked to be allowed to enter upcoming Crowns, including Sedalia, Bjorn, the corporeate exchequer, and I think one other (though I didn't note who). In Bjorn's case, this is contingent on his drop-dead deputy working out; apparently the drop-dead's wife is, or is drop-dead deputy for, a kingdom seneschal (Middle; I didn't catch any names). The board wants to make sure there will be a smooth transition if Bjorn wins. (Sedalia has a deputy whose name is Gilbert something; he's the former seneschal of Meridies.) The corporate seneschal (Sedalia) reported that the Middle has the best compliance rate on the non-member tax, with Meridies a close second. [This is not surprising, as these are the kingdoms that appear to be the strongest supporters of the corporation. They are the ones that did not sign the Estrella Compact, for instance.] She said that the East's compliance rate has gotten better with its new seneschal. Flieg disputed the rankings, saying the West is fully paid; Sedalia said the payment was late. [I presume that Drachenwald wasn't included in the rankings, as they've worked out some other means for handling the money.] The tax payment must be made within 7-10 days after the event, but the board can grant extensions on a case-by-case basis. (Last year Pennsic got an extension, and they voted to give the upcoming Pennsic until Oct 30.) Sedalia asked for permission to grant these extensions on her own, without the board having to worry about it. The feeling of the board was that anyone running an event that large ought to be planning far enough in advance that getting a variance from the board should not be a problem. The motion failed. The corporate seneschal has spent 75% of her 1995 office-supplies budget and wants more money. AJ reported that they will move $3000 from the general board phone budget, $500 from each board member's individual phone budget, and $500 from each board member's office expense budget to the corporate seneschal's budget. [For a presumed total of $10,000.] [What is the difference between the "general board phone budget" and invididual board-member phone budgets? Did I mis-hear one of these?] Sedalia ruled (and the board okayed) that if someone cannot, for religious reasons, swear an oath whose precise wording is specified, alternate arrangements must be made. The specific situation is that Calontir [?] requires entrants to Crown to swear a specific oath before the tourney begins. Sedalia proposed changing the membership requirement for Crown. In the past, entrants had to be members as of the first day of the month in which the tourney was held. Now that we have instant memberships (you're a member as soon as the check arrives), seneschals can't get a fully accurate membership list and checking this is a problem. Sedalia proposed going back to the old way. AJ pointed out that kingdoms can do this if they want; they're allowed to be more restrictive. The board decided that this is not a matter they should interfere in. The Executive Assistant (Lori) reported that we have a new general liability insurance carrier. Apparently the agent for the old company closed up shop and disappeared during renewal talks. The new carrier is Essex, which has a slightly better rating than the previous company (A6 vs. B, for those of you to whom this means something). There are some changes in the new policy: there is no exclusion for property damage [huh?], SCA members can be added as insureds, there is an exclusion for claims of insured parties or SCA members against each other [not sure what this means in practice], and the deductible (per incident) was raised from $250 to $500. The new policy costs $2500 less than the old one. [As I recall, the liability policy last year ran about $40,000.] The corporation has filed a claim on the Director & Officer policy for the $19,000 judgement in court costs from the mandamus petition. [I'm curious about the circumstances under which D&O claims are paid; what degree of negligence is still covered?] An insurance claim was filed for damage to a gym floor at a January event. The autocrat had roped off an area as off-limits; someone moved the rope and dragged armor across the floor, damaging it to the tune of $3000. There is some question about whether this is covered under the policy in place at the time; while that company had previously covered a damaged carpet at a site, they said that was a mistake and they didn't want to accept it as a precedent. [And now that we've left that insurance company, they have less incentive to be reasonable.] AJ said he thinks the local group, or failing that the kingdom, should cover the cost. Someone pointed out that neither the group nor the kingdom has the money; AJ said it's too much money for the corporation to pay. The matter was left unresolved until the insurance company gives a definite answer. [It sounds to me like the group may be SOL over this when they acted in good faith. The EA attributed this to a "misconception" about the insurance. It sounds to me like we need much better information about what our insurance does and does not cover, though past attempts to get answers to such questions have been largely unsuccessful.] The EA clarified that the policy now in place would cover this sort of claim. The Board Proceedings will be available soon. They should be an option on the membership form in the August newsletters; the cost will be $15/year (via first-class mail, the only option). Provisions of some sort are being made for people who want to subscribe immediately but don't have memberships expiring soon. Each mailing will consist of the corporate seneschal's notes from the current meeting and the minutes of the previous meeting (if approved). A packet containing the minutes from the last year (year and a half?) will be available for $10. The EA proposed regular performance reviews for the EA, Registrar, Treasurer, and Corporate Seneschal. Someone, I think John, said that this is done but there is no formal process. AJ said he would send some forms to the EA. It wasn't clear to me what would happen next on this. The EA wants a laptop for taking meeting notes. Renee said this was already budgetted, and someone thinks he can get it at cost. The board agreed to spend up to $2500 provided that Randal (who is apparently still involved in the area of computer stuff) reviews the specific purchase. John did not want to set such a high limit because he believes people spend it if they've got it. The EA reported that the corporation does not currently have a relationship with a lawyer/attorney, and wanted permission to start one because explaining the SCA to lawyers is time-consuming and you don't want to do it in the midst of a legal crisis. She said this would not involve any retainer fees. I think this was approved, but I'm not certain. 30-year celebration currently has 150 reservations and another 340 people subscribed to the newsletter. They're planning for 2000 attendees. The exchequer reported that 6 kingdoms' 1Q reports were on time. The chroniclers did better; 2 were late, and one of them just got the job. The 1994 tax return is proceeding. The IRS has asked for state-by-state breakdowns of expenses, which has led to the discovery of accounting problems. 17 states are done so far. The exchequer proposed raising the itemization limit from $100 to $250. [That is, anything over the limit has to be tracked and depreciated.] AJ suggested $500, and stated that these stated values have to be "fair market value, not sentimental value". AJ will investigate raising the limit. The corporate exchequer wants to be fought for in the upcoming Crown, and has a deputy (Laura Golden). Jane and Lee voted against, the others for (with John breaking the tie). [Maybe my notes are wrong; Eddie voted no on others, and I would expect him to be consistent.] Renee reported that June memberships were up by 101, so we're back on the upswing in that department. The board agreed to reprint the 3-hole-punched version of the Known World Handbook; the best bid was $11,375 for 2500 copies, which should last 1.5 to 2 years. They decided not to wait for a revised edition; last time that happened they ran out and lost a lot of sales. [How do they know they actually lost the sales? Didn't some of those people reorder when it was back in print?] Renee raised questions about the scope of the Marketing committee. She said it was originally formed to generate ideas for additional Stock Clerk merchandise, but that's not what it seems to be doing now. Someone asked why stuff should be added; she said to "keep it fresh". Renee says the philosophy is not necessarily to make money but to break even and provide a service to members. AJ said when he joined the board he was told the goal of the Stock Clerk was to make enough to keep membership rates down. [These goals are at odds, of course.] The issue was deferred. Renee stressed that the corporation does not have email and people should not send queries, changes of address, etc to individuals who happen to have email. Someone asked why they don't *get* email; the answer was that it was too complicated. (This prompted some laughter from the audience.) Interesting Aside: the FAX machine is turned off at noon on the last business day of the month. This is somehow required so they can close the month out. Note that the commenting deadline for this meeting was June 30; people who tried to fax letters on that day were probably out of luck. Interesting Aside #2: if the fax machine is out of paper, it may confirm receipt but not actually print. So the only way to *really* know your fax got there is to call and ask. [In my opinion, this level of unreliability is completely unacceptable.] The herald reported that the modest proposal is in place and "so far, so good". The marshal faxed his report but it never arrived (see Interesting Aside #2). He reported that the Trimaris earl marshal is out for the current reign and his deputy is hanlding the job. I gather that the crown removed the marshal. The chronicler reported that "unmarked free advertising" has decreased, but that 3 kingdom chroniclers published an announcement about The Monestary, an in-persona encampment at Pennsic, and these should have been paid ads. (The chronicler did not address the issue of announcements that are of general interest.) The chronicler asked the 3 kingdom chroniclers to run a disclaimer; the relevant issues haven't come out yet so he doesn't know if they did. He also reported that someone published an announcement/ad for a credit union in a local newsletter; he will deal with this. (Someone in the audience seemed to be connected with that, but I didn't catch who.) TI is behind schedule. The chronicler asked people to please submit articles. He said the editing on the spring issue (#114) was "shoddy" and that this was a "transitional problem". [The art director, who does production, has been in place for almost 2 years; his first issue was #108.] The chronicler had intended to ask for an increase in the stipend for the art director, but withdrew the idea until the problems are fixed. CA expects to be caught up by September or October. They have 36 submissions that are being proofred. [I'm pretty sure that's what she said.] They want more. They are looking into copyright matters; it is their intention that the SCA Inc hold copyright to the *format* but authors/artists hold copyright to the *contents*. The CA editor had a draft copyright statement that she passed around to the board; copies were not generally available. The CA editor is worried about disclaimers for dangerous stuff. She has a manuscript on gunpowder; it doesn't contain any recipies, but she wanted board approval to proceed with it. She had a lawyer work up the text for a disclaimer. Consensus of the board was that this was fine. Someone has scanned in CA #70 (on belly dancing) and put it on the Web under the name of Compleat Anachronist. This is a copyright violation and the chronicler will pursue it. CA wants a printer ($400). She'll do some research and talk to Randal and they'll discuss it at the October meeting. The chronicler's term was up on Saturday and he asked for another 2 years. Someone asked if there had been any calls for applications; he said no. Sedalia said (after looking it up) that calls for letters are desirable but not required, so he was confirmed. Some board members appeared to think the absence of a call was not a problem in any case. Someone proposed requiring kingdom chroniclers to run stuff from the corporation for free rather than charging ad rates. Apparently an announcement from the A&S officer (on the known world symposium?) was run as an ad in some newsletters. The chronicler said that he supports chroniclers running such things on a spcae-available basis (for free) and doesn't want to swamp newsletters. [When I was kingdom chronicler I had a very simple policy. If it wasn't an East Kingdom event announcement or something time-critical from the corporation, I ran it if I had space, possibly holding it for the next issue. Anyone who wasn't happy with that had the option to pay for an ad to get it into the target issue. I suggest that this is a fine policy for handling the ever-increasing load of such materials on the still-small stipend.] The chirurgeon reported having trouble getting reports, with 9 of 13 kingdoms not reporting. The Grand Council submitted a request for the board to investigate the cost of outsouring the functions of the corporate office. After extensive debate the board agreed to gather information about what the corporate office currently does, but refused to commit to putting out a request for proposals (RFP) to outsourcing firms. Members of the GC present at the meeting argued that this in no way committed the board to actually going through with outsourcing. Someone asked how they expected to be able to determine the costs if they didn't get quotes. There were no answers to these questions; the board said they'd gather the data and revisit the question in October. They appointed a committee to gather this data. AJ argued that the board should wait until the GC is finished looking at everything before addressing this small piece of it. He also argued that the corporation tried outsourcing once (Provine) and it didn't work, so he's leary of trying again. The IAC has a new member from the West (Hal Ravn). There was a suggestion (I think they said from Hal) that the IAC shoule either solicit new members from the kingdoms whose members aren't participating or disband the committee. No action was taken. AJ reported that the Budget Compliance subcommittee of the Finance Committee has 3 new members: a CPA, an IRS person, and a lawyer. Ghita is in charge of this subcommittee. AJ will have a draft of the '96 budget for discussion at the October meeting. (The meeting will be in either St. Louis or Orlando; this will be decided at a conference-call meeting in 2 weeks.) [Anyone willing to pursue some detailed questions/issues on my behalf? I'm autocratting an event that day and can't be there.] The computer committee reported that someone has volunteered to finish the FoxPro project. He'll donate his time but wants to be reimbursed for any actual expenses, such as necessary travel. The corporation is going to check his references before proceeding. The recruiting committee (headed by Jane) is unhappy with the feedback they're getting. There was a plea for input in the winter TI (the one that came out in April). Jane said she is "requiring" kingdom chroniclers to print the list of board nominees every other month. [I do not believe she has the authority to do that unilaterally. She appears to be one of many officers who has not yet learned that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar; in my experience chroniclers will do their best to accommodate a polite request, but being ordered to do something is different.] 2 new board members will be chosen at the October meeting. The marketing committee wants to distribute 2 one-page surveys (under 20 questions each) about the Stock Clerk, one to determine member satisfaction and the other to determine what specific services/items people want. They asked that the surveys be printed in kingdom newsletters or TI; the corporate chronicler will help work out the details. There was some discussion of the costs of doing this and whether TI or the kingdom newsletters would be better. [If they're concerned about space, they could let the kingdom chroniclers put these in instead of the membership form once. After all, each sustaining member gets 13-17 copies of the form per year; we can afford to drop some of these.] The committee also wants to survey the people who buy wholesale. Renee said that data is not available; they don't track who buys wholesale. AJ said the surveys need to be reviewed before being printed. Renee and Diane (the stock clerk) both want to see them. The survey responses also have to go to the corporate office (AJ's requirement), not directly to a member of the marketing committee. The committee asked Sedalia to ask kingdom seneschals to solicit ideas for merchandise and more committee members. The waiver committee has a new draft. Copies weren't distributed. The co-head of the committee (Mark) said he would sign this one personally. The arbitration clause is gone, as is the requirement that CA law dominates. Mark said the corporation needs to look at the storage problem. He cautioned that the committee only looked at US law. He recommends that kingdom seneschals investigate the state laws for their kingdoms to determine if there are any conflicts. [Maybe I mis-heard; I thought that was part of what this committee was doing.] The committee isn't all that happy with the minor waiver they came up with, but they say it's the best thing they've seen so far. Mark clarified the meaning of "indemnify". He says what it means is that you agree not to collect judgements from the SCA that go through a third party where you couldn't sue directly. For example, if you sue a site as a result of a dangerous condition, and the site turns around and sues the SCA (e.g. if they warned the SCA about the condition and nothing was done to warn attendees), and the judge eventually finds that the site and the SCA are each 50% liable and thus the responsibility for payment is split 50-50, you can't collect the 50% from the SCA. Mark says that indemnification does *not* mean that you agree to pay for any judgements that the SCA incurs from other incidents. Someone raised a concern about insurance subrogation clauses. Mark said this is not a problem and he has never seen an insurance policy that has a clause like this. He is very interested in receiving a copy of such a policy if anyone can produce one. Implementation of the new waivers will be discussed in October. The board agreed that kingdoms can start using them now instead of the current waivers if they want. AJ reported on mid-year finances as compared to the budget. Membership income is 55% of the budget for the year; the non-member tax is at 57%. On the expense side, board meeting expenses are at 58%, salaries are at 58% (due in part to the corporate seneschal and exchequer being moved here from stipends), admin expenses are at 44%, professional services are at 33%, and total expenses are at 45%. AJ said some of the expenses may be off because of the late TIs and CAs. The West made a lump-sum payment of $2970 for the first half of the year's non-member taxes. They overpaid by $118; this will be subtracted from the payment they have to make for 3Q. The West will report monthly on event attendance. Concern was expressed that if Nordmark leaves the SCA, Drachenwald could have membership problems. The board agreed to retain Drachenwald kingdom status for at least 2 years if Nordmark separates. (There was some talk of setting a minimum level, like 200 members, but I don't think that happened.) Eddie voted against the proposal, which passed. John said that communications with the board have broken down and need to be fixed. He said that most members of Nordmark are in the middle on the question of secession. Sedalis asid "They've pretty much given up on champions except for 3 people". [That's not the impression I've gotten.] She frequently referred to 3 "dissidents", but didn't mention any names. A suggestion was made to send the Drachenwald ombudsman to Visby in 2 weeks, where the decision on secession will be made. Arguments against were that it's too expensive and people there might resent an American showing up at this point. John, Eilis, and Sedalia will look into the situation further. The board is considering allowing international members to get their kingdom newsletters instead of TI. They will look into the costs. No lawsuit has been filed yet in Lochac regarding a banishment. Sedalia said the Australian board wants a better relationship with the US board and has appointed a US liason. An Tir has a principality forming in Canada; this will probably come up at the January meeting. The board wants to find a lawyer versed in Canadian law to investigate incorporation there. Currently there are 3 SCA-related corporations in different parts of Canada, each claiming to be the Canadian SCA, according to AJ. AJ proposed dropping the officer reports from board meeetings except for action items. Several members of the audience asked for summaries to be presented at the meeting and in the Board Proceedings. Sedalia said that summarizing reports for the proceedings would be too much work; I pointed out that if officers are asked to write their own summaries (2-3 paragraphs), there's no extra work for Sedalia. They'll consider it. The agenda will be rearranged to put officers' reports last so they don't slow down the meetings so much. (Someone complained that by the time they get to New Business it's late and everyone's tired.) The meeting ran for 5.5 hours of actual meeting time. The board spent another 2.5 hours or so in executive session. Ellisif http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/mjc/www/ellisif.html