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SCA participation (ramble)
It's hard to balance SCA events and being a somewhat-observant Jew -- a fact I knew intellectually for a long time, but that's not the same as living it. I now go to very few non-local events, because it usually means taking Friday off from work to arrive at a hotel (with food) before sundown Friday, and I use enough vacation days for holidays and Pennsic that I'm not going to do that unless the event is very special. All events now get evaluated through the "is this worth sacrificing some of Shabbat?" filter, with the schedules of local events being compared to service times. I find that even for "just Shabbat", as opposed to a holiday, I'm reluctant to miss services. (I will still ride in a car on Shabbat if the car was going there anyway, in case you're wondering, but I am hesitant to drive. So a corrollary is that I'm not just going to drive to the event after services; Dani also has to be willing to follow that schedule.)
Shabbat restricts some activities that occur at events. An upcoming event is, essentially, a shopping event -- something I can't do on Shabbat. Since the event otherwise has little of interest for me (it's also a children's event, not my thing at all), I'm going to skip it. That means I'm skipping a choir performance, but it's just not worth $15 or so to show up just for that. It's not the money; it's the cost-benefit analysis.
And then there's the part that has nothing to do with Judaism: the SCA, institutionally, has gotten much less friendly and flexible over the years. We have a burgeoning bureaucracy filled with make-work. We have more and more objectionable rules coming down from On High. And we have fewer people willing to actually think about these issues and question them. We're getting awfully close to "how high?" as the response to "jump!", and that's not the SCA I knew 20 years ago.
I live in the home group of the "three bad peers" (so dubbed by the then-president of the corporation). We were some of the prominent folks who challenged the corporation to open its books during a period of questionable financial dealings. (And yeah, that's a personal "we"; I'm one of the three.) When the corporation made a particularly annoying rule, we were among those who found legal ways to dodge the issue. (We did not simply say "shove off"; we worked within the system.)
About a year ago the corporation reinstituted the same rule. This time, they even provided the workaround. (It's the same workaround we used before.) They have said explicitly that it's ok to structure events to avoid the new rule, using this workaround.
I expected to see lots of events take advantage of that. Instead, prominent people in the SCA argue that it is "dishonorable" to do that, and several autocrats within my own group have declined to consider structuring events this way. So far, only one autocrat has done an event that way, and she had implementation problems that had nothing to do with the policy itself.
I'm not saying all of this to start an argument over this policy. Rather, I'm disappointed by how much my local group has changed in the last ten years. I sometimes think that I'm the only person living here who actually cares about the larger picture. I know that's not true, but that's how it feels sometimes.
I don't work on events much any more. Autocratting poses Shabbat challenges (and I got a little crispy before that), but I would like to cook another feast if anyone were interested in planning a Sunday event (a rare thing, but not unheard-of). But there's another complication, too: I feel that I cannot do anything to actively support an event that follows this new rule, because I think the rule is that wrong, and as I've said, the trend in my group seems to be in favor of the objectionable policy. So while I used to show up at events and help out for part of the day, now I just show up. That should make things easier -- more time to have fun and less time to work -- except that I have a strong-enough work ethic that it's hard to just sit there and not help.
But I like the society part of the SCA, even if the bureaucracy gets annoying. I really enjoy Pennsic. I enjoy most events. I enjoy singing, and dancing, and other activities that are best done in connection with events. A lot of my friends are in the SCA.
I'm not going anywhere, but my participation is definitely changing and I'm not sure where things will end up when everything settles.
Re: My rant...
We have officers now doing things that used to happen unofficially. I created my kingdom's web site and ran it for about five years, all unofficially. (My content, my labor, my hosting.) I worked cooperatively with all the kingdom officers and other folks with interest in the site, but I didn't "report" to them. To this day I regret that when I decided to turn the site over to someone else, I allowed the kingdom chronicler to grab control and start regulating it. I was just trying to be friendly, and the site's independent control was lost. (I should note that I have no problem with my successor, who did a fine job. I have a problem with the process.) There has been talk from time to time of the SCA trying to regulate electronic mailing lists, but fortunately, so far, that hasn't happened.
We seem to have moved toward a mindset that if someone is doing something useful, it must fall under the purview of some office. Web sites are one; newsletters are another. Most groups have official newsletters, regulated by the chronicler's office. That's fine. Try having an unofficial newsletter for your group, not funded out of SCA coffers and not accountable to the chronicler hierarchy, and you'll be in for a lot of flak. I don't think you would have been back when I joined the SCA.
We seem to waffle on whether the existence of a first-aid officer (chirurgeon) for a group is required, forbidden, or permitted, depending on which way the liability winds are blowing that year.
Now, I don't want to turn you off of the SCA or anything like that. It's a fun group. Most of this stuff is invisible to people who aren't actively involved in running the group, and that's good. Go. Keep having fun. Help with the things you want to help with. Don't feel obligated to do more.
Re: My rant...
The non-member tax issue - well I think it is rather discouraging for new members but also, it reinforces the fact that this is a club/society and I think that it's a good financial incentive to join. I think that it may be a good idea to waive it for members that come from school branches but I think it should be there. As for what happens to the money.. well, I consider it goes to the same pot as the member's fee.
With all the current financial scandals I'm all for better transparency. Unfortunately, I think herding the SCA membership to do something about it is a bit like harding katts. I think it may take another lawsuit to stir things up or wait until California drops into the Pacific Ocean.
I am so optimistic eh?
Re: My rant...
The liability insurance costs something under $3/member/year, so it's a little disingenuous to charge non-members $3/event for their share, yes?
Most of the corporation's costs are in the area of member services -- things non-members don't benefit from. For example, yes, they send out reminder cards to renew -- to people who paid them last year for, among things, that service. And newsletter subscriptions are part of the membership fee. There is very little that the corporation does, and that costs money, that benefits the society as a whole. Even in the area of policy-making, it's not like they send out the policy books free to, say, all the local marshals. They publish a handbook and sell it through the stock clerk, or you can get it on the web. The person who prepared that manual didn't get paid to do so. So you've got some miscellaeous photocopying and postage costs and the like while it's being developed, but this shouldn't be a frequent or large expenditure.
Now I'm not saying that the corporation is worthless. There are some (small) expenses that really should be spread across everyone. I would gladly support a model where local groups pay for the services they consume, whether it's an annual franchise fee or a buck a head for all attendees at each event or whatever. But the current model is, IMO, dishonest.
And, as you point out, non-US groups get even less out of the corporation. Our insurance policy probably doesn't do squat for you in Canada. This is part of why some groups, like Australia and Finland, have incorporated separately. I expect Canada to do this someday.
Whether membership is cheap or expensive doesn't really matter to me. Whether it's $20 or $100, if it's not spent and accounted for responsibly, and if it's used inappropriately as some sort of moral or patriotic club, I'm not favorably inclined toward it.
I am so optimistic eh?
:-)
Re: My rant...
Oh yes now that you put it that way. I'd have thought it was closer to 10$
So while I think everyone who participates in the society should support the groups where he plays, it's a leap to say that that support should come in the form of corporate membership. Frankly, if I'm an autocrat, I value the person who washes dishes, or the one who donates an extra $5 because we came up short, a heck of a lot more than the card-carrying member who does neither.
Too bad we don't have local memberships. That would be awesome.
You know I wonder that if the cost of proper accounting (not just the acocunting itself but having the right systems and people trained to do it well) is what is deterring the SCA about being public about it's financial management. Would people support potentially increased fees so that they are more transparent? I would now from your musings on the topic.
Re: My rant...
Good question. I believe their accounting is better than it was in 1994 (the time of the so-called "financial crisis"), and they even spend money on an accountant now, but I don't know if it's anywhere near generally-accepted practices yet. I would guess that they would need to make a greater investment, in time, money, and worldview-adjustment.
In 1994, when we finally got access to the books, what we got was a mess. Three CPAs began to analyze it for us and gave up. At least now they are keeping better records, and probably even organized ones. They are publishing budgets, which did not happen before. (But no generally-published financial reports yet, and no details on the budgets.) I think that one reason they fought so hard on opening the books in 1994 was that they were embarrassed. I don't think there was fraud; I think there was big-time incompetence and they didn't want us to see. They had also just hired their first professional executive director, and I think he had a lot to do with trying to hide those skeletons.
According to the bylaws, any member of the corporation is entitled to see the books. A letter to the corporation asking for a more detailed budget, or an explanation of certain line-items, might produce results. Seeing the actual books is a PITA (you have to go to Milpitas), but if they have improved their practices then they ought to be willing to answer basic financial questions.
Re: My rant...
Re: My rant...