Membership Privileges
Ruth Woodring
WH> I think this squints. If I felt strongly that Autocrats *ought* to be
WH> members (and some of the reasons that apply to officers apply here),
WH> then a logical dodge is to take out a membership in the name of
WH> "Autocrat of the Branch X". The newsletter could then be passed on to
WH> whoever is autocratting the next event and a request to pass it on
The reasoning on the above is that the autocrat is acting as a deputy Seneschal (at least in Ansteorra) -- making decisions on how the group's money can be spent, & entering into contract agreements. Yes, we all know your local seneschal is the legal agent and therefore the one who is supposed to be siging the contract -- but this sometimes falls by the wayside. For at least 3 or 4 months, this person is going to be majorly affecting your lives in the Society in your group -- getting you to come t
o work parties, talking you into helping out with the event. I think they should be a member. So does the Kingdom here.
WH> members (and some of the reasons that apply to officers apply here),
WH> then a logical dodge is to take out a membership in the name of
WH> "Autocrat of the Branch X". The newsletter could then be passed on to
WH> whoever is autocratting the next event and a request to pass it on
An interesting idea. Might work. But what happens when planning for events overlap? In our Barony, we've had years where there were as many as 5 events in 10 months -- it wouldn't work here.
-- Vashti, soon to be giving up being Central Region Seneschal....
* Origin: Herald's Point * Steppes/Ansteorra * 214-699-0057 (1:124/4229)
Wilson Heydt
> WH> members (and some of the reasons that apply to officers apply here),
> WH> then a logical dodge is to take out a membership in the name of
> WH> "Autocrat of the Branch X". The newsletter could then be passed on to
> WH> whoever is autocratting the next event and a request to pass it on
>
> An interesting idea. Might work. But what happens when planning for
> events overlap? In our Barony, we've had years where there were as
> many as 5 events in 10 months -- it wouldn't work here.
Unless all 5 events are in the space of no more than 2 or 3 months,
passing one (or at most, 2) copies around ought to work. I might
point out in the general context that there have been cases where an
SCA branch has actually had an underage Seneschal and the inherenet
problems have been avoided by appointing a Senschal-for-signing-contracts
while the person who cannot do so under civil law does all the work.
Because of this, I don't see a problem with haveing a non-member
autocrat. The Seneschal should be sufficiently available to get
things signed when they need to be signed.
--Hal
Hal Ravn, Province of the Mists, West Kingdom
Wilson H. Heydt, Jr., Albany, CA 94706, 510/524-8321 (home)
--
Hal Heydt | "Boycott Time-Warner"
Analyst, Pacific*Bell | --J. Danforth Quayle
510-823-5447 | "... kill all the lawyers."
whh...@pbhya.PacBell.COM | --William Shakespeare
Josh Mittleman
> Because of this, I don't see a problem with haveing a non-member
> autocrat. The Seneschal should be sufficiently available to get
> things signed when they need to be signed.
You may be mis-construing the problem. The corporation's concern is that
the person who is running the event, who is making organizational
decisions, and who has the authority to do things like eject someone from
the event or close down the event entirely, who is legally responsible for
the event and for ensuring that SCA rules are followed, and therefore who
is the obvious target for anyone who sues the Society over something that
happened at the event, be covered by the liability insurance. I strongly
doubt that under our current system an insurance company would cover
someone who was temporarily adopting a transferrable membership.
It is not entirely clear that the autocrat would only be risking his own
hide by not having liability insurance: In a recent conversation, Ms.
Elizabeth Johnson, the Chairman of the Board, opined that if a suit named a
non-member as the primary defendant and the corporation as the secondary
defendant, the insurance company would decline to get involved. The
corporation would probably win the suit, but only after thousands of
dollars in legal costs. (Tibor has pointed out that the corporation has
other legal agents who are not members; I suspect they are all protected by
their own insurance or by mundane law.)
We could accomplish the corporation's goal in several ways:
1) Require autocrats to be members.
2) Allow the sponsoring branch to purchase temporary liability coverage for
the autocrat.
3) Extend the liability insurance to all autocrats, a priori.
Whether the second and third options are possible depends on the insurance
company, but they are certainly worth investigating. Note that the first
approach, which we use now, imposes costs on individuals who are already
contributing time, money, and effort; the second option taxes the entire
event to cover common expenses; the third option taxes the entire Society
to cover common expenses. I asked Ms. Johnson about the third possibilty
in more general terms, and she was not sure how the insurance company would
re-act to the proposal. Apparently, the Board never considered that
possibility. The same sorts of possibilities exist for any of the
membership-requirement questions, and I believe they should be fully
investigated before any changes are made.
===========================================================================
Arval Benicoeur mit...@watson.ibm.com
Ken Pizzini
>1) Require autocrats to be members.
>Note that the first
>approach, which we use now, imposes costs on individuals who are already
>contributing time, money, and effort
I've come into the middle of this thread, so maybe I've missed
discussion on the subject (go ahead, flame me), but how about
this variation:
Autocrats are required to be members, but their membership
fee is waived in consideration of the time, money, and effort
that they expend on behalf of the corporation.
--Ken Pizzini
(a mundane reading the Rialto to see if the SCA suits his fancies)