Report from the Grand Council:  July 2006

 

A.  COMMITTEE ACTIVITY

 

The committee discussed the following issues:  

 

What changes, if any, should the SCA make to Tournaments Illuminated to make it more responsive to member needs?

 

What changes, if any, should the SCA make to Complete Anachronist to make it more responsive to member needs?

 

Extensive discussions resulted in a number of proposed suggestions that were moved and voted on by the Council.  

 

The Council recommends that TI be re-bundled with membership so it may once again serve its function as a "community magazine." 

YES – 24  yes – 7  no opinion – 0  no – 4   NO – 2    weighted score:  47

 

The Council recommends looking into TI being re-bundled with International memberships so it may also serve its function as a "Society-wide magazine." 

YES – 21  yes – 10  no opinion – 0  no – 4   NO – 2    weighted score:  44

 

Alternative funding methods for TI - such as increased advertising support, promotional merchandising, and/or organized fundraisers - should be investigated so as to make it possible for TI to be re-bundled with membership without greatly increasing membership costs. The GC feels this would both increase the value of membership (a previous, but related topic) and increase the usefulness and relevance of TI. 

YES – 25  yes – 7  no opinion – 1  no – 3   NO – 1    weighted score:  52

 

The Council recommends that TI should be focused as a community magazine  

for the SCA as a whole: lifestyle, SCA history, general how-to articles, news of the Knowne World, and announcements. 

YES – 29  yes – 8  no opinion – 0  no – 0   NO – 0    weighted score:  66

 

We further recommend that CA should be focused as a vehicle for in-depth, state-of-the-art articles  on Period arts, sciences, and history.

YES – 26  yes – 10  no opinion – 0  no – 1   NO – 0    weighted score:  61

 

The  Council recommends Tournaments Illuminated be available for sale, both on  a subscription and a per issue back-issue basis, to non-members of the SCA  in order to increase its potential  subscriber base if it can be sold at a price that serves the interests of the  Society. Pricing is a key decision that must be investigated further by the TI editor and the SCA Treasurer/Exchequer.

YES – 28  yes – 8  no opinion – 0  no – 0   NO – 1    weighted score:  61

The Council recommends Complete Anachronist be available for sale, both on  a subscription and a per issue back-issue basis, to  non-members of the SCA  in order to increase its potential  subscriber base if it can be sold at a price that serves the interests of the  Society. Pricing is a key decision that must be investigated further by the TI editor and the SCA Treasurer/Exchequer.

YES – 27  yes – 10  no opinion – 0  no – 0   NO – 0    weighted score:  64

 

 

B. COMMITTEE STATUS AND COMMENDATIONS 

 

The Grand Council has 3 new officers, all of whom ran unopposed for those offices. 

 

Chairman – Roger of Belden Abbey/Daniel Thompson, An Tir 

Deputy Chairman – Armand Dragonetti/Alan Rich, Ansteorra 

Secretary - Kevin Eriol/Everett S. Wallace, Jr.; Meridies 

 

The remaining officer and staff positions were filled by the incumbents, who ran unopposed for re-election. 

 

The Grand Council wishes to thank the three officers who stepped down in May: 

 

Haraldr Bassi (David Calafrancesco) Grand Council Chairman 

 

Hrolf Herjolfssen (Cary Lenehan) Grand Council Vice Chairman 

 

Aleksandr Vasilevych Lev (John Patrick Kowal) Grand Council Secretary 

 

They performed their duties well, and those of us following in their shoes will have a difficult time meeting their high standards. A special mention goes to Master Hrolf, who stepped in to fill the position as acting Chairman during Master Haraldr's leave of absence. Gentlemen, we are grateful for all your hard work. 

 

The Grand Council also wishes to thank those members of the Council whose terms were up in May; although we are losing them as voting members, they all have assured us that they plan to stay on the GC list, to offer their advice and council. 

 

 

C.  PUBLISHABLE SUMMARY

 

In the second Quarter of 2006 the Grand Council addressed the issue of possible changes which may/should be made to Tournaments Illuminated (TI) and Complete Anachronist (CA) in order to make these publications more responsive to member needs.  

 

The Council recommends TI become a community magazine for the SCA as a whole, focusing on topics such as SCA lifestyle, SCA history, general how-to articles, news of the Knowne World, and announcements of interest to SCAers.  To this end, the Council also recommends re-bundling TI with membership to ensure that all SCA members receive the SCA’s community magazine.  This would include International Memberships.

 

The Council recognizes that TI was originally unbundled from membership in order to avoid increasing the price of membership, and further acknowledges that controlling membership costs is vitally important to many members.  Therefore, the council also recommends the Board and its Officers investigate alternate funding sources for TI – such as increased advertising support, promotional merchandising, and/or organized fundraisers – in order to keep any increase in membership prices to a minimum.  The Council also recommends making TI available for sale to non-members, both to broaden the reach of TI and also as a potential source of additional funding for TI.  Methods for reducing the cost of producing TI include moving to a hybrid publishing model in which electronic copies and/or subscriptions would be available at a reduced cost.

 

The Council also recommends that Compleat Anachronist be made available to non-members, in order to broaden its subscriber base, providing that it can be sold at a price that will serve the interests of the Society.  The Council further recommends that the editorial focus of CA be on in-depth, state-of-the-art articles on Period arts, sciences, and history.

 

The Council recognizes that a key issue facing both TI and CA is availability of sufficient appropriate and high-quality content.  Therefore, the Council encourages all members to consider producing and submitting such articles to the appropriate magazine, and further encourages the Editors, other Officers, and Board to consider ways to encourage potential authors to submit more material.  Many on the Council believe that improving the quality of the content of both TI and CA will be crucial not only to the successful implementation of these recommendations, but to the continued survival of both TI and CA.

 

D.   CONFIDENTIAL

 

Nothing to report. 

 

E.  DISCUSSIONS/DELIBERATIONS

 

The following is a detailed report of the discussions conducted by the Grand Council regarding ways to make Tournaments Illuminated and Compleat Anachronist moiré responsive to member needs.  Discussions ranged beyond the bounds of the initial topic(s) to include ways to improve and/or market both publications in general, and specifically addressed the possibility of offering one or both publications to non-members, as well as ways to approach the value equation from the cost-reduction side.  The body of this detailed summary is organized by general subject head.

 

*Combine TI and CA, versus create more/better differentiation between them 

 

Combining the two was seen as a way to enhance TI by adding an in-depth, CA-style article in each TI, while at the same time creating a wider audience for the CA articles by imbedding them in the more popular TI.  There was a call for evidence to support the claim that TI was currently more popular (had more subscribers), but nothing was forthcoming.

 

Another argument in favor of combining the two was that consolidation might help to alleviate the manpower issue, by combining the strengths of both editorial staffs.  However, some also felt this might cause TI to become affected by CA’s inability to make its publishing deadlines, causing TI to have to wait for the CA “insert” to be finished before it could go to press.

 

Those who wanted more differentiation between TI and CA largely wanted CA to become more like a peer-reviewed semi-academic journal focusing on in-depth historical research topics, while TI focused on “game-side” articles and acted as an SCA-wide “community magazine” or quarterly community newsletter.  Proponents pointed out that building a sense of an SCA community larger than Kingdoms would be a great service to many SCAers.  

 

Specifically, it would serve as a magazine of general interest to a broad spectrum of the SCA, and possibly even those outside the SCA (see below).  It should include reports of the Board and its various committees and subgroups to allow the membership-at-large to keep abreast of society-wide administrative and policy items.  Also, it would provide coverage, both before and after, of events and activities that involve multiple Kingdoms, such as the major InterKingdom Wars (Pennsic, Estrella, Lillies, Gulf Wars, etc.) and various “Known World” Collegia and Symposiums.  

 

Some also wanted TI to publish a compendium of how-to and SCA-life articles, a la Known World Handbook, every 3 – 4 years.  Similarly, some wanted CA to sponsor annual or semi-annual conferences/symposia, possibly similar to the various existing Known World Symposia (Herald, Scribes, Seneschal, etc.), but for those pursuing more scholarly/historical research.  Outside academic reviewers for articles and speakers for symposia were suggested.

 

Digressions pointed out that much of CA’s strength – focused lengthy articles focusing on a single topic – is currently available faster and easier via the web, from both SCA and non-SCA sources.  One noted difference is that web searches are inherently “pull,” while CA brings subjects to you in more of a “push” model.  Also, CA topics, being “push,” are not necessarily those a given reader would choose or is particularly interested in, which can be both a weakness and a strength as it may serve to “force” diversity of thought and exposure.

 

One summary of both the current and the desired difference between the two: CA is a venue to show off our research and scholarship, while TI is about the SCA as a community that exists in the modern world. 

 

*Changing subscription models – bundling with membership, allowing non-members to subscribe, Web publishing 

 

Bundling (re-bundling) would provide an additional perk of membership, and would immediately, albeit artificially, increase circulation.  Many saw this as a step toward re-establishing TI as *the* house organ of the Society, and saw this as complementing a push to more “News of the SCA” content, making TI more like an SCA-wide newsmagazine, possibly with sections of columns for the various Kingdoms to report the happenings in their Kingdom.  Kingdom sponsorship of issues was also mentioned, and could work across all subscription models.

 

The major drawback to re-bundling is price.  While the majority favor re-bundling, they do not favor a simultaneous $15 price increase.  This means alternative revenue sources would have to be explored in order to subsidize the production and shipping of TI.  This is especially true for international members, if TI is re-bundled for them as well.  Broadening TI’s outside advertising base, conducting targeted fundraisers, profits from a more expensive subscription for non-members, and even direct subsidization (using membership dues, SCA merchandise sales, etc.) were all suggested as potential revenue sources.

 

Allowing non-members to subscribe was seen as another way to immediately increase circulation, as well as an opportunity to have both TI and CA serve as paper ambassadors of the SCA, each to a different audience – TI to recreational re-creationists, and CA to the more seriously minded authenticists.  This, particularly for TI, was seen as an excellent PR opportunity, as well as advancing our educational purposes through outreach to non-members.  Some viewed it as akin to doing a demo in print.

 

Some favored going even further, offering TI on a single-issue basis through newsstands or magazine distributors.  Obviously, the logistics of magazine distribution would have to be investigated in order to proceed in this direction.  It was also noted that this would at partially redefine the intended audience for TI, and any other publications offered for sale to the general public or broader historical recreation/re-enactment communities.  Renaissance Magazine was mentioned as an example of a similar periodical marketed this way.

 

Composite publications models suggested include having current (defined variously as the most-current issue to the last year’s issues) issues available only to members and/or subscribers, on-line via a password-protected site, with older issues available to the general public.  A discounted “electronic form only” option for TI and CA was also suggested as a way to subsidize the print version – since there would be very little production and no shipping costs, the entire subscription would be profit that could be used to support the more expensive print version.

 

One suggestion made for both TI and CA was to archive back issues and make them available via web and/or CD.  The current release for authors covers electronic re-publication, but the older ones did not, which means there are copyright issues to consider when making historical archives available.  This led to a debate as to whether to make this a free perk of membership, sell it separately to members, or sell it separately to everyone.  An additional option for a Web archive was to make it freely available to everyone, versus a subscription site.

 

*Lack of available content 

 

A key weakness of both magazines is believed to be the lack of a sufficiently large pool of motivated and qualified contributors.  Discussions of article quality, and whether the types of articles currently published are ideal or even appropriate, frequently returned to discussions of from where this desired high quality content would be obtained.

 

*Specific content suggestions 

 

There were many calls for more hands-on how-to articles, for both TI and CA.  Articles for TI would be shorter, generally one (magazine) page or less.  Examples of how-to articles included how do I make armor, or a plated belt?  How do I sew clothes or capes?  How do I run a war kitchen?  How do I make vambraces?  How do I hunt wild boar?  How do I sew this particular fabric?  How should I behave in court?  What makes a good local seneschal? How does the College of Arms work? What is Pennsic like?  What is there to do at Gulf Wars?

 

For CA, the question of articles being the cutting edge of SCA work versus a competent summary of what the experts already know was discussed.  It was pointed out that the former is what academic articles are in the real world, and that reviewers in this world usually are experts in the field but, bu definition, know less about the narrow subject of the article than the author.  It also means CA articles would be narrow in scope, and largely appeal to only a few top SCA scholars on each topic.  The latter model, on the other hand, is probably closer to what most commenters meant – overview articles summarizing what is known by the top 10% of SCAers on a given topic, somewhat broader in scope than an academic article.  

 

Some also called for a “rehash” of topics covered in early CAs, to incorporate knew knowledge/research.  This was proposed for both historical topics and more SCA-life related issues (CA #50, "Issues in Chirurgy," was specifically mentioned).

 

A related topic is ways to increase contributions, so that there is more content available of whatever kind. Suggestions ranged from paying contributors to getting SCA opinion leaders – from Crowns to the leading Laurels and elder Pelicans of a Kingdom – to start talking favorably about it, and encouraging the populace and/or their associates and households to contribute.  Mention was made of the medallions TI editors once gave contributors – little or no monetary value, no official precedence attached, but popular and sought after in the SCA writing community.

 

*Scheduling issues 

 

Problems with consistently meeting publication schedules, especially for CA, were seen as second only to a lack of quality content as a current weakness for TI and CA.  There was an overall feeling that the SCA needed to invest more time, talent, and/or money in both of these periodicals in order to make them more valuable to members (and non-members, if made available to them).  Some members of the Council expressed the opinion that if the magazines were allowed to go on as they presently are, readership would gradually dwindle to unsustainable levels and they would die.  A few specifically mentioned that declining readership was leading to reduced quality of articles, as more authors were turning to alternative channels to find an audience for their works, and this in turn was leading to further declines in subscriptions.  This was seen as a progressive, downward spiral.

 

*Beyond TI and CA 

 

Some suggestions were made as to other ways to improve communications and/or build “identity,” especially ways to better use the SCA website.  Suggestions included using the SCA’s official Website to host SCA blogs, an SCA “live journal clone,” SCA classifieds, merchant listings, and/or an SCA research wiki.  One suggestion was to use Stefan’s Florilegium as a model.