Report from the Grand Council: Quarter 3, 2007

A. COMMITTEE ACTIVITY

The committee began the quarter having just elected a new slate of officers, as reported previously. This led many committee members to reflect on the direction of the grand Council itself, as well as what made a good member of this committee.

Shortly thereafter, the committee directed its attention to the related topics of creating a 10-year plan and creating a business plan. The Board later directed the committee to set these deliberations aside temporarily in order to suggest a list of topics to be used as seeds for a brainstorming session held by the Directors. Toward the end of the quarter, discussion turned to issues relating to the announcement that the Society’s insurance coverage has filed suit to deny coverage in regards to the civil suits filed this past April.

While no motions emerged from these discussions, there was much debate on all of the above topics, as well as some related areas. These discussions are summarized in this report.

B. COMMITTEE STATUS AND COMMENDATIONS

Ellen de Wynter, at-large Council Member residing in Northshield, departed the council in September.

C. PUBLISHABLE SUMMARY

The Grand Council examined a number of topics during the third quarter of 2007. Initially, it discussed three related topics: creating a 10-year plan, creating a business plan, and recruiting and retention of Society level officers.

The Council also developed a list of long-range planning topics which could serve as seeds for a brainstorming session conducted as part of the Boards Long Range Planning meeting. In addition, the council began discussions of possible ramifications of the pending civil suits against the SCA relating to the child abuse charges against Ben the Steward, and in particular of the potential ramifications of the decision of the SCA’s insurance carrier to deny coverage in this matter.

D. CONFIDENTIAL

Nothing to report

E. DISCUSSIONS

Direction and composition of the Grand Council

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This discussion began as a discussion of the goals of the Nominations Committee, and quickly became a broader discussion of the characteristics of a good member of the Council, as well as of goals of the grand Council as an advisory committee to the Board of Directors.

Many characteristics were cited as being beneficial for a Council member – the ability to communicate clearly, keeping an open mind, debating with civility, working together in spite of occasional acrimony, and separating personal views and animosities from the issues and topics at hand were generally considered among the most important. It was considered equally crucial that a potential Councilor not be automatically opposed to any point of view or preference expressed by the Board, and also that a potential Councilor not be automatically supportive of all actions or opinions of the Board. Also cited was the critical importance of being interested in the future of the society as an organization, and not being obsessively focused on a single issue or theme.

While there were many disparate views as to specific directions the Council might take, there was agreement that the job of the Council is to give the Board of Directors the best advice it can give regarding whatever topics are assigned or addressed. This includes advising the Board on what is best from both the Corporation’s viewpoint and the members’ and non-member participants’ views. Many individual Council members felt it was their duty to represent the best interests of their particular Kingdom, particularly regarding issues on which their Kingdom may have a different approach or goals from other kingdoms or from the Corporation.

It was widely held that in order to best accomplish this, the Council should be diverse in terms of Kingdoms represented and also in terms of the backgrounds and experiences – both SCA and mundane – of the individual Councilors.

Business Plan and 10-year Plan

The committee initially addressed the issue of exactly what a business plan should be, including whether a plan could be created without first having a well-defined mission statement. There was also disagreement as to whether the business plan should be developed concurrently with, or was dependent upon the outcome of, the discussion of a 10-year plan. There followed much discussion as to the differences between the two, and what should be covered in each.

A schema for differentiating between a business plan and a 10-year plan was proposed. In this schema, a key difference between the two was that the business plan was much more specific, and started with the current situation and organizational structure and worked forward from that point. It would include the mission statement and specific corporate and business goals including specific financial and membership goals.

The 10-year plan, by contrast, would be more general and focused on long-term goals as opposed to specific near-term benchmarks. Examples of the sort of general goal that would belong in a 10-year plan include “Adopt an international franchise model in order to promote international growth” and “Strengthen ties with the academic medievalist community in order to gain access to these valuable resources and also to enhance recruiting among the academic and student communities.”

A business plan outline was suggested, based on the supposition that the central vision and unifying theme of the SCA is the concept of chivalric knight errantry as embodied in the chivalric competition between single combatants, each combatant fighting for the honor of “the one who inspires” them.

Further development of this was halted by the large number of leaves of absences caused by the Pennsic season, and a mandate from the Board to quickly address a new topic immediately after Pennsic.

Long-range Planning Topic List

The following list of topics was suggested as possible topics to be addressed in a long-range planning session:

Franchising the SCA’s intellectual property to outside sources – includes licensing the SCA’s framework for re-enactment, simulated combat rules and structures,

Licensing of SCA-related products so the Society gets a cut on things like T-shirts with Kingdom arms or "Cos I'm the Laurel, that's why"

Alternative pricing models. This Includes changing revenue model to a “gate fee” basis rather than a membership basis, or some hybrid combination.

Inheritance programs – program solicit, maintain and generate bequests upon death.

Purchase or co-purchase some form of life insurance that bequests to the SCA.

Identify potential additional income streams.

Cut costs by moving the office. Includes Doing a cost-benefit analysis of moving the office to another location in 1) the same complex, 2) the same city, 3) the same State, or 4) another State/region entirely

Separating office functions to take advantage of cheaper space, such as off-sight storage of records or stock.

Paperless Board management

Outsourcing the mail-order/online-order publications. 

Outsourcing the registry

Outsourcing arrangements for BoD meetings.

Outsourcing data entry and subscription receipts functions.

Designing a formal program for the creation of new activities (consider generalizing from combat archery, fencing and equestrian).

Educational integration with school programs and syllabi.

Formal programs for narrow focus specialization – such as narrowly themed events.

Changing memberships to an annualized membership cycle, say from May 1/April 30 each year.

Soup to nuts SIMPLIFICATION of SCA rules and regulations.

Basic analysis of where staff and Board time is spent

Simplify those tasks (the tasks of the Board).

Streamline the R&D and banishment processes so as to take less of the Board’s time.

Increase the transparency and perceived fairness of the R&D and banishment process.

The interface between the online registry and the registry database needs to be completed, if not already done.

Conduct an administrative review to identify current inefficiencies of time or money. 

An increasing amount of SCA activity is occurring outside the US and Canada. How does this effect our optimal structure, both business-side and game-side.

The World Proposal: how far have we come and how far do we want to go?

Centralized v. distributed processing of memberships,

subscriptions, etc.

What ‘products’ does SCA, Inc. supply? What services does SCA, Inc. supply?

To whom does SCA, Inc. supply those products and services?

Who is SCA, Inc. targeting as customers?

Where will future growth come from? Will it be primarily International, or expansion of the customer base in the US and Canada?

How will the SCA reach those potential new customers?

What is our unique selling proposition? What should it be?

What is the real or perceived value of services/products of SCA, Inc. by targeted customers? Are the offered services/products of sufficient value to customers? Are there other services/products that targeted customers want?

How does SCA, Inc. plan to meet the expectations of its customers, in terms of:

• Quality of product/services

• Quantity of product/services

• Price/value of product/services

How will SCA, Inc. measure its success in these areas?

How will SCA, Inc. know if it is not succeeding in these areas?

What are some of the ways SCA, Inc. could meet or exceed the expectations of its customers?

Are those ways cost-effective? How would SCA, Inc. gain revenue from those methods? How will SCA, Inc. measure cost-effectiveness and profitability of each method?

What plan does SCA, Inc. have, to gather regular data/feedback from customers/members, for future planning purposes?

How can the SCA make sure that each kingdom is properly represented (to or on the Board) as the number of kingdoms continues to grow. The ombudsman system is getting overloaded, with each Board member needing to devote more and more time to their assigned kingdoms.

What is the SCA’s mission statement?

How does the SCA preserve our SCA-wide inter-kingdom culture (part of the SCA's products) while maintaining the ability of intra-kingdom cultures to evolve (also part of the SCA products)?

How can, and should, we revamp the ombudsman system?

How can the Board micromanage less and focus on strategic issues more?

How do we better represent individual kingdoms as we continue to grow?

Would it make sense to further divide the game-side from the business-side, and if yes how do we achieve this?

How can the SCA better recruit qualified candidates for Society-level offices?

Do we have the right Society-level offices? Are there new offices we need? Are there existing offices we can do without?

As international growth expands, will there be more affiliated corporations? Does this create a need for Pan-Corporation officers separate from the Corporate-level officers. If so, what offices are needed at that level?

Can, and should, the SCA strengthen its ties with academic medievalism?

What is the Role of the Crowns versus the Kingdom and Society officer corps?

Training for key Corporate and Kingdom officers, particularly Seneschals and Exchequers.

Reactions to the Announcement that the SCA’s Insurance Company is Denying Coverage

A number of committee members were surprised and dismayed to learn the SCA was not covered in this situation. Some referred to it as a “foreseeable lawsuit” and commented that this was a key provision the SCA should have been looking for in selecting a policy. Others pointed out that such coverage might well be unavailable, or prohibitively expensive.

The discussion of insurance law, policy limits, and legally mandated exclusions quickly gave way to speculation regarding the possible impact of losing this, or any similar, suit. Some saw this as an additional argument in favor of multiple, smaller corporations to limit both the spread of liability and the appeal of the SCA as a “deep pockets” target.

This quickly lead to calls for contingency plans at the Society and Kingdom levels to ensure the continuity of SCA activity should this kind of suit succeed and bankrupt the Corporation. It was suggested that such a contingency plan should be part of the SCA’s business plan, and that if there was not a plan in place then creating one should be a priority item in the immediate future.

Some Councilors suggested implementing a program of education for adults involved in youth activities, as well as awareness and prevention programs for the youth themselves and their parents. The process currently used by the Boy Scouts of America was suggested as a possible model. The background check and “two deep” policies currently being adopted by the SCA were seen as a good start, but probably not enough by themselves.

Some even suggested eliminating formal youth programs as part of the SCA’s structure in order to remove the possibility of organizational liability. This lead to discussions of how to appeal to families if there were no more youth activities, or only very limited youth activities.

At the time this report was prepared, discussion on these issues was still very much proceeding apace. What was generally agreed upon, however, was that issues of organizational continuity, liability containment, and the impact of liability on the types of programs the SCA can and should continue to offer would all have to play a large part in the creation of any business or operating plan.

APPENDIX: LIST OF COUNCIL MEMBERS CONTRIBUTING TO THE DISCUSSIONS

SCA Name	Kingdom Rep/at-large	Kingdom
Aelric of Battle	KingdomRep	Drachenwald
Annalies Grossmund	At large	Calontir
Berengaria de Montfort de Carcasson	At large	An Tir
Brenden ap Llewelyn	At large	An Tir
Daniel de Blare	Kingdom rep	West
Dietrich von Vogelsang	At large	Caid
Elana Blakefenn	Kingdom	Caid
Elias Gedney	At large	East
Ellen de Wynter	At large	Northshield
Flanna Dunwalton	At large	West
Fridrikr Tomasson av Knusslig Hamm	Kingdom rep	Aethelmearc
Helena Bryenissa Raoulaina	At large	An Tir
Ian Cradoc	At large	Atenveldt
Kat MacLochlainn	At large	Ansteorra
Katriona ni Chonarain	Kingdom rep	Northshield
Kevin Eriôl	At large	Meridies
Marion “Leyland” O’Lee	At large	Calontir
Megan nic Alister of Thornwood	At large	West
Mitchell MacBain	Kingdom Rep	East
Nikalaos Demetriou ho Toxotes	At large	Outlands
Orla Carey	Kingdom rep	Atlantia
Roger of Belden Abbey	Kingdom rep	An Tir
Theodora of Trebizond	At large	Artemisia
Therasia von Tux	At large	Artemisia
Wulfred Hansard of Richmond	At large	Atlantia