1. Suzy Miller (Flanna Dunwalton, at-large member/West) applied for and was granted an extended leave of absence in 2010. At this time, she has tendered her resignation from the Grand Council with regret as she no longer has readily available internet access where she lives in Alaska.  Suzy was the deputy moderator for the Grand Council list.  The Grand Council Chairman at the time, Daniel Fenwick (Daniel de Clare, currently kingdom representative for the West) filled in for her as acting deputy moderator for the duration of his term as Chair.
2. The incoming Chairman, Catherine Helm-Clark (Therasia von Tux, at-large member/Ansteorra) asked for volunteers for the position of active deputy moderator and received several applications.  She appointed Ian Walden as acting deputy moderator, on the basis of his tact and level-headedness as reflected in his posts to the Grand Council listserv and his residence in a very different time zone from the Council’s other moderator.

Kingdom Appointee:

An Tir

Artemisia

Atenveldt

Calontir

Gleann Abhann

Middle

• one motion concerning communications issues dealing with timely access to corporate policy changes
• one motion based on the Grand Council’s analysis of the non-rattan martial peerage statistics from the 2010 SCA Census.
• several motions based on the Grand Council’s deliberations on the same-sex consort statistics from the 2010 SCA Census.

Dan’s first motion = Motion I

Dan’s second motion = a statement combining Motion II followed by Motion III

Bill’s first motion = Motion I

Bill’s second motion = Motion II

Bill’s third motion = Motion VI

“....we recommend to the Board that they need to better educate our Peers and Crowns about the expansion of the Arts and Sciences to include all other non-rattan combat activities in the Order of the Laurel.”

“1) There is no period activity, or reproduction of any period activity, which is outside the domain of the Order of the Laurel.

2) There is no SCAdian activity, support for which or contribution to which, which is outside the domain of the Order of the Pelican.

3) The domains of the various peerages are neither mutually exclusive, nor mutually inclusive.”

“...any action or inaction will leave some possibly protected group feeling discriminated against, be it the same-sex consort proponents or women...the Grand Council notes that this is a no-win situation.”

• A couple with a same-sex consort does not necessarily mean that the combatant in the Crown List and the consort are same-sex sexual partners in a romantic relationship.  An SCA same-sex consort does not equal a real-world same-sex couple, though many assume so automatically and reflexively.
• The introduction of same-sex consorts into Crown Tourneys does not mean that equal access to the throne for women will diminish unless those same-sex consort couples have a higher-than-average chance at actually winning crown.  This point was argued using examples of gay couples versus lesbian couples, more male couples entering the lists than female couples, etc.
• Opposition to the same-sex consorts may have less to do with discrimination against same-sex relationships than with the threat is may pose to the traditional Society institution of winning the Crown for one’s inspiration. One of the most illustrative points made on this topic argued that if a couple could convincingly fill the roles of opposite-gendered champion and inspiration regardless of actual gender, would that not fulfill the spirit of expectation for both a King and Queen to occupy the throne?
• The debate over discrimination against women’s access to the throne versus discrimination against same-sex consort participation in the Crown Lists was driven in part by assumptions as to which forms of discrimination were more important and/or likely to lead to legal actions in different places (e.g., discrimination against women in the US versus discrimination against homosexuals in the UK).

• real-world legalities - the applicability of gender and sexual-preference discrimination laws in different countries on the rules governing the Crown Lists, which are a traditional competition format of what is essentially a private club;
• preserving the “game” - the preservation of the pseudo-historical and romantic model of knight-errantry which is the original defining kernel of the Society’s culture and traditions, namely the championship of one’s inspiration in the lists;
• real vs. over-estimated or grossly-exaggerated risks - whether any given hypothesized litigation is realistically a paper tiger or a real-world risk;

“The advice to the Board (in Motion III) is tilted, wrongly, by virtue of the use of inappropriate legal terms and by lack of recognition of the classes within the SCA that are most truly discriminated against.  As well as misunderstanding of what parts of the game are being talked about - which are not the parts that are zero-sum.”

Society participants who had less experience, held less rank, and who attended fewer events were more likely to like the idea of a new peerage for non-rattan martial activities.  Society participants who had more experience, held higher rank and attended more events were more likely to dislike the idea of a new peerage for non-rattan martial activities.  This effect was most pronounced for members of the Chivalry.

• Unfortunately, because there were numerical mistakes in the first published 2010 Census results (e.g., membership numbers for Drachenwald), better proofing of results is recommended before publication.

• In addition to how the 2010 Census was publicized, future surveys could potentially reach more respondents by:

•  
  • direct mailings and/or emailings of survey questions to members using SCA membership mailing/emailing lists
  • inserting future surveys in their entirety into kingdom newsletters
  • setting up “polling stations” at major kingdom and inter-kingdom events, especially to help increase non-paying participant response on surveys

• When presenting results, try to avoid using characters such as curly quotes that don't translate into other character collations such as UTF-8.
• Published spreadsheets of results would be easier to use and understand with the inclusion of the following formatting practices:
  • Use freeze panes to keep the top row and left column titles visible
  • There should be some sort of delineation as to where cells end and begin  
  • Row differentiation by alternating colors would improve the ability of the readers to follow long rows of data
  • Reader understanding of data trends would be improved by the inclusion of more graphs.
• The results for the 2010 Census questions on age, event attendance, etc., have been re-grouped into ranges for presentation; as this is the case, it is suggested that the data should also be presented somewhere in its raw form so parameters such as median and mean can be determined.
• Household income questions in the 2010 Census data were not posed in a way that would have allowed comparison with pre-existing statistical income data. For instance, US census data on income is divided into quintiles whereas the SCA Census survey question used only four ranges which don't match. Also, while this would aid analysis for the Society in the US, whether it would work for other nations’ data is unknown.
• Survey data that can be correlated with location information should be loaded into geographic information system (GIS) software for spatial analysis
• Survey length may be a barrier for some respondents to complete all of the survey questions.  Some of the people who started the 2010 Census did not finish it because of its length.  One way to avoid this is to use short focused surveys which are given more often, with long surveys like the 2010 SCA Census being issued at longer intervals.