[Ansteorra-announce] [Announcements] Newsletter Production Stipends

[Leslie Luther-Fulton]

Due to external economic conditions and increased overall
costs facing the SCA Inc., the Board of Directors and senior staff have been
forced to make over $250,000 in cost cutting measures to the 2011 budget in
order to ensure continued operations.

 

The largest recurring expense for the SCA at the corporate
level is the stipend payments made to the Kingdoms for publishing hardcopy
newsletters.  As our modern society moves
increasingly away from hardcopy publishing to electronic mediums, the costs of
hardcopy publishing have increased proportionally. Based on the need to curb
these costs, and the responses of the membership in the 2010 census, the Board
of Directors believes it is essential to the continued financial health of the
SCA to transition the organization away from paper newsletters. Accordingly,
the SCA has initiated a project to transition all kingdoms to e-newsletters,
and is projecting implementation by Jan 1, 2012. Until the SCA has the
infrastructure in place to support e-newsletters, the 2011 stipend amount
provided by the corporate level for production assistance will be reduced to
cover only those aspects required by the governing documents. This will reduce
the overall stipend for mailings and production by 60%. The Board of Directors
greatly regrets the necessity of making these changes to the stipend structure,
but feels that it is the best of an array of difficult options to execute its
fiduciary responsibility to the membership of the organization.

 

This means that postage will still be covered for all
mailing classes, including the expected postal rate increase later this year,
but the production stipend will be greatly reduced.  Most components of newsletter production
costs are controlled at the Kingdom level, including newsletter size, use of
color printing, page count due to non-required information, and printing
companies utilized. Thus, Kingdom Chroniclers have several tools at their
disposal to lessen the impact of the stipend decrease. To further mitigate the
financial impact to the Kingdoms, the following changes in required inclusions
will be effective with April 2011 newsletters:

Membership
     forms will no longer be required to be publishedThe
     list of Board of Director nominees will no longer be required to be
     publishedFull
     Society regnum will no longer be required to be published.  Contact information for the Kingdom
     Ombudsman must still be included.A
     statement indicating where to locate the additional information on
     www.sca.org and/or Kingdom websites will be required to be published.

 

As additional reminders, branch event announcements are only
required to be published for the month in which the event occurs.  Should the branch event occur in the first
week of the month, publication in only the prior month is acceptable.  Please refer to the Chronicler’s Handbook for
the minimum event information required for publication.

 

The Society Chronicler has information available for the
printing house in TN (USA) that several Kingdoms have already been utilizing
for more cost-effective printing and mailing services. 

 

Fundraising that is specifically done for the purpose of
newsletter publication is still allowed, but (as always) is at the discretion
of the Kingdoms. 

 

The Board of Directors, SCA, Inc. greatly appreciates the
time and effort put into newsletters produced at all levels of the
organization  and is committed to
implementing a financially responsible process to provide information to the
membership by a blend of electronic and hardcopy media. 



 		 	   		  
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Comments are strongly encouraged and can be sent to:
SCA Inc.
Box 360789
Milpitas,  CA 95036

You may also email comments at lists.sca.org.

This announcement is an official informational release by the Society for Creative Anachronism , Inc.  Permission is granted to reproduce this announcement in its entirety in newsletters, websites and electronic mailing lists.

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