ANST - Land funds...

[Deborah and Robert Wade]

At 08:19 AM 11/18/97 -0800, you wrote:
>I am rather leery of a Land Fund for a few reasons.
>
>One, Donal mentioned already: it's N hours (for large N) from lots of
>people.  The first land fund was in the West.  If you exclude the
>island branches, Australia, and Alaska, the West is quite small
>geographically but with a high population density.
>
>Two, it's a *lot* of money to build a decent site.
>
Don't forget maintaining it, paying taxes and INSURANCE.  Even though the
SCA is a Not for Profit organization (not nonprofit) we would probably have
to pay some taxes, and we would definitely be paying insurance.


>2.1: It'd be used for only a small amount of the time.  (Rent it out
>while we're not using it?  I think a tax lawyer would have to look at
>that idea; I'm pretty sure there are limits on how a 501(c)3 org can
>make money.)  If you want to cover rental costs, it may be more
>cost-effective to establish a trust fund.
>
>2.2: Perhaps that "lots of money" would be more useful in other ways.
>
>Three, the SCA, Inc. corporate structure is one big block.  Branches
>aren't independant groups in an alliance, they're branches.  If the
>corporate level were to go down or get into a financial crunch, the
>big expensive asset would be lost.  In fact, if they got into a
>financial crunch, I'm fairly sure the directors would have a fiduciary
>responsibility to the overall SCA to loot, er, use the assets of the
>branches to keep the org going.  Sure, the Steppes has a big bank
>account now, but it would only go so far.  (There is a proposal to
>change this structure to some extent, but it's just a proposal now.)
>
>Four, I've been in two groups that have had embezzlement on a major
>scale.  I'm not happy with the idea of having large assets in the
>control of what is evidently a good victim group.
>
>Donal wrote:
>> As soon as I win the lottery, I'm going to buy at least 500 acres,
>> build a castle on it, and let the SCA use it for events. :)
>
>OK, but I'm pretty sure the SCA insurance won't cover you if anything
>bad happens.  I believe it covers only the Corp. itself, the
>directors, and non-SCA property owners what rent stuff to the SCA.
>
You are again correct here.  The individual would need to creat a lease
agreement (written rental contract) for the SCA insurance to cover each
event.  We once had member who was intending to lease his property for
events, and found that it was a better policy for his father, a
non-participant to act as his agent and to rent the property for the event.

The money would have to be earmarked for this purpose only if a fund was
created.  Look how long it has taken the Longship fund to get going.  Land
is even more expensive than building a boat.

>-- 
>Daniel de Lincoln
>Tim McDaniel.   Reply to tmcd at crl.com
>tmcd at tmcd.austin.tx.us is not a valid address.
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