ANST - Kingdom membership

[Burke McCrory]

At 08:09 AM 2/10/00 -0600, you wrote:
>This thread is reminding me strongly of the "pay to play" days. In case you
>have forgotten this Kingdom led the way in saying NO! we won't pay to play.
>Genevieve de Courtanvaux

What we were objecting to it those days (among a number of other issues as 
well) was being required to be a paid member to attend any SCA activity at 
all, hence "Pay To Play".  I  don't think that the general theme here has 
been "Pay to Play" but it has been "Should paid members get special 
benefits??".  Requiring a person to be a paid member to compete in a King 
or Queens champion is one suggestion,  Discounts at gate and feast being 
another.  As to the benefits built in to the SCA for paid membership they 
are understandably limited at the Corporate level.  TI, Black Star, 
membership card, you count in membership numbers (but only if you are a 
subscribing member) and that is about it.  But, if Corporate were to try 
and shift some other benefit, like say fighting, over to paid members only, 
the shouts  would be heard all the way in China.  So they leave it up to 
each kingdom to decide what additional benefits paid membership will 
have.  One example is that in a number of Kingdoms you have to be a paid 
member to receive any award.  The best argument that I have heard so far is 
that the paid members are subsidizing everyone for our liability 
insurance.  The best benefit is possible gate discounts.

Burke

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