[Ansteorra] SCA Membership dues and Such things as that

Burke McCrory burkemc at cox.net
Fri Jul 26 23:45:03 PDT 2002


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I have spent the last few hours reading the comments on this and other
lists concerning the BOD's recent meeting and discussions.  Obviously this
has struck a nerve!!

After reading and thinking about what has been said and proposed, I have
the following comments and observations.  First, the SCA has experienced a
slow but steady drop in membership since August 1994 when we
had  Sustaining - 17,309 and Total - 26,595 members.  As of June 2002 we
had Sustaining - 14,407 and Total -  24,660 members as listed on the
Society Treasurer's Home Page
http://www.sca.org/officers/treasurer/welcome.html .  As anyone can see we
have experienced a decline of about 8% overall and almost 17% in Sustaining
memberships.  These memberships are where the SCA Corporate offices and
Kingdom newsletters get the lion share of their revenue.  During that time
the cost of doing business has gone up at least 2 % to 3% per year just
from inflation.  It doesn't take a genus to realize that even the most
effective cost cutting program was only going to work so far.  I have
worked with the people in the SCA offices in California and many of the
members of the Board and can tell you that they are all very aware of the
need to be frugal with the funds they have.  This is not eight years ago
when we had a Board and Corporate office that was very much out of touch
with the membership and were not good stewards of our money.  I have sat in
on the Friday budget discussions at Board meetings and can tell you these
people are cutting everywhere they can and are stretching the pennies until
they scream.  They are being VERY GOOD stewards of the SCA's moneys.  Some
have suggested that the Corporate office needs to move to another part of
the country.  This is not as cheap as you think, corporations sometimes
spend years recovering the cost of relocating a home office, what with
moving and personnel costs.  So the expected savings may not be as much as
you think.  Running an organization like the SCA is not easy.  You are
essentially running an international non profit corporation with semi
independent branches all over the world.  Just dealing with the various
laws and languages could overwhelm most people, then add in the mixing of a
feudal/monarch society with the current real world and it is a wonder that
things work as well as they do.  The last membership increase was in 1994
when we went to $35 a year.  Of that, if memory serves, approximately $8
goes to each kingdom to cover newsletters, $4.00 goes to TI and the rest
goes to Corporate.  I don't think I have to remind anyone that most
newsletters cost more that $8 a year to produce and mail.  And while we are
speaking of the cost of mailing, I believe the post office has increase the
cost of mailing at least three times since 1994.  Those costs have just
been absorbed without passing them on to the membership.  So it is way past
the time that a membership increase or restructuring was discussed.  Over
the last six months the BOD has actively sought out the opinions of the
membership.  They have asked for ideas and floated various proposals for
comment before the populace.  They went into this last Board meeting with
more input than any other time in the Society's history.  They looked at
several ideas and finally choose the ones they felt would best serve the
SCA and its current problems.  They did not do this in some back room or on
a conference call but in open session with input from those attending.  So
what did they do;

They proposed unbundling TI from the membership - an idea that has been
suggested for some time.  Increase the cost of the 1st class mailing option
to cover its actual cost.  Increase the amount that each kingdom gets
(stipend) for newsletters by $2.  This still leaves the cost per issue
under 85 cents.  Increase the costs of additional newsletters by the same
amount that the stipend was increased, approx. $2.   And place a $3 per
person fee on every person attending an SCA event, the fee will be waived
for paid SCA members with proof of membership (hence the membership
discount).  This last was (in my opinion) done in place of a price increase
in the base membership.  Part of the reason for that was to spread the
effects across all people attending SCA events and not just the paid
members.  Also, a per head fee can be easily discontinued if it is no
longer needed, where as a price increase in membership costs would not be
so easy to roll back.   And for all this what is the effect of the average
SCA member.  For those who are already paid members (at a low cost of $20
per year for Associate membership)  this will have NO EFFECT at all.  For
those of us who are sustaining members, we loose TI, that is it!  The only
people that this will really effect is non paid members attending
events.  And if you attend seven or more events a year, it is much cheaper
to get an associate membership.  I agree with the suggestions by some that
monetary grants and other sources of revenue should be explored.  I also
would suggest that many if not most of the Kingdoms could make a one time
donation to the Corporate office without hurting their bottom line to help
elevate the current shortfall.  We should be ever vigilant but also
realistic.  No matter how you slice it we are either going to have to
recruit new members or each pay more to continue the game we all love so
much.

Sir Burke Kyriell MacDonald, op
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