[Ansteorra] Subscribing vs Sustaining

[Chris Zakes]

At 03:33 PM 1/11/2008, you wrote:
>I've watched this discussion a long time... and I need to weigh in on a
>couple points.
>
>1)  No... the example you listed below COULD be counted far below the 70
>bodies they show, not "would"...it depends on the types of memberships
>people OPT for, as has been outlined a number of times.  If every married
>couple had a subscription and an associate, I'm not sure how your example
>would fall below 30 with the married couples alone, but that's neither here
>nor there.
>
>2)  The exact way memberships are counted is actually immaterial.

That's only true *most* of the time. A sustaining/subscribing, 
associate or family membership means you've got a blue card, don't 
need to pay the non-member surcharge, and shouldn't have to sign 
another waiver at the gate. BUT if the kingdom is doing a population 
count to decide if a group is still viable, and only 
sustaining/subscribing members are counted, then it can make a lot of 
difference.


>I happen
>to agree with you that adult associate memberships should be counted because
>that's the pool of bodies from which a group can draw upon to gather
>officers and workers.

I could make a case that all members over the age of, say, 15 or 16 
should be counted, but that's a discussion for a different day. <G>


>However, in order to make the argument you have been
>making for some time on this subject, you must operate under the assumption
>that required membership numbers wouldn't change with the change in
>counting.
>
>See, the organization KNOWS that with X number of Sustaining or Subscribing
>or whatever-you-want-to-call-them memberships will come Y number of adult
>associated memberships.  It's not a perfect science, but that ratio probably
>hasn't changed significantly over the years.  So, we (SCA, inc) could
>certainly just start counting all adult memberships, but that would probably
>cause a realignment in the requirements for a group.  So no, instead of 5
>"subscribing" members, they now require 10 or 15 "adult" members for a
>shire.  Instead of requireing 25 for a Barony, they'd require 50, or more.
>Net effect?  Very likely none.

Not necessarily. The Society's rules simply say "members"; they don't 
specify what flavor should be considered in a population count. 
Ansteorra is using a more restrictive structure that only counts 
sustaining/subscribing members. If Ansteorra changed that policy, it 
wouldn't affect what the Corporation does.

         -Tivar Moondragon