[Ansteorra] Membership errata

[Pug Bainter]

Good Morning,

 

  First, I apologize. I do not read the list continuously through the day.
Given the volume today, I am not going to read every post. I will try to
address individual issues I am aware of around membership. If you ever
expect a response from me, don't post it to a mailing list as this is
definitely not something I will monitor closely especially given the volume
of email.

 


  The current Kingdom Law requires members to be subscribing members. Family
and Associate members do not count at this time, but International would.
Unfortunately the Kingdom website that includes the historical information
is a count of *all* members, including suspended members, which have skewed
the reality some. For example, one of the last reports I got had just over
1800 active members of all sorts and roughly another 190 suspended members
for various reasons.

 

  Society minimums are just that - minimums. Ansteorra as increased any
number of rules above the minimum, be it memberships to armor to combat
archery standards. On a side-note while doing a quick web search, I found at
least two other kingdoms that also still require subscribing membership, not
to mention several kingdoms that required more offices for a group to be
considered viable. I also found one kingdom that used the vague phrase
"enough members to support group activities" which means it is up to
interpretation by the Kingdom Seneschal.

 

  For years, different individuals have discussed changing the way members
are counted to include all members but then to increase the numbers. This
would make all memberships equal and create a larger viable officer pool at
a lower out of pocket cost. I have posted some suggested starting points to
the Seneschal's mailing list which has generated some discussion across the
whole gambit of expected results. Unfortunately no where in the data that we
receive is the age of the member, so we still don't know how many are able
to hold an office, but there is a higher likelihood of the right number of
people. With only 5 members, it is quite difficult (to impossible) to have a
steady rotation of 3 officers where at least 2 of them are not related and
don't live together. Even if you do manage to do this, you burn-out these
individuals quite quickly and you have issues with reporting and the like.

 

  Membership is required for any office that appears on any roster. This
includes from the Kingdom Seneschal to any branch officer to any Marshal at
large. (Unless I am misreading the Society Marshals Handbook, which I admit
to being human.) As well, all individuals who will be getting background
checks have to have membership as not only are they on a roster, but the
background check results will be attached to their membership information at
corporate. Should at any time your membership lapse, your warrant or
authorization also lapses and will need to be re-instated.

 

  I hope that helps clear up some of the confusions.

 

Ciao,

Pug