Letter from the SCA Board: Membership fees going up . . .

From the SCA Board of Directors:

Due to extraordinary legal expenses from an ongoing lawsuit, the SCA has determined that our best option is to raise membership fees in most classes by $8.00, effective January 1, 2011. Family membership rates will not increase, although the family cap for memberships will be raised by $5.00 effective the same time.

 When we indicated in 2009 that membership fees would raise gradually over the next three years, we were not fully aware of the extent and impact of the legal fees required to defend our organization. Earlier this year we received a realistic projection for legal expenses through 2011. We are committed to protecting not only the SCA Inc., but the assets of every SCA group.

This lawsuit may go on for additional years and cost-cutting alone will not be sufficient.

 We are formulating a plan to get the SCA back on track and are selecting options to restructure our operating business model. One option is a move to electronic kingdom newsletters with a print-on-demand option for those who would like to get their version in hardcopy. With these changes, there are many details to consider including: legal issues surrounding the fulfillment of our current subscription liability; the development of an electronic publishing framework for use by kingdom chroniclers that supports both web-publishing and print-on-demand; writing relevant changes to governing documents, officer handbooks, and kingdom procedures; and making dramatic programming changes to the SCA website and corporate systems.
The current migration of corporate and Society officer email addresses to a more robust infrastructure is a step in this direction.

It is our hope that as financial circumstances evolve we will be able to re-evaluate the entire membership fee structure once the effectiveness of the restructured business model can be determined. This would include evaluating the necessity of collecting NMS as well as potential reductions in membership fees.
 There will be many stages in this process where feedback will be needed and solicited. We want to be completely transparent with any changes that will be made, and will share details as they become available. As every year, the budget will be posted on the SCA website as soon as it is approved for your review. Our job is to keep you as fully informed as possible and in that spirit we welcome any and all questions and comments. For the moment, please submit questions and comments through comments@sca.org.

 Finally, this process will be very difficult and take many months to complete, so please bear with us. During this time, Board members will be attempting to attend as many events as possible to be available to answer your questions.
 The SCA Board of Directors

Comments are strongly encouraged and can be sent to:
SCA Inc.
Box 360789
Milpitas,  CA 95036

You may also email comments@lists.sca.org.

Liam and the busy, blustery day!

Today was a busy, blustery day!

• Went to the doctor for a good checkup
• Stopped to pick up a filter adapter for my camera, but they couldn’t find it.
• Went to get a cheap coffee grinder at an outlet store
• Got a cheap toaster oven ($17), plus new boxer and socks at Wal-Mart
• Went back to the camera store to discover it had been taped to the counter.
• Went to Staples, but could not remember the printer cartridge number.
• Went grocery shopping.
• Stopped at one place to see about getting rid of the truck, but there’s a new business there.
• Went to the junk yard/auto parts place, but the buyer wasn’t there. Got apple sauce.
• Went to the bank.
• Went to the library
• Went back to the grocery store to discover the prescriptions still were not ready.
• Got the rum for the ffruitcakes. (Mr. Boston, $10.99).
• Paid the landlord. (Cash, large bills, worried me)
• At my wife’s request, I made potato pancakes with apple sauce and sour cream. Sides included chicken mango sausage from Trader Joe’s, leftover roasted winter vegetables with balsamic vinegar and olive oil and canned peas.

I am pretty sure that’s it and pretty much in order.