Participation Membership Proposal
What is the Proposal supposed to do:
Make ALL participants in the SCA "members" to the extent that anyone is a "member."
Separate subscriptions to newsletters, T.I. and CA from "membership". This will allow Kingdom newsletters to charge whatever it actually costs to produce and disseminate the newsletter. It is my hope (but not a necessary result of the Proposal) that more of the content of newsletters will become web-accessible. Hard-copy newsletters will become a relict, necessary for official purposes, but subscribed to only by a few people who either have no access electronically or who have an old-fashioned desire for physical paper delivered to their residence. (I count myself amongst those atavistic individuals, but I am willing to pay for the privilege.) Eventually I see even T.I. and CA becoming primarily electronic publications.
Reduce and/or eliminate many of the obstacles to service in the SCA. Rosters of Officers and Warrants of Office will still be needed to determine who is a legitimate representative of the SCA. This is nothing new; such Warrants and Rosters are required even now. However, since all participants will be members, there will be no other obstacles to participation.
Transfer as much as possible of the day-to-day support of the SCA to the local level, where it works best. Instead of relying on a central "authority", we will be required to regulate ourselves at the local level, where our loyalties lie.
Support the SCA, Inc. for the services which it gives to all of us, from all of us. (Insurance, equivalence of awards, consistent world-view, etc.) At the same time, reduce the costs of the SCA, Inc. to the absolute minimum.
Maintain the waiver system in something resembling its current form for the protection of the SCA, Inc. and its branches. (At least in the U.S.)
Allow for non-U.S. branches to take advantage of the U.S. benefits (in the case of Canada) or to affiliate on a semi-independent basis (as is the case with the SCA-Australia even now).
Increase freedom of action, overall. Allow things to be done on a local level by removing the higher-level constraints.
Make life simpler, overall. In fact, that is one of the primary thrusts of the proposal: Keep It Simple.
What
does the Proposal NOT do?
Solve all the problems of the universe; or even of the SCA.
Solve the problems of responsiveness of the Board to the wishes of the membership, arbitrary decisions on the part of Society Officers, etc. (That's a whole different job.)
Solve the problems you are having with your King/Prince/Baron/Seneschal/local trouble-maker. I'm sorry, you'll just have to solve them yourself. In fact, under this proposal, you'll have at least as much ability to do that as you do now. Certainly you won't have less ability.
(modified 2 December, 2002)