SCA, Inc
The incorporated organization which provides an interface between the modern world and our medieval activities.
The term "SCA, Inc." is used by some to distinguish the corporation from the general SCA community.
(A "keeper" posting from the Steps, posted July 2006. If you don't read anything else, make sure you read the bit at the end.)
- I did have a question; why do SCA groups, say, in Canada, have to respect an R&D? Or, for that matter, the NMS? If this is just a California entity, then how do they exert any power over U.S. groups outside of California, never mind Canadian, Australian, Japanese, etc, etc, etc?
Okey dokey. I've been beating up on my friends who deal with international law in one form or the other and so far the main consensus seems to be, "International agreements for private organizations hold up because the normal member of these kinds of groups can't afford big enough lawyers to make a court look at how bogus the documents are."
In matters like the R&D, they're usually upheld because it's too much work not to do so. Remember, the SCA is incorporated in California and according the the by-laws, the BOD can take what action it needs to protect the corporation. If the SCA in Finland just decides to say, "screw it", and not recognize R&Ds, perform whatever their responsibility is towards the NMS, etc; the BOD in California can literally simply say, "okay, we feel the Finns aren't playing right so for now, we're not going to recognize them and we direct our subordinate organizations not to recognize them as well." Yes, it can be that simple.
How do they exert power over the groups? The do it because people want to be a Lord or a Lady in 16th Century Italy and within the confines of the SCA, they get to do just that. If the foreign group decides to do something that goes against what the BOD perceives to be "right", then "poof", Lord Flavio has just become Heikii Tavoronen who's wearing funny clothes on the subway in Espoo.
When you read the governing documents, and then read them again to make sure they actually do say what you thought they said, you'll find that the individual people participating in SCA events don't count. They're a courtesy granted by the corporation and a concession to the requirements of California and US Federal law to provide educational activities in order to keep our tax status.
When someone pays for a membership, they may or may not get the newsletter, depending on the type of membership. They may get the corporate newsletter and they get tacit permission to serve in certain official capacities as long as the corporation agrees they can continue to do so. Their 'membership' doesn't make them a member of the SCA Incorporated. That's a very important thing to remember, there are no members of the Corporation save for the BOD and it's chosen officers. Everyone else participates at the will of those folks.
The SCA has existed for approaching 50 years by virtue of two things. So far, the members of the BOD have generally been entrenched in the collective ideals of the 'game' we all play and have generally tried to keep the game going. The other is the fact that the corporate documents make it nearly impossible to change the existing system. While a majority of the Seneschals can call for the impeachment of a BOD member, if that impeachment is tabled long enough, "while it's under investigation", the Seneschals who made the call will have left office before the issue can be addressed. Members of the BOD can call for the impeachment of another member. The same thing holds true. There's simply nothing to force the issue if the entrenched members don't want to put up with the hassle of the impeachment proceedings. A quick, "voluntary", resignation of the impeached Director, a call for a new member to fill the seat and 'voila', no more problem. At least from the corporate standpoint.
- It was once explained to me that the membership fee and the NMS had something to do with covering the insurance costs, but in Canada, we aren't covered by US Insurance companies and have to buy our insurance separately. But, we do adhere to BOD decisions. Do we have to, or are we just being polite cuz we're, like, Canadian? And if we have to, by law, which law are we talking about, and how does it apply across borders?
Something that's very important to understand about the SCA's insurance is that it's handled by an insurance company. People don't often consider it, but an insurance company is nothing more than a legally incorporated gambling house. Insurance policies are no different than keno tickets. You're paying the bookie (the insurance company) in the hopes that the odds will come out in your favor and the policy they provide will allow you to perform some specific action. This is the same for auto insurance, health insurance, SCA event protection insurance. The insurance company is betting that nothing bad will happen and they'll be able to continue to rake in your bets... errr, premiums.
If the policy covers whatever happened in Canada and the individual involved wasn't negligent in any of the ways specified by the policy, international agreement, US or Canadian or whatever, and the policy was fully in force meaning all of the signatures were valid, they'd all been made at the correct time and were made by people legally able to sign, then the insurance company will pay the absolute minimum they can get away with to resolve the claim. Inside of the first three or four exchanges of documents after the claim, the person injured will likely never hear from the insurance company again unless they don't have lawyers. The insurance company's lawyers, the SCA's lawyers, the property owner's lawyers, the State Department and the Canadian equivalent will all get together and decide who gets paid what. This is not paranoia, this is how the insurance industry works. The person injured may get their hospital bills paid if that's what the claim is for but only because it's cheaper for everyone involved to pay the bill than to risk it going to court.
As for adhering to BOD decisions, you don't have to. You can scream, "UP the BOD!", and decide that whatever their decision was is crap and won't be accepted in Canada. At that point, most likely the BOD will simply ignore you because the majority of the SCA folk in Canada want to continue playing the current game. If it should come to a point where there actually are enough Canadian Scadians screaming, "UP the BOD!", and it begins to cost the corporation money, prestige, public relations value, etc; then the BOD will likely simply suspend the memberships of everyone involved. That can be a real nuisance if any of those members happen to be someone like the Seneschal, Coronet, Marshall or any other required office. At that point, the BOD can unilaterally dissolve those branches.
Yes, I know it probably wouldn't come to that point. Everyone who's stepping away from me and waiting for me to put the aluminum foil on my head, you're probably safe. I actually do realize I'm talking about the far end of the bell-curve here. The problem is, for all of the events taking place in the center of the curve, you have to have the events at each end of the curve as well.
- I'm just trying to figure out how all of this works...
It all works because for the most part, people, even BOD members aren't willing to devote large portions of their lives to something they don't believe in. It all works because the paid SCA members don't bother to read the By-Laws and Corpora so they never actually understand that they literally have no say in how the SCA is run. It all works because people want to have fun and the people who gravitate to the SCA tend to find what we do is the kind of fun they want to have. Jumping up and down and screaming about the Emperor's clothes may be interesting but it's not much fun.
It all works because the vast majority of the SCA pays the bare minimum attention to the BOD, the Corporation and all of the other legal entities. Those things are boring, they're founded in a festering morass of internal revenue law, diplomatic service policy, insurance codes, corporate law and everybody's opinion as to exactly what it all means. The SCA Incorporated is a very boring, very tedious thing. It has to be there because if we want to play this game, we have to have it. We have to pay attention to it because it's like the neighbor's rottweiler puppy. It's big, lumbering, drools a lot but can do a great deal of damage if you don't catch it before it jumps the fence.
If you want to know what sound, legal and diplomatic foundations make up the bedrock upon which rest the agreements between the various international bodies of the SCA, the insurance companies and the governments involved; squint your eyes closed and turn away. You won't like what you see. The SCA is a mish-mash of badly written corporate law and poorly interpreted international understandings. The "real" foundation of the corporate side of the worldwide SCA is very shaky, just like virtually every other international, not-for-profit group. Any reasonably competent millionaire who had the interest in doing so, could probably pay for a membership tomorrow and by the end of July have instituted enough lawsuits to put the SCA out of business forever. Just the confusion over the insurance requirements are enough to get things going.
It all works because some of us have had the opportunity to sit with the Dowager Princess Janeltis and have her tell us about the first time she met that man who just became a Duke and how afraid he was to even meet anyone's eyes.
It all works because we're willing to suspend our belief in the mundane reality and spend those brief moments looking into the face of one of our friends as the sword dubs him a Knight of the Society for Creative Anachronism.
It all works because we enjoy dressing in funny clothes, driving for hours and setting up camps in the dark, in the middle of the ground-wasp nests, directly in the path of the flood that's going to start 90 minutes after the first drop of rain hits. We enjoy it because we're there with our friends and those who would be our friends.
It works because everyone gets to have that occasional complete disassociation with the modern world when they drop to their knee as the Queen of An Tir processes by.
It works because when you ignore the mundane side of things, for the time you can do so, the SCA is a wondrous and fantastic place.
It works because we believe it works.
Cairbre