[MR] Re: [Announcements] Proposed Revision to Corpora IV.A.1.

[David W. James]

On Wednesday, September 4, 2002, at 11:11 PM, Andrew Smith wrote:
> The following is a proposed revision of Corpora IV.A.1.  (The proposed
> revision is in CAPITAL LETTERS.)

> Royal Lists must be conducted at a tournament announced in the Kingdom
> newsletter as being for that purpose.  CROWNS OR CORONETS WHO WISH TO
> CONDUCT A ROYAL LIST IN A MANNER OTHER THAN INDIVIDUAL COMBAT MUST
> OBTAIN THE PRIOR APPROVAL OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS.

Unfortunately, I do note feel that this change is an improvement over the
current wording.  The criteria for approval are not given, and are
therefore purely subjective. It gives the proposing Crown/Coronet no
guidance/suggestions as to what is acceptable.  Therefore it can be used to
ensure that nothing new is ever allowed.  That is one problem.

Changes to the governing documents should move the corporation toward an
objective, not hide their purpose in subjectivity.  Either ban the
different (an idea that was rejected by the membership in the last polling)
  or provide clear guidelines for what is acceptable and only have to bother
with the occasional question that falls in the 'grey' area.

Or does the Board really *want* to make more needless work for itself?
Knowing the opinion of past Boards on more work (not just 'No', but "Hell
No!"), a cynical persons conclusion regarding this proposal is that it is
offered with the assumption that the answer is always an automatic 'No',
and therefore it would not be any more work.

Otherwise you are asking the future to provide the time you do not want to
invest now.  And our future selves may well have more important things that
they should be paying attention to then.

Please take the time to do the hard work of crafting a better proposal now
to keep future Boards from doing extra work.  You might be on those Boards,
  and have to answer the question 'What were you thinking?'

Though I am loath to support this course of action, there is a way of doing
this that does not make more work for future Boards.  The question of
deciding Crown and Coronet list winners is a strongly game-side issue.  As
such, the Board of Directors of the Corporation, which have to worry about
the non-game aspects of the SCA, Inc., should be able to delegate questions
concerning such tournaments to a Game-Side overview committee.  The only
problem, of course, is that no such thing exists at this time, save the
Board.  Which gets us back to the problem...

One potential means of 'vetting' alternative formats for such tournaments
might be to require that the Soc. Sen. be notified of the proposed
tournament format, and that such notification include the support of some
combination of current and past Royalty from across the SCA (but such
requirements should be reasonable; I am thinking on the order of 3-4
current or former Crowns (meaning the ruling pair, not just one of the pair.
)  The Soc. Sen. job would be to include the fact of the notification in
her report to the Board if it had the required number of supporters.
Relatively simple, unambiguous, and objective from the Corporations point
of view.  The mix of current and former required would be set in the rule.

There really are better ways of doing this that A) protect the Game, B)
allow for innovation and experimentation and C) do not make for long Board
meetings.  A and B are your job, and C makes it a nicer one to have.

David W. James/Kwellend-Njal Kollskeggsson
cc: atlantia at atlantia.sca.org, rec.org.sca