Greetingsall from Elashava bas Riva, current Kingdom Chronicler, and Berengaria ofOurtremer, soon-to-be-Kingdom Chronicler—
Thereis news from SCA Corporate regarding Kingdom newsletters that came out todayfrom the Board of Directors and forwarded from the Midrealm. The situation is alittle complicated, but we hope we can distill it down for you.
Inthe past, SCA, Inc. has given a stipend to Kingdoms to help them produce theirnewsletters. Last week the SCA Board of Directors voted to cut the stipend paidto kingdoms by 60%, effective April 1, 2011.
Whilethe decision to cut the stipend now was based on budgetary concerns, there hasbeen a growing movement toward the replacement of hard copy newsletters withelectronic ones. The Kingdom of Northshield had already started to look intomaking the transition, but was expecting to do it a year or so down the road.
Thisdecision by the BoD was sudden and unexpected, and comes at a time theNorthwatch is transitioning to a new editor. So what does all this mean for theNorthwatch?
Asa Kingdom we are required to put out a newsletter, but we are not required topublish things like royalty and officer letters, court reports, the lists ofall branch seneschals, event ads, information from the Corporate-level, etc.The BoD has issued guidelines as to what should and should not be included inthe revamped newsletters. You can see these guidelines at the end of thisletter.
Thismeans that in the short term we will produce a smaller paper newsletter thatsatisfies the immediate Society requirements and honours prepaid subscriptions.The Kingdom will have to cover a larger percent of the production costs. We cando this by fundraising, reinstituting the issue/page sponsorship idea that hasworked in the past, change how many event ads each event can publish for free(some kingdoms charge for any event ad) or charge for all of them, andbrainstorm other ideas.
You’llbe glad to know that thanks to strict financial management by this office formany years, we’re in good shape financially and will be able to carry on withpublication of a smaller Northwatchfor the next few months.
Atthe same time, we’ll be developing a prototype for a new electronic newsletter,which will mean fabulous things--full color, the ability to do special interestissues, a more flexible page count, live links and photos. Once guidelines havebeen issued from SCA Inc., we can bring you the new and exciting Northwatch.
Thisisn’t the way we saw the spring and summer rolling out, and we hope that we cancount on your support and patience as we work through the implications of thisdecision by the corporate Society offices. If you have any questions orconcerns about why the Society is doing this, please contact the Kingdom Ombudsmanfor Northshield:
Denise Duvalier(mka Denise Hundley), 703-868-7880, dhundley@directors.sca.org.
Ifyou have suggestions for either of us, please contact us at chronicler@northshield.org
New ContentGuidelines for Kingdom Newsletters:
Tofurther mitigate the financial impact to the Kingdoms, the following changes inrequired inclusions will be effective with April 2011 newsletters:
· Membership forms will no longer be required to bepublished
· The list of Board of Director nominees will nolonger be required to be published
· Full Society regnum will no longer be required tobe published. Contact information for the Kingdom Ombudsman must still beincluded.
· A statement indicating where to locate theadditional information on www.sca.org and/or Kingdom websiteswill be required to be published.
· As additional reminders, branch event announcementsare only required to be published for the month in which the event occurs.Should the branch event occur in the first week of the month, publication inonly the prior month is acceptable. Please refer to the Chronicler’s Handbookfor the minimum event information required for publication.
Weappreciate understanding and patience during this transition period.
Shava& Berengaria