Greetings to the people ofNorthshield,
By the time you read the followingactions have been taken. We want to thank you for your patience that has givenus time to work through this situation. We understand that this has been adifficult time and it can feel like the someone from far away is taking what isours. It is true that the BOD has asked for our portion of the funds for thesettlement. Loss of this money may mean we have to make some changes, but noother entity can lay claim to the true value of this kingdom. The true richesof this kingdom are not monetary, they are the heart and strength of the peopleof Northshield. They lay in the manner in which we meet adversity together andmove through it, the way we support our friends and neighbors. The value of thesoul of this kingdom is incalculable and can never be taken. At a time likethis there is no other kingdom where we would rather be. It's good to beNorthshield.
The Stallari Council had an emergencysession Monday February 6 via conference call regarding the SCA Inc. settlement(details on the lawsuit can be found on the www.sca.org website) and the needto remit money to SCA Corporate to pay the settlement. Each kingdom is beingasked to remit 18% of the Cash/Cashable Assets of the kingdom and its groups asreported at the end of 2010. Northshield has been invoiced for $44.768.16 dueby 2/16/2012 as its portion of the $1,050,000.00 needed by SCA Corporate forthe settlement and legal fees.
The amount that we were assessed wasbased upon the total cash assets which include dedicated funds such asEndowment Fund, Travel Funds, and other operating funds in addition to thelocal group funds and its specific designations. We had the ability to pay thetotal amount from the Kingdom General Fund and Kingdom Savings funds, includingCertificates of Deposit (CDs) ,without touching any dedicated funds or groupfunds although we will incur some penalties on the CD's we cash out prior tomaturity date. Doing so will severely hamper the Kingdoms operating ability aswell as pretty much eliminate all our savings.
As such we asked our groups to helpus as much as they are able to so the Kingdom can remain solvent. We realizedthat many groups may not have the ability to pay the full 18% of their cashassets or perhaps anything without severely hampering their ability to operate,hold events, and continue to make their groups viable. The 18% group levelassessment is posted on the Northsheild website and will accept any donationsfrom groups or individuals. To put this in perspective, we have approximately1000 paid members within Northshield so if each member contributed $45 it wouldactually cover this request without any impact to our groups. Any donations canbe made to the Kingdom by writing checks to the 'Kingdom of Northshield' andputting 'SCA Settlement' on the memo line. Please mail any checks to theKingdom Exchequer (see address on page 2).
Donations can also be made directlyto SCA Corporate but those donations will not decrease to the amount theKingdom of Northshield has been asked to pay towards this settlement.
The SCA Corporate is making an effortwith litigation to recover money due from the settlement from one of theinsurance companies who refused to pay towards the settlement. In the event theKingdom receives any reimbursements from the SCA Corporate, we will refundgroup donations on a prorated basis to our groups first, unless otherwisespecified, before we reimburse any Kingdom accounts. Any amounts reimbursedover the group donations will be put into Kingdom Savings in order tostrengthen our financial position and rebuild our Kingdom 'nest egg'.Individual donations will not be reimbursed but if the amount of donations and reimbursementwould happen to be over what the Kingdom has paid those funds will also go intothe Kingdom Savings account as the administrative effort for doing individualreimbursements would be prohibitive.
Information on this will be madeavailable within the next Northwatch publication, on the Kingdom website, emaillists and Facebook, communicated through the Seneschal and Exchequer emaillists, and we will reach out to our Baronages and populace. Any questions canbe submitted to Baron Rodrigo de Montoya at chris.lords@usfamily.net as well.
We will continue to communicate ourplans and anything new we find out as we can. Our goal is to be morallyresponsible, do what we can to help allow the SCA to continue to be somethingfor all of us to enjoy, and make sure our Kingdom and all our groups cancontinue to play as well.
TRM Vladimir & Petranella, TRH Devon & Wulfgar, And the StallariCouncil