In AS28, the Board of Directors passed a rule requiring membership for attending all SCA events. It was later repealled. How do you feel about this kind of "pay to play" rule? What do you feel membership in the SCA, Inc should be required for, if anything?

Personally, I was and am one of the stronger opponents of pay-to-play; while I wasn't quite at the center of the whirlwind the way Tibor was, I spent most of that year in heated arguments with a whole lot of people all over the Society about it. (Indeed, the Grand Council of the Society was formed partly in response to a letter I wrote to the Board on the subject.)

I object to pay-to-play both on practical and philosophical grounds. I could go on at *great* length on this subject, but I'll try to summarize.

First, and most importantly, it demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the true economics of the Society. Our most valuable coin isn't the money that gets paid to the central SCA, Inc; rather, it's the volunteer time that is required to run the Society. P2P endangers that volunteer base, by reducing the number of people who can perform a task, as well as the general base of the population. It takes the attitude that serving the Society is a privilege that you have to pay for, which is just silly -- we desperately *need* people doing this stuff. Charging people money in order to help is, frankly, daft.

Further, none of the arguments in favor of P2P hold much water. It was originally enacted in order to address a financial shortfall at the Corporate level, which proved to be an entirely illusory effect of poor bookkeeping. It is often invoked in the name of "fairness", but essentially argues that we want people who pay money more than people who volunteer their time, which as I said, misunderstands how the Society actually works. It is usually argued that we need tons of members because the Society is so expensive to run, but that's exactly wrong: in fact, history has shown that the Society has very poor economies of scale, and tends to become *more* expensive per person the more members there are. (And the vast majority of that huge budget is simply providing membership services such as TI.) The critical expenses of the Society (mainly the insurance policy) don't cost anywhere near enough to justify a policy as draconian as P2P was.

What should membership be required for? It's probably a good idea for anyone who is strongly bound to the legal side of the SCA, Inc, primarily the Seneschal and Treasurer. And I *recommend* membership for anyone who is heavily active: besides contributing towards the few critical expenses, it's a good way to stay in touch with things. But I think there are very few people who it should be *required* of. I prefer to leave it as a matter of individual conscience, with no particular external pressure...

I'm not universally opposed to the idea of paid membership. I can visualize circomstances where I would happily pay up. (The ability to vote for BoD seats would be a major incentive.) But right now, I hold the Society benefits more if the cost of membership goes to a good book or a couple of leather tools.

I feel, strongly, that the "pay to play" name is both too flip and a grave misnomer to boot: regardless of membership, we pay to attend almost every event anyway [see next question for a completely different facet of this], and it is that money which pays for our "play". Anyone who comes to an event and pays the site fee, even if not a paid member, is "playing"; someone who sends in their money and gets a membership card, but doesn't come to events, isn't. Money sent to Milpitas doesn't get the feast cooked, the music played, or the pots scrubbed. The "play" depends entirely on local money and local volunteer labor.

Which is not to say the Corporation has absolutely no merits: local money doesn't pay for insurance, and volunteer labor won't save us from a lawsuit. On the other hand, there are other organizational models that can address these concerns. Add to that the secretive, deceitful, and patronizing way in which the Board acted in making that decision, and I take rather a dim and skeptical view of mandatory membership (my name for the policy).

That's my opinion. It's a strong one, but it's personal. Again I emphasize that, were I Baron, my opinion would not be any more pertinent than that of other Carolingians.

Still there needs to be some membership base in order to support the corporate structure (and we believe there is a need for the corporate structure). Insurance is a good thing; effective insurance that makes sure that our officers and society as a whole are not held financially responsible for the idiocies of others is good. The issue of current membership requirements for certain activities came up recently on the sca-east mailing list, so we know there's disagreement about where the line should be drawn. In general, we think the current location of the line is reasonable.