Re: Disc: Pay-to-Fight <LONG>

[Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>]

Poster: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>

Greetings from Tibor.

Gawain wrote about his opinion:
  Let's take, as a given, the following statement:  Money is needed to run
  the organization.
  
  My personal beliefs.  I am strongly Jeffersonian.  I would guess that
  the board is strongly Hamiltonian.  Simplistically, the differences are:
  Local vs Centralized power.  

If this be true for you, then the question arises: how would we shift the
currently Hamiltonian SCA into a more profoundly Jeffersonian one?

Placating King George may not be the most profound option, right?  And,
certainly, requiring payments that are not necessary for the actual function
of the organization is, well, thoroughly Hessian.  (:-)

Perhaps one of us doesn't understand the American Revolution.  Taxation
without representation, decentralized control, local autonomy, states rights,
checks and balances...  that sort of thing.

If you meant that you had Jeffersonian style Libertarian leanings, then I
point you to my question about event fees.

If you think money isn't a useful lever for change, well, you aren't the
student of history that knows who Jefferson was, I feel sure.  (:-)

  It is not WRONG to require a membership fee for the services you
  receive.  Whether you like it or not, every event you attend, you
  receive a service from the Society.

Couldn't be less true.  I am a frequent autocrat.  (With two events on the
local calendar already scheduled for 1997.)  I assure you that the Corporation
doesn't do bushwah for the local event organization, other than to, like
lamprey, suck dollars out of my pocket.  I receive no assistance, and
frequently I've received late-breaking annoying strictures, and been the
beneficiary of lost or misfiled paperwork.

                             The most obvious [benefit] is the Insurance. 
  Without it, most of the sites we use for our events would be made
  unavailable to us as they require proof of Insurance before they will
  let us occupy the site.

I have been on the autocrating team for 13 events (if you include the two
upcoming ones).  I have required the insurance three times.  I live in a major
metropolitan area, by the way.

Once again: the facts so frequently cited in support of paying membership
dues, simply don't have a good grounding in fact.  The per-event cost of
insurance would be covered if ONLY ONE attendee donated a membership to the
SCA Incorporated.

	Tibor
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