Message-Id: <MhWIMzq00WB2N5XFUV@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 01:12:15 -0500 (EST)
From: David Schroeder <ds4p+@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: Outbound News <outnews+netnews.rec.org.sca@andrew.cmu.edu>,
        antir@kwantlen.bc.ca, sca-west@ecst.csuchico.edu,
        carolingia@bloom-beacon.mit.edu, e5@uriacc.uri.edu, sca-reform@MIT.EDU
Subject: NEWSLTR: RefInfo #2
Cc: OJID.Wbst845@Xerox.com

==========================================================================
REFORMATION INFORMATION: Spreading News on Reform to the Society  03/17/94
==========================================================================

Greetings gentles!  This is the second issue of REFORMATION INFORMATION, a
semi-weekly on-line flyer to help keep people around the Known World up to
date on what's going on with the movements to reform the Corporation and 
to make the Board more accountable to the people of the Society.  It 
will be published electronically on Monday and Thursday evenings, at least
at first, for the duration of the current situation.  I hope that people 
will print RefInfo out and take it along with them to practices and events
to help keep those who do not have electronic access up to date with the 
progress of reform efforts.  This flyer is designed to be 60 line pages
of no more than 74 characters in a monospaced font like Courier so that it
may be easily edited and printed on a few sheets by almost any computer 
system. Please feel free to pretty it up if you'd like before circulating!

RefInfo is always looking for news about how things are going with the 
various efforts on reform.  If you have information to share about any
activities in your area, please send it along!  We can all coordinate
our efforts better if we know what other groups and areas are doing.
Please send information, comments, etc. to my email-id, noted at the end.

Many thanks, friends.    My best -- Bertram of Bearington, Editor: RefInfo
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

CALIFORNIA SUPERIOR COURT CALLED UPON TO OPEN SCA INC.'S BOOKS
After seven weeks of fruitless efforts to review the SCA's financial
records, Monica Cellio (Mistress Ellisif Flakkari) and several others -- 
including the editor of this newsletter -- have engaged an attorney to 
petition the Superior Court of Santa Clara County (where Milpitas is
located) to compel the SCA, Inc. to obey its own ByLaws and make its
financial records available.  This is NOT a suit for damages, merely for
the SCA to follow its own rules.  The ByLaws of the SCA, Inc. state in 
Article X:  "The books of account may be inspected by any member or 
member's agent, for any reasonable purpose at any reasonable time."

Here is a chronology of what led up to this action.   On January 27, 1994
Monica faxed a request to the Corporate office to review the books of 
account. On February 28, she received a form to fill out and return 
specifying exactly what materials were being sought and when she or her
agent would be available to see them, sent by the Executive Director. 
Monica replied by fax on March 1 with a request for access to certain key
financial records on either March 2, March 4, or March 8. On March 8th, 
having received no response to her return of the form, Monica faxed a 
letter to the Executive Director in which she stated: "Because this 
request is time-sensitive and because I have been waiting for more than 
five weeks already, please name a time within the next 24 hours (before
4:30pm EST March 9, 1994) at which this inspection can be conducted by
my agent at your office in Milpitas.  If you do not do so, I will file
suit to obtain the information."  On March 10, Monica's legal agent went 
to the corporate office in Milpitas to make the request in person.  At 
that time the Executive Director denied the request and handed the agent a
letter addressed to Monica, which read: "This is to inform you that your 
request to inspect the SCA's books of account is respectfully declined." 
This letter was dated February 8, a full 20 days _before_ the Executive 
Director faxed Monica a request for additional information.  Monica had 
not, at that time, ever received any such letter.  Following this steps 
were taken to engage an attorney to ask the Court to compel the SCA, Inc.
to make the books available. (More to come in the next issue of RefInfo.)
MESSAGE FROM DUKE FLIEG, WEST KINGDOM           << START PAGE TWO HERE >>
  Today a step was taken which may be as momentous and significant as that
taken by the Board of Directors at their meeting of 22 January.  A small
group of SCA folk got tired of being denied their rights by the SCA office
in Milpitas and have filed a suit to force the Board to reveal the finan-
cial records of the SCA, as required by their own By-Laws.
  This action was taken by people who think they are doing the right
thing.  You may or may not agree.  However, as the reaction to this step
spreads, please remember, even more than before, that we are an honorable
society and a chivalrous one. Please address the actions and the reasons 
for the actions, not the character of those who took the actions.
  Someone on one of the forums said that if we went to 20th C. actions
that we lost our moral high ground.  Someone else said that chivalry and
courtesy weren't necessary in terms of 20th C. actions.  I think that both
of these gentles are wrong.  We can use the tools of 20th C. justice with-
out being tainted by them; as long as we use them in an honorable way.  We
are ourselves; if we are chivalrous and honorable people, then we can be 
so in the 20th C. as well as in the Current Middle Ages. How one uses a 
tool depends on the attitude with which one picks it up.
  As I look back on the last two months (almost) I see people reacting in
all sorts of different ways. I also see people doing things. I see support
and argumentation.  But mostly I see this carried out with a love for the
SCA that all of us share, whatever our viewpoints.  As the two-month mark
approaches, hold to that love, and strive always to make the SCA better.
  Thank you for your attention -- Frederick of Holland, MSCA, OP, etc.
  (and dinosaur) flieg@garnet.berkeley.edu | Bitnet try: flieg@ucbgarne

EASTREALM PUTS THE ICING ON THE CAKE
At the Mudthaw event recently held in the East, Baroness Merlynia made two
subtleties.  One was in the form of a scroll, labelled "Magna Carta", and 
made of Boston cream pie.  The other was in the form of a blue tyger (the 
East's totemic beast) lying atop a pile of gold coins and holding in its
mouth a scroll labelled "BOD minutes."  Subtle comments, much appreciated.

IMPEACHMENT PETITIONS
It's time to send in the Impeachment petitions.  They are due in by this
coming Tuesday, the 22nd, so it is time to put your copies in the mail.

WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP?
Get informed.  Help others get informed. Discuss these issues at meetings.
Send in your impeachment petitions. Write your Royalty to tell them you 
share their commitment to reform or hope that they will soon become com-
mitted to reform and to making the Board more accountable. Keep writing to
the Board. (Their addresses are below, *=New). Keep your spirits up!
  A. J. Riviezzo, 2323 South Troy #210-D, Aurora, CO 80014 (CHAIRMAN)
  L. Jane Richards, 2925 South 7th Street West, Missoula, MT 59801-2021
  Randall Tatro, 164 Everest Road, Milton, VT 05468
 *Elizabeth Johnson, 7875 Wintercress Lane, Springfield, VA 22152
 *Eric Mohr, PO Box 59821, Renton, WA  98058
 *John Fulton, 2494 Hollins, Memphis, TN 38112
  The SCA, Inc., Corporate Sec'y, P.O. Box 360743, Milpitas, CA 95036-0743

HOW CAN I GET MORE INFORMATION?
If you are able to use a retrieval program called 'ftp' you can get copies
of a large number of documents pertaining to the current crisis from an
anonymous ftp site:  nimbus.gp.cs.cmu.edu  directory: /usr/kvs/pub/BoD/ .
If you can't get copies via ftp you are welcome to send mail to the editor
of RefInfo and he'll send back a collection of documents.  Contact him at:
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Bertram of Bearington * Dave Schroeder * dschroeder@cmu.edu * 412/731-3230