[Artemisia] Fwd: [Announcements] Newsletter Production Stipends

[Rachael Emborg]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Leslie Luther-Fulton <janefalada at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 11:43 AM
Subject: [Announcements] Newsletter Production Stipends
To: sca Announcements <announcements at sca.org>


 Due to external economic conditions and increased overall costs facing the
SCA Inc., the Board of Directors and senior staff have been forced to make
over $250,000 in cost cutting measures to the 2011 budget in order to ensure
continued operations.



The largest recurring expense for the SCA at the corporate level is the
stipend payments made to the Kingdoms for publishing hardcopy newsletters.  As
our modern society moves increasingly away from hardcopy publishing to
electronic mediums, the costs of hardcopy publishing have increased
proportionally. Based on the need to curb these costs, and the responses of
the membership in the 2010 census, the Board of Directors believes it is
essential to the continued financial health of the SCA to transition the
organization away from paper newsletters. Accordingly, the SCA has initiated
a project to transition all kingdoms to e-newsletters, and is projecting
implementation by Jan 1, 2012. Until the SCA has the infrastructure in place
to support e-newsletters, the 2011 stipend amount provided by the corporate
level for production assistance will be reduced to cover only those aspects
required by the governing documents. This will reduce the overall stipend
for mailings and production by 60%. The Board of Directors greatly regrets
the necessity of making these changes to the stipend structure, but feels
that it is the best of an array of difficult options to execute its
fiduciary responsibility to the membership of the organization.



This means that postage will still be covered for all mailing classes,
including the expected postal rate increase later this year, but the
production stipend will be greatly reduced.  Most components of newsletter
production costs are controlled at the Kingdom level, including newsletter
size, use of color printing, page count due to non-required information, and
printing companies utilized. Thus, Kingdom Chroniclers have several tools at
their disposal to lessen the impact of the stipend decrease. To further
mitigate the financial impact to the Kingdoms, the following changes in
required inclusions will be effective with April 2011 newsletters:

   - Membership forms will no longer be required to be published
   - The list of Board of Director nominees will no longer be required to be
   published
   - Full Society regnum will no longer be required to be published.  Contact
   information for the Kingdom Ombudsman must still be included.
   - A statement indicating where to locate the additional information on
   www.sca.org and/or Kingdom websites will be required to be published.



As additional reminders, branch event announcements are 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 in only the prior month is
acceptable.  Please refer to the Chronicler’s Handbook for the minimum event
information required for publication.



The Society Chronicler has information available for the printing house in
TN (USA) that several Kingdoms have already been utilizing for more
cost-effective printing and mailing services.



Fundraising that is specifically done for the purpose of newsletter
publication is still allowed, but (as always) is at the discretion of the
Kingdoms.



The Board of Directors, SCA, Inc. greatly appreciates the time and effort
put into newsletters produced at all levels of the organization  and is
committed to implementing a financially responsible process to provide
information to the membership by a blend of electronic and hardcopy media.



Comments are strongly encouraged and can be sent to:
SCA Inc.
Box 360789
Milpitas,  CA 95036

You may also email comments at lists.sca.org.

This announcement is an official informational release by the Society for
Creative Anachronism , Inc.  Permission is granted to reproduce this
announcement in its entirety in newsletters, websites and electronic mailing
lists.

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