[Artemisia] from the BoD

[Caointiarn]

The Board of Directors would like to address concerns that have been raised
regarding the sanctions process and related documents.


 The authority for and actions by the Board of Directors are granted by and
described solely within the Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws of the SCA
(our Governing Documents). With respect to sanctions, this authority is
found within Section V.C.3 of the Bylaws and Sections II.D and II.E of the
Corporate Policies. The rest of our Governing Documents describe the
authority and policies that govern Officers of the corporation, not the
authority and/or policies of the Board.

The document titled "Board of Directors Procedures Manual" was a document
created in 2004 as an internal set of suggested guidelines for earlier
Boards of Directors. The document was outdated and has not guided the
actions of the Board of Directors for at least the past seven years.  That
Manual should have been rescinded and removed from the website once the
current Board was made aware of the document. The Board had discussed such
action many months previously, and made certain the document was properly
removed at the January 2013 meeting.

All recognized SCA websites providing official documents clearly display the
disclaimer that ?information on these pages will always be superseded by
paper copy available from the Milpitas office. Those versions of documents
are authoritative for all purposes? ? and the Policy on Electronic
Communications within our Governing Documents clarifies that the governing
version of all documents are those available in printed form from the SCA
Stock Clerk, and that disputes over documents are always decided in favor of
the printed version available through the Stock Clerk.


 Although no such authoritative paper copy of the "Board of Directors
Procedures Manual" was ever made available from the Milpitas office, the
Board recognized that some recently sanctioned individuals may have relied
on the contents of the Manual to guide their actions and expectations during
the investigation and sanction process. As a result, the Board agreed to
hear the appeal of those recently sanctioned individuals who included as
part of their appeals that reliance on the language in the Manual may have
prejudiced the investigation, resolution and/or sanction decision, whether
or not "new" evidence was presented to the Board in the appeal. The Board
took any reliance upon that Manual into account in the consideration of such
appeals.


 The Board of Directors has directed the Society Seneschal to review and
revise the sanctions and investigations process, and the Society Seneschal
has been working to consolidate information regarding sanctions for the SCA
into a single document. The Society Seneschal is also working to streamline
the entire sanctions and investigations process. He has engaged the Kingdom
Seneschals and the Grand Council to assist in these significant
undertakings. Proposed revisions will be presented to the Board for review
when complete. Once these processes and documents are approved, they will be
available to all participants on the corporate website and officially
available through the Stock Clerk in the Milpitas office.


 The first step in this process was to revise the Seneschal's Handbook, to
streamline that Handbook and remove the references to sanctions in that
document, in anticipation of a consolidated sanctions process. That revised
Handbook was approved at the January 2013 meeting and the Society Seneschal
will be communicating with all Kingdom Seneschals in the next few weeks.


 As always, any potential changes to Corpora will be communicated out to the
membership for commentary. We encourage anyone with recommendations for
improving these processes to communicate with the Seneschallate and/or the
Board via comments at sca.org.




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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