This just came across my desk: An open letter to the Board of Directors of the SCA, Inc., and to all participants of the Society. We’ve just gone through a long, annoying, difficult time, and due to the fact that the Board of Directors chose not to close the issue, it’s still going on. During that time, I was the Chairman of the Additional Peerage Exploratory Committee, which drafted a proposal for a rapier peerage. I, and the rest of that committee, have been accused of many things that aren’t true. We were asked to be silent about it, to avoid causing difficulties in passing the eventual proposal, and we have done so. But now that the Board has voted down the proposal they asked us to write, there is no reason not to set the record straight. First of all, that committee did not decide to write a rapier-only peerage proposal. I had already organized the committee to write proposals for a rapier-only proposal, a general martial order, inclusion in the chivalry, a separate order of chivalry, and a proposal for no changes. But that activity was stopped by the Board of Directors, since a rapier-only order was the only form of proposal that they would consider. [For the record, I agree with that decision. I think that’s the only form that can successfully provide the tool needed for the rapier field, without messing up what the white belt means on the chivalric field. But not everyone on the committee agreed, so I had set it up to look at all options. Mistress Alys had already written a template for all options to use.] I will no longer accept people believing that the committee made that decision. We did not. Secondly, the three-page summary that the Board of Directors sent out for comment (sca.org/BOD/announcements/APECProposal.pdf) was not in fact our work. We submitted a nine page proposal, plus two supporting documents. The people of the SCA has never seen them. A careful reading of that document will show that the Board did in fact honestly say so. Nonetheless, labeling the proposal the Board put out “APECproposal.pdf” made a committee of fourteen people responsible for a document that they did not have a chance to approve. And it has been called the APEC proposal ever since. I will no longer accept any responsibility for the fact that the document was too short -- incomplete, and unconvincing. I find it so as well. Finally, when the Board finally voted on the only proposal we were allowed to present, many of them acted like our proposal was at fault – for being a rapier-only proposal. I understand that the Board members who told the committee to consider only a rapier-only peerage are mostly different from the Board members who voted against it because they wanted a different form. If the current Board of Directors doesn’t want to pass a rapier-only peerage, then that is their right and their duty. But saying that they dislike “the APEC proposal” is unfair, since it was the proposal that the Board required the APEC to write. During this time, I have been falsely accused of dishonor, of professional malfeasance, of giving false impressions, of distorting data, of many other offenses – and I have not been free to respond. So I have revealed parts of the process that were hidden, after the reason given for hiding them (to help the proposal to pass) no longer exists. If the Board chooses to censure me for revealing this truth, I will accept the censure. I have in fact revealed it. I am well aware that one of the Board members I feel has mistreated us is also one of the committee members I think has been mistreated. Yes, he is in both groups. More than anybody else, he knew that the APEC committee had been originally planning to write several proposals, including a Chivalry proposal. I do not believe that any Board member intentionally meant to leave the committee in a false position, blamed for proposing something that the Board in fact proposed, and blamed for an inadequate defense for a proposal we wrote a much better defense for. But that is the unintended effect of their actions. I am not writing this to blame the Board. I suspect that they had no knowledge of the effects of the sequence of actions by a Board with ever-changing membership. And very few current Board members were there when we were told to develop a rapier-only peerage proposal. I just wish to defend the thirteen people who worked with me on the APEC committee from false and unfair accusation – and to announce that henceforth, I will respond with the truth when I am attacked with falsehoods. Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin Chairman, Additional Peerage Exploratory Committee P.S. Any person active in SCA activities has my permission to post this entire letter (not fragments) to any public or private SCA list.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 19:33:07 +0000
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