Follow-up Message from the Society Seneschal
The following was sent out by the Society Seneschal as a follow-up to his announcement of earlier this week. The original announcement can be found here.
Greetings to all Kingdom Seneschals,
There have been questions about this week’s policy requirements forwarded to all Kingdom Seneschals and I would like to address the answers to those individual questions to everyone.
First, these responsibilities for over-sight basically fall to the ranking Seneschal (i.e. the seneschal of the hosting group) in terms of events, e.g. Kingdom Seneschals need not review purchases by the Principal Herald, Marshal, Chatelaine et al. What we are talking about is acknowledging the responsibility and over-sight required of ranking seneschals when it comes to “event” contracts.
Second, all event coordinators (autocrats, stewards, et al.) are deputies to the Seneschal and as such, these individuals must be members in good standing as they are officers and agents of the SCA. In special cases, there may be a knowledgeable individual who is acting as the go between (i.e. the conduit between the SCA and the site owner/manage). In those cases, that individual must be made a deputy to the seneschal based upon their position. If an individual is working as a conduit between the Seneschal and the land owner/manager, the role of this individual must be defined, i.e. they are either the fiduciary of the SCA (an officer or agent of the SCA) or they are a fiduciary or agent of the land owner/manager. We want to avoid confusing situations. If the individual is a fiduciary of the SCA, said individual must be working exclusively to the benefit of the SCA; such a fiduciary is a person who holds a legal and ethical relationship of trust with the SCA. In short, said fiduciary is required to prudently act in the SCA’s best interest.
Third, in general, event coordinators and special deputies for an event do not need to be warranted nor must they be approved by the Crown; In some cases input into the selection of event coordinators is within the authority of the Crown or Crowns based upon multi-Kingdom treaties or specific Kingdom Law. If you are the Seneschal, you may select your deputies, but you are ultimately reasonably responsible for their actions. As such, the ranking seneschal has over-sight authority over all deputies to the office; furthermore, the ranking seneschal may replace the event coordinator for reasonable cause.
Fourth, when it comes to a review of a contract for sites or site related activities by the ranking Seneschal, the Seneschal is acting as a responsible party who has the authority and responsibility to over-see that everything is right and proper with the event. To quote Peter Parker’s uncle (Uncle Ben Parker) in Spiderman: “with great power comes great responsibility.”*
Fifth, when I speak of a Society review of a contract, we are only dealing with a very, very small percentage of contracts that require anything more than an “additional insured policy” and a security deposit. These should truly be few an far between. If there is a request for a surety or indemnification, then and only then, will the contract need to be forwarded to the Society Seneschal. In cases where there is an extraordinary request for a surety or indemnification, please allow a reasonable time for discussion between the President, VP of Corporate Operations and VP of Operations as well as our in house counsel and our insurance broker. We are not trying to be restrictive or time consuming, we are only acting to protect the SCA and your Kingdom.
Please feel free to disseminate this email. If there are any additional questions, please feel free to send those to your Kingdom Seneschal who will direct them to me.
Best regards,
A.J. Pongratz
Vice President of Operations
Society Seneschal