SCN: RE: Now what?

[sc at sdf.lonestar.org]

On Mon, 11 Jul 2011, Steve Guest wrote:

> For example; on the legal side alone, let us just look at some of the not
> creditable work the board had to do which JJ so easily sweeps away.  Setting
> up the copyright agent details before the federal government closed our web
> site down,

Steve,

Something might have happened later, but I was on the board in
1998 when Tim McCormack, an intellectual property lawyer who was
also on the SCNA board at that time, nudged us to adopt the
latest practices about that. We published the name and other
information regarding the copyright agent on the site as
required, and followed the letter of the new regulations. Our
first copyright agent was a volunteer, Eric, who was experienced
in nonprofit matters, and during my term on the board we never
to my knowledge had any serious problem at all regarding our
copyright agents.

Whatever might have happened later about "setting up the
copyright agent details before the federal government closed our
web site down" is as much a mystery to me as many of the other
things that happened later on with SCN. I'll take your word for
it that something untoward happened in relation to that,
especially in light of the recent lapse in state registration.
But initially in 1998, and on through 2001, it was not at all a
difficult matter, largely because we had good legal advice at
that time from Tim. Because of his knowlegeable guidance, it was
simply yet another minor detail to be attended to during those
years, and always was kept current.

> the setting up of state required background checks for any
> volunteer we allowed to interact with a vulnerable member of
> the public and the list goes on and on, but no one who makes
> sure the equipment is running or is maintaining phones lines
> would know this or even considers it relevant.

That was another change that happened at about the same time, as
SCNA along with many other nonprofits responded to the legal and
regulatory environment by adding a formal paperwork requirement.
It was adopted by the then board as a routine step to stay in
compliance, and to be seen to be responsible in light of the
general adoption of this added measure by more of the local
nonprofit world at that time. This, again, was simply adopted at
a regular board meeting after some discussion on both sides of
the issue, since by no means had it been a universal practice
among local groups then. I believe Seattle Works, for one, had
this in place before SCNA. It did mean some extra work for the
volunteer coordinator or whoever was handling the paperwork. But
this is now done and has been done routinely for years
everywhere, for example by school secretaries before parents can
accompany groups of students on field trips. We adopted this in
1998 or 1999.

I hope this clarifies several things for you about these
matters. Also, I believe that that these examples of yours do
not excuse nor explain the way you took SCNA from being a
functioning membership organization to being a membership
organization in name only, run by you and an unelected board.

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