RUSH Board Meeting
Spring Session April 12, 2003

Held at Matthew Rutz’ Farm Acreage in Southern Iowa

Attending: HM Susannah, Luciana, Genevieve, Irena, Henry Percival Kemp, Theron, Gwyneth, Brude,
Agnes, Elspeth, Christiana, Roselyn

Co-Chancellors Luci and Gen opened the meeting with Luci submitting her resignation as Senior Co-Chancellor. She spoke to us of her reasons for this, citing her health being affected and her belief that she’s not doing the job justice. She had already conferred with TM Susannah and Valens, and they have accepted her decision, so she submitted her letter to the Board and turned the total Chancellor-ship over to Gen.

Current Session: has gone very well. Bursar: Acting site Bursar Theron reported: 76 on site. $422.00 Site fees collected

Provost: Minutes of Spinning Winds meeting read/moved/seconded to approve as corrected by Irena/Henry. CalonCon meeting notes need to be transposed, I was unable to attend. Crown Tourney meeting minutes were read and discussed. Again, I had been unable to attend and Roselyn kindly took the minutes. It is noted that Xorazne needs to send in her letter of resignation, but I will rewrite and revise the Crown Tourney notes, and seek approval at the next meeting.

Registrar: Previous classes are entered. Kris Kinder is in. 2001 Lilies’ and 2002 sessions are being entered. Roselyn will have them completed before Lilies’ 2003.She suggests that a new method of admitting names is needed; she found this database has some problems. Theron suggested contacting Volkmar and Catherine Deveron for information sources on the current database. different formats were touched on. Webmaster Brude was asked to check on interfaces. Her Majesty thought that Gabriel, who is working on the Order of Precedence, might be helpful in cross-referencing names. She knows it is very labor intensive.

Her Majesty asked how old RUSH is, and we had had an 18th Birthday Party at last year’s Lilies’ War. She wondered how many were still around taking classes and wanting a degree? Mistress Agnes revealed she had an alternate persona in RUSH in order to continue towards more RUSH degrees. Theron and Agnes are coordinating old/new courses and indicators for degrees.

Constable: Lord Roget was unable to attend, his duties were explained to Her Majesty by his Lady. Virtual Scribe: Brude was lauded for doing an excellent job. We have a new host for the Website, which is working better. The Arts and Sciences have contacted him about web space. The Calon History pages are being included, and there is still plenty of room for RUSH stuff. Elaine Deveroux is developing on-line courses. A separate account for RUSH Website receipts is being made; it runs about $20.00 monthly.

DRAC: Alvira is absent due to illness.

Lilies’: Regent not present. The Course List will be up on the Web soon. Courses are running from 10am to 5pm, with an hour lunch break. There are 5 classrooms and one DRAC area. The first weekend’s Sunday evening will have a populace discussion on the future Chancellor’s qualification, to be in the Purple Pavilion at 6:30.

Special July Session: Scheduled for July 12th, at Cedar Falls University in northern Iowa. It’s a good site, with fighter space, and outdoor class areas; 71-73 course hours are planned.

Fall Session: Henry has been the South-East Regent for 3 years and he is rejoicing that he can put his first RUSH Session together! The date is set for October 25th, and the site is free! Nethery and Michael have positions at a Community College in
Three Rivers and have thus enabled Henry to obtain this location. We have 4
classrooms, and a large commons room. There is an archeology symposium scheduled for the same time and RUSH Students are welcome to attend these courses for RUSH credit. The arrangement for the free site is for regular Community College students to be able to attend RUSH courses free, though Gold Key will be available so they may attend in garb. As this is a condition of obtaining the site, the BOD allows the nonmember surcharge to be waived. Henry is soliciting Instructors.

Kris Kinder: It was our first year at this site, and it was not well set for RUSH. Irena had less than a month’s notice for getting many things together. Next year we know better what to expect with this site.

Old Business:

Lilies’: Do we want to have a RUSH fighting tournament? Do we want to schedule a RUSH party as we did last year? Couldn’t we have the party along with the RUSH Chancellor discussion? We decided to wait on organizing a tournament and concentrate on the Round Table set for the first Sunday evening of the war. Roselyn moved, Irena seconded, and it was approved, to fund $200.00 for food. Irena, Christina, and Henry volunteered to be on the Committee. Elasait will be contacted for scheduling the event.

New Regent Training: Northeast, Northwest, and Southwest Regents terms are all due to turn over soon, and Irena is only filling in as Central Regent. Theron had
previously proposed a Mentoring Program, Provost Christiana had only one
copy of it available. Gen suggested we post the positions on the Web site and have discussions on it at Lilies’.

Future Meetings: Lilies’ War meeting is set for the second Saturday of the War. The next RUSH Meeting will be at Crown Tourney, in Forgotten Sea, the Saturday evening of Memorial Day Weekend.

New Business: Our Kingdom Chronicler, Iamys, reports that the MEWS is at full capacity for its printing price, which is why our Webmaster Brude was contacted about an online Kingdom magazine similar to Calon Scrolls. This subject is still under investigation.

Chancellor-ship: Letters of application are being requested, and the deadline for submission is July 12th. Interviews will be performed at Kingdom A&S on July 26th.

New Fellow: Theron suggested a new RUSH Fellow could be made. Gen noted that there were more than two Fellows and the current RUSH Chancellor was present, ergo Mistress Luciana was invited to become a Fellow. All present agreed, and Luciana was confirmed into the position!

Fundraising: Henry suggested a Silent Auction with donated items to bid upon and Agnes brought up raffles. More discussion is tabled until the Crown meeting.

Roselyn moved/Irena seconded, and it was approved, to adjourn.

In service to the Dream….

H. L. Christiana Sinclaire
Provost

RUSH minutes
Crown Tourney, January, 18. 2003

A meeting was held at Crown Tourney. There was no written agenda, however the meeting was brought to order by both Chancellors, Genvieve Penrose and Luciena della Ridolfi. The members present at the start of the meeting included Irena die Elsaesserin, Fionna nic Alisdair, Alina Meraud Brytt, Gavin de Haga, Alvira MacDonald, Anne of Walnut Grove, Padraic MacDuphaille, Rhodri ap Hywry,Xorazne, and Roselyn of Aberdeen. Later we were joined by TRM Chrystopher & Margarette, and the Kingdom Seneschal, Rigela.

The opening issue was the resignation of the Northern Deputy Brigeda and the problems that were occurring due to a lack of communication within the RUSH Board. Chancellor Gen also requested we set meeting up for the year.

When TRM arrived, both Gen and Luci explained the changes that had been occurring in RUSH. The new session schedule that was for a North / South sessions in the Spring / Fall, and have official sessions at Lilies (summer) and Kris Kinder (winter). Currently there was a Spring RUSH scheduled in the North April 12. Another major problem seemed to be a lack of communication from either of the Chancellors. Both Gen and Luci admitted they had not been keeping others up to date. This was occurring partly because of their desire to not “micro manage” others and partly due to their own health reasons.

The following discussion concerned why there were problems in the Northern regions of RUSH. Anne reported that while she was deputy to Brigeda, she had had no information about any thing that was happening with regard to the April RUSH session. Neither the Chancellors nor Brigeda were assisting her. When Brigeda quip, she left Ann in charge and Ann felt overwhelmed with the expectations of a RUSH Regent, but had no training to do the job. Others among the staff assured her that they would help. Gen volunteered to take over and make sure that the April RUSH was not cancelled. Xorzane also volunteered to work with Ann in any way with the April RUSH, as did Alina. HRM Chrystopher asked if there was some sort of mentoring system in place for new regents. Gen explained the process as outlined in the RUSH Handbook that was online at the RUSH website.

As the discussion began to wander into other areas, including a possible additional summer session in the north planned with Northsheild, what classes were going to be held, site conditions for the April RUSH, and other conversations that this recorder was unable to follow, Alvira brought the group back to the issues at hand: 1) Would the April session happen or be cancelled, 2) How could we improve the system of communication between the RUSH staff, and 3) How to better divide the work of the RUSH staff.

1)The date and place for the Spring RUSH has already been set and a partial list of classes has been assembled. Gen again stated she would take over and be responsible for making this happen.

2) To facilitate improved communication of the RUSH staff, it was decided to hold a meeting at every Crown Tourney and Coronation. At RUSH sessions, the meeting time would be used to go over the current session and discuss / debrief / socialize and not hold any sort of business meeting. Gen volunteered to seek out the Chamberlin and get the RUSH meeting on the schedule (at least through their tenure.)

She also volunteered to make sure hardcopy of the minutes would be sent to each member of the staff and their deputies as well as making sure that the minutes were posted to the web page. Only those members who were in attendance could amend the minutes, any could approve.

TRM Listened to the discussion of the RUSH staff and gently reminded all that while this is a volunteer organization but if one volunteers for an office or duty, then there is a level of expectation to complete the requirements of the accepted office. If things have happened that cannot be put behind and all work together to accomplish the goals of the organization, then that person or persons should step down from their position. They then charged the RUSH staff to come up with a solution before their reign ended.

Alina asked to schedule a RUSH session in July in Iowa that would be an interkingdom event between Calontir and Northsheild. She had a university site for this. Cost was $80 and included facilities for fighting, music, any other lecture type of class. She suggested we use the April RUSH to have classes that would need outdoor requirements and save the indoor lecture classes for the July RUSH. She volunteered to head this session, get the instructors, and even pay for the MEWs advertisement.

It was mentioned that there were many new members of the SCA in the northern regions and that they would benefit from some basic SCA classes. It was discussed to talk to the Archer General and the Earl Marshal to held basic archery and fighter appreciation classes at the April RUSH.
Roselyn was to set up the class sheets for credit and Gen would get a list of classes published in the MEWs.

Alvira reported she was going to do Castle Life for the kids at the April RUSH and Kestral Page at the July session. She asked for and received permission for the purchase of books to use with (as well as be purchased by) the children who took the Royal Academy class.

It was mentioned that the Chancellors needed to check in with the Southern Regents to see if planning for the Fall sessions had already begun. If not, then the facilitate it with getting a date set and a location. March Warden was also mentioned.

Other issues were brought up including:
Having a RUSH sponsored tournament at Lilies. RUSH teacher would sponsor a fighter and bring some sort of item as a prize/gift to give to the fighter. (Rhodri brought this up)
Having a tea (social) at Lilies like we had the previous year. (Alvira volunteered to cook for this, Gen, Luci, and Irena all volunteered their kitchen.)
The meeting then ended as court was about to begin.

Respectfully submitted,
Roselyn of Aberdeen – Registrar
NOTE to CHANCELLORS
Luci – I can’t read my notes too well, something about you getting a contact from Northsheild to Alena.

Note about May 15 is due date for scheduling Lilies things for Elisait. Amy (Amelia of Dirk and Amy) is the Tournament scheduler and would like to know who you have as a Marshall in charge, List person, and water bearer as well as several choices for day/time.