ANST - Principalities

Leslie Miller Miller at pp.okstate.edu
Thu Feb 19 08:46:55 PST 1998


> Now, perhaps I've misread someone's intent.  Do any of the folks posting on
> the pro side of the principality discussion actually favor seceding from
> Ansteorra?  If so, Tomonaga and his ilk should post their arguments
> directly to them.  If  not, I would submit that this argument is a straw
> man and should be ignored.

I have always been in favor of principalities, but coming from a 
small shire that used to go years between visits from the Crown, I 
have always perceived a real need for having local Royalty/Nobility.  
But I certainly wouldn't want any part of Ansteorra to secede from 
the whole.  

The primary reason I support the formation of principalities is this:
Pageantry.  Did any of you experience the same "WOW" that I did when I
first saw the King and Queen at an event?  Can you imagine joining a
small, out of the way group where you never got to experience that
because the Crown never came to your events?  Maybe you were lucky to 
get a landed Baron or Baroness from somebody else's group, but you 
couldn't really claim them as "your own?"  (As opposed to, this is 
*my* King and Queen, or *my* Prince and Princess.)

Gnomon Vale has never had a Crown come to their event.  Wastelands 
went a couple of years, I believe, before a Crown finally came to one 
of theirs.  How long will it be before a Crown comes to an event 
hosted by Rothund Keep?  Most of you probably haven't even heard of 
it.  I dare say that it has been/will be equally bad for small groups 
in any odd corner of the Kingdom (would you agree, Western Region?).  
I think that if you live in a Barony (where you have a local Baron 
and Baroness) or a group where the Crown comes to visit routinely, 
you may forget how important that aspect is to the enjoyment of the 
game because you experience it all the time.  But small groups don't 
have that luxury.  A principality would provide a "local" Prince and 
Princess who *could* provide that to small groups in their region.

As for the growth issue... I don't have current statistics on 
membership numbers, but I can't believe that there aren't more people
attending SCA events now than there were 12 years ago. It sure seems
like there are a lot more cars in the parkinglots... a lot more
pavillions around the list fields, a lot more people vying for feast
tickets... Maybe those numbers aren't reflected in paid memberships,
but I dare say that the bodies are there. Do I have documentation for
that?  Not really, although I can say that in my shire when I first
started playing, we were lucky to get 7 people at a populace meeting. 
 Now we're getting 30+ routinely. In the past two years as Northern
Regional seneschal, I've sent out 3 info packets to prospective new
groups.  Some I heard back from, some I didn't, but even 5 years ago
there weren't people in those areas who were playing SCA.  

Even if we aren't growing now (even if we were actively losing 
people) it is my belief that a principality structure would support
and encourage growth. 

I guess you could argue that growth is not necessarily a good 
thing.  And you could say that if you really want pageantry, you 
should be willing to travel to it, instead of expecting it to come to 
you. To each their own, I suppose.

Gunhilda, Baroness etc.
Shire of Mooneschadowe

(Does anyone know how to say "insert disclaimer here" in Latin?)
============================================================================
Go to http://www.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.



More information about the Ansteorra mailing list