Awards. . . .

[Deborah Sweet]

bran writes:
>It is far more useful to examine the statistics regarding the
>numbers of Sable Thistles given for certain categories, as an
>indication for the numbers of people who are involved in them.

Therefore here are some more relevant statistics.

There are approximately 700+ Thistles that have been given out (not 
counting the last year and a half). I have developed two different 
grouping of them. One I called Major Categories and the other I called 
Large General Groupings. There are Nine Categories in the LGG, in 
order: 
     Fiberworks        - 193 - 27.5%
     Entertainment     - 124 - 17.5%
     Heraldry/Scrolls  -  96 - 13.8%
     Food & Drink      -  81 - 11.4%
     Jewelry/Metalwork -  72 - 10.3%
     Fighting Needs    -  63 -  9.0%
     Crafts            -  40 -  5.6%
     Research          -  18 -  2.6%
     Etc.              -  16 -  2.3%

Each of the LGG's is made up of one or more of the Major Categories. 
For example, Entertainment is made up of Bardcraft-91, Dance-15, 
Eastern Dance-8, & Juggling-8 (plus a few others that don't fit this 
Major categories). And then Bardcraft is itself made up of: 
Bardcraft-33, Music-12, Bardic-11, Singing-5, Instrumental Music-4, 
Performing-4, Poetry-4, Harpistry-3, Balladry-2, Drama-2, Piping-2, 
Songwriting-2, Vocal Music-2, Composition-1, Entertaining-1, Narrative 
Arts-1, Storytelling-1 and Troubadoric Arts-1.

The bardic arts or bardcraft is the one category that has some of the 
most unique and singular names for basically the same thing, though 
there are quite a few for some of the costuming/needlework as well 
(needlework, needlecraft, needlearts, needlepoint, embroidery, 
blackwork, threadcraft, lacemaking, seamstress arts, textile arts, 
etc).

Of course there could be alternate ways of grouping the awards. 
Probably a lot of the metalwork awards really should go into the 
Fighting Needs (since it's probably armor).

There are 22 Major Categories with the number of separate categories in 
parentheses:

Costuming   (9)   - 103                Leatherwork    (1)  -  19
Bardcraft  (18)   -  91                Dance          (1)  -  15
Calligraphy (5)   -  86                Graphic Arts   (3)  -  15
Cooking     (7)   -  46                Research       (9)  -  14
Metalwork   (6)   -  38                Woodwork       (2)  -  14
Weaving     (4)   -  33                Heraldry       (4)  -  10
Armoring    (2)   -  32                Archery        (3)  -   9
Jewelry     (7)   -  28                Eastern Dance  (4)  -   8
Brewing     (3)   -  27                Herbalism      (3)  -   8
Embroidery  (2)   -  27                Juggling       (4)  -   8
Needlework  (4)   -  27                Etc           (28)  -  37

(None of the 28 in the Etc category have over 3 mentions.)

Enough for now. Hoping this generates some interesting conversation.

Estrill Swet
Dancemonger & list keeper
Mooneschadoweshire